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Posts

October 26, 2014

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geometrymatters: The Exceptional Symmetry of E8 This movie attempts to show the beautiful symmetry of the exceptional Lie group E8. Out of all the known Lie groups, E8 stands out as the largest and most complex exceptional group. It has 248 generating elements, which by themselves have an astounding degree of symmetry. This symmetry can only be fully grasped in 8-dimensional space. But luckily it is also possible to project E8 onto a two-dimensional plane, chosen such that the resulting […]

October 25, 2014

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This is pretty much it... [...]
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10 / 2 = 5 * 1^4 Also: 10 - 2 - 5 = |1 - 4| Also: 10 / (2 * 5) = 1^4 Also: 102 (mod 5) = 1 * √4
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Recall that in the Baron's latest game, for a cost of one coin, Sir R----- could roll two dice and have from the Baron coins equal in number to the best of them. In return, the Baron would have from Sir R----- coins equal to the roll of a solitary die.
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Given a regular n-gon P1P2P3…Pn. Let point O be the center of this polygon. If we take arbitrary point P in the plane, prove that \$ latex |PP1|^2\$+|PP2|^2+|PP3|^2+…+|PPn|^2=n|PO|^2+n. Hint: Complex numbers make this problem easier!

October 24, 2014

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Wieslawa Szymborska (1923 –2012)                               Ανάλεκτα Σαββάτου,ολίγον μεταμεσονύκτια καθώς η τράπεζα θεμάτων στην άλγεβρα της Α Λυκείου αναβαθμίστηκε και έπρεπε άμεσα να λυθούν τα νέα θέματα.Όπως και να έχει,στα διαλείμματα των […]
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Another jumble of links from the week gone by: 1)  Okay, he may not be Martin Gardner, but Mike Lawler has been compiling quite a body of digital work week after week after week (both written and video). I'm astounded by his output, and don't even have time to catch it all, but here's one contribution from last week (...and seriously, if you're a math teacher or a parent you ought be FOLLOWING
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If you are following my Facebook page, you probably already know my love for Fractals. The math behind these is not as easy as expected, but the result is extremely beautiful. In case you don’t know what a fractal is … Continue reading →
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10 - 2 - 4 = 1 * 4 Also: 10 - (2 * 4) = 1 * √4 Also: 10 / 2 = 4 + 1^4 Also: 102 (mod 4) = 1 * √4
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(Click on the comic if you can't see the full image.) (C)Copyright 2014, C. Burke.Happy 7th Birthday, (x, why?)! Back? After seven years and 921 comics (more or less), I'm not going anywhere! Funny thing about using song lyrics. Thanks to the Internet I can check on the lyrics I'm not sure about, and discover that the ones I've "known" since I was a kid aren't actually the words, but they've been stored that way. As for "Signs", I discovered that every site had one of two distinct sets of […]
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intothecontinuum: (click through the images to view in high-res) Penrose tilings are an example of the non-periodic tilings discussed in the last post. Recall that these are tilings that cover the entire infinite plane leaving neither gaps nor overlaps. Whats nice about these tilings is that the set of tiles used to construct the Penrose tilings only consists of two different basic shapes consisting of quadrilaterals.  Whats even more remarkable about Penrose tilings is that using just […]
Editor's Pick

October 23, 2014

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Here are some interesting facts about math!  Proof is left as an exercise for the reader. Part I contains numbers 1 through 10.  Stay tuned for Part II which will feature numbers 11 through 23! 1. If you write out pi to two decimal places, backwards it spells “pie”. 3.14=PIE 2. A French word for pie chart is “camembert”. Because of course it is. 3. The spiral shapes of sunflowers follow a Fibonacci sequence. That’s where you a [...]
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10 / 2 = (3 * 1) + √4 Also: 10 - (2 * 3) = 1 * 4 Also: 10 - 2 - 3 = 1 + 4
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Mile of Pi - Numberphile This video by Numberphile is uncharacteristically light on math but is still pretty cool to watch - they printed out a million digits of pi (which ended up being just over a mile of pi) and unravelled it on the landing strip of an airport in Denmark!
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(Click on the comic if you can't see the full image.) (C)Copyright 2014, C. Burke.There are Algebra problems and then there are Algebra problems!
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Hard to believe that nearly seven years have passed since I started making these comics to pass the time and to keep my sanity. And then I started to lose a little sanity trying to keep to a schedule. So much so that I even had vacation strips running for a week! But (x, why?), which started on this blog and then migrated -- for better exposure, I guess -- to the Comic Genesis site, is having a 7th birthday, or it is an anniversary, on Friday. I guess it isn't too hard to believe that a […]

October 22, 2014

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No summary available for this post.
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You may know that about 80 percent of the world’s income is from the richest 20 percent, or that 80 percent of health care costs in America derive from 20 percent of the patients. But why does this happen? I have uploaded a new video that demonstrates the 80-20 rule in a simple experiment involving […]
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Back by popular demand, we present to you Funny Little Calculus Text by Robert W. Ghrist.  You can buy a copy of this in Google Play at https://play.google.com/store/books/details/Robert_W_Ghrist_FLCT_Funny_Little_Calculus_Text! [...]
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(via MichaelMaggs/Wikimedia)Math fans usually like chess, so I'll refer readers to FiveThirtyEight's first mini-documentary film (17 mins.), on the historic 1997 match between then-World-Champion Garry Kasparov and IBM's "Deep Blue" (actually it's the RE-match that Kasparov LOST). Some interesting history... and following its victory and acclaim, Deep Blue "retired":http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-man-vs-the-machine-fivethirtyeight-films-signals/
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Need a new wallpaper for your computer?  If so, why not make it "mathy" by using some of the ones provided below!  To save a copy, click the image you want and select the Download! link. [...]
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No summary available for this post.
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Just a couple of minutes ago I was watching this video: This video presents an application (PhotoMath) that acts as a smart camera calculator or problem solver. It reads and solves mathematical expressions by using the camera of your mobile device … Continue reading →
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(1 + 0) * 2 * 2 * 1 = 4 Also: 10 / 2 = 2 + 1 + √4
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When I read Richard Preston’s The Hot Zone in the mid-1990s, I was terrified. This was the first I had heard of a scary new disease called ebola. I was working for an AIDS Service Organization at the time, so I understood — better than most — how blood-borne infectious diseases are contracted. Still, the images […]
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Every so often an article lands in my inbox, promising that some technology will remake the classroom. Continue reading →
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the-dream-operator: defeatingexistence: clockmocker: A water balloon full of mercury hitting the ground (X) SCIENCE this fucked me up Balloons aren’t supposed to do that.
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PhotoMath App I saw this interesting video while browsing Reddit today and I wanted some opinions on it. The video shows an app called PhotoMath. From PhotoMath’s site: PhotoMath reads and solves mathematical expressions by using the camera of your mobile device in real time. It makes math easy and simple by educating users how to solve math problems. The app does just give you the answer, so it might become a crutch to students. However, it is a useful tool like any calculator, and […]
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The Top 10 Martin Gardner Scientific American Articles: matthewmaddux: Colm Mulcahy: The...