Link: A math op-ed, circa 1996 By Suzanne Sutton. Here’s a quote: It is among the greatest ironies of education that a subject so graceful and elegant, so able to inspire and bolster confidence, and so useful for living a joyous and [...]
First of all, the math dance piece went quite well (at least, I had some positive feedback). In part of it I ask for questions from the audience, and I’m not sure I answered them all as well as I could have, but I was able to spiral [...]
I’ll be premiering my math dance piece tonight when my dance group, Stimulate Dance performs. Very exciting. I also get to do my sibling piece, which I know will be okay—it’s a very likeable piece. The math piece feels like it’s a [...]
This is actually a fractal picture! There’s a gallery of them here. Gorgeous.
Here’s a question I’ve always liked: what kind of world does Pac-Man on? We know we live on a sphere, or course, or something close to it. But we often imagine our world on [...]
The other day a friend related a math nightmare. She was in a prison-like compound. People guarded the exits, and they wouldn’t let her out until she solved a calculus problem. She couldn’t ever do it, and her teeth started to fall [...]
Link: Mathematical Flimflam One thing that’s always struck me is how mathematics has been interpreted by so many people in so many contexts as a direct conduit to God’s thoughts. This link is a modern manifestation of that—but sadly [...]
The mathematician’s patterns, like the painter’s or the poet’s must be beautiful; the ideas, like the colors or the words must fit together in a harmonious way. Beauty is the first test: there is no permanent place in this world for [...]
Link: One Manifesto People have been writing about the failure of math education for a long, long time. For example: S. K. Stein, Strength in Numbers, John Wiley & Sonse, 1996 If you browse through The Mathematics Teacher, the main [...]
The mathematician does not study pure mathematics because it is useful; he studies it because he delights in it and he delights in it because it is beautiful. – J.H.Poincare (1854-1912)
Link: Problem of the Week (or, ask another question) My old school, Saint Ann’s, in Brooklyn Heights, has an ongoing problem of the week competition for its middle schoolers. The problems tend to be fun, and require a little more [...]
Just had a fun little tutoring session with a new student. (How could it surprise you that I tutor?) She strikes me, happily, as one of the many people who have a decent aptitude for math but, sadly, don’t like it much and don’t think [...]
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