MYP3 Mathematicians Helping Others Understand Curves

Before I introduce three fabulous websites, I'd like to say that ALL of the MYP3 mathematicians have produced wonderful work demonstrating their understanding of curves and their transformations. Mathsland is proud to call them all citizens.

In our unit we were focusing on linear functions y=mx+p, and dipping into some quadratics but some decided they would like to go further and investigate other curves.

We had linear, quadratic, square root, Archimedes Spiral, sinusoidal and exponential curves. It was busy in Mathsland because everyone had different questions and a different adventure.

Three students, Annalis, Chanya and Eugene (alphabetical order chosen there), created websites using skills taught to them by the much beloved and missed Ajarn Marcus. By creating websites they are providing a service to other learners in the world of mathematics that want to know about sinusoidal waves and exponential functions.

Students used the desmos.com/calculator and its groovy sliders to play around with parameters to spot patterns.
check out some sliders here

Now for the websites:

Annalis' Exponentials are Cool

Eugene's Vas Are Sinusoidal Waves

Chanya's Parabolas

For Tenzin and others who love the oceans and seas

From I Love Charts, yes that is a site that I do enjoy

Mathematical Dance Moves - What's yours?

On the windows of Mathsland are some formulas (formulae) to dance moves - check them out. What's your signature move? How would you graph it?

In MYP3 and MYP5 we have looked at graphing and patterns (different ones). Learning their signature moves on the axes can help us to understand how to graph them but also what they are trying to tell us about the pattern they represent.

Here's my  "squared triple circle cubed undefined gradient dance"



Play around with the formulas in the Desmos Calculator and check out some of the graphs other people have made like the minion...

Pixels and the Scale of our Solar System

Check out this very cool If the Moon were the Size of a Pixel site, by Josh Worth.

It is very good at communicating the scale of the sun and the distance between planets.

CHECK IT OUT HERE 

Fermi Problems - How Many Soi Dogs are there in Phuket?

A Fermi problem is an estimation problem named after the Enrico Fermi, a twentieth-century, Nobel Prize winning Physicist using very little information.

MYP5 have been working on estimations using sound reasoning and then calculating the absolute percentage error from the excellent site Estimation 180. Other classes have used this site too and it's a wonderful way for anyone (grown-ups too) to develop their number sense. 

It is now time for MYP5 to go a step further and ask a question where the answer is not readily available. Good reasoning will be important here. 

Below this video from ed.ted.com are some famous examples.

 

The circumference of the Earth – using time zones

1.     How many time zones do you pass through when you fly from New York to Los Angeles? 3

2.     How many miles is it, about, over that same distance? about 3000.

3.     How many miles per time zone, on average? about 1000

4.     How many time zones must there be around the world? 24 because there are 24 hours in a day

5.     How many miles around the world? 24 time zones x 1000 miles per time zone = 24000 miles

About 24000 miles around the world.

Fermi's Piano Tuner Problem 

1. At that time Chicago had a population of about 3 million people.
2. Reasonable assumption: average family size is four. Therefore the number of families in Chicago is around 750,000.
3. Reasonable assumption: one in five families owns a piano. Therefore the number of pianos in Chicago will be around 150,000.
4. Reasonable assumption: the average piano tuner serviced four pianos every day for five working day and had two weeks holiday.

We can calculate that in one year a tuner would service 1,000 pianos. 

There is an estimated 150 piano tuners in Chicago.

Example of Fermi Questions:
How many nails are in the Pirate Ship? 
What is the volume of air that I breathe in one day?
How many people in the world are taking photos with their phones in any given minute?
How many soi dogs are on the island of Phuket?

Zombies and Relationships - will they last?

In MYP5 we are looking at the mathematical modelling of a Zombie Apocalypse and my sister, Michelle Griffin, posted this in facebook today

Charting 20 Years of Pop-Culture Witches, Zombies, and Vampires from Vulture (a very good read indeed)




And she also posted this very cool statistical study on relationships and predicting their outcomes (stay together or ...).

"It’s not in the stars after all. Instead, it seems, the shape of a person’s social network is a powerful signal that can identify one’s spouse or romantic partner — and even if a relationship is likely to break up"

Here is the fascinating article about it from the New York Times

Cameron Marlow/FacebookA graphical representation of one person’s network neighborhood on Facebook.

Humans Will Be Outnumbered By Lego Minifigures

Today we feature some cool maths sent to us from Ajarn Jon.

There is so much mathematics in the world of humanities and here is a cool graph of humans and lego humans.

By 2019, Humans Will Be Outnumbered By Lego Minifigs - Gizmodo

From Gizmodo, where Ajarn Jon found this (it looks like it may have originated from XKCD):

Since their introduction in 1978, Lego's Minifigs have, um, reproduced at a rapid rate. In fact, the toymaker has been making the little fellas at such a pace that they'll outnumber humans by 2019.
As of 2006, there were 4 billion Minifigs in the world; projecting forward both human and Lego populations suggests that tiny plastic men will outnumber us by 2019. Imagine that: a world where there are more Minifigs than fellow homosapiens. That's our kind of world. [XKCD]

Ajarn Hugo shared some very cool stuff that has lots of mathematics to make it so...

please enjoy and click on the link Wave Garden

4 of 4 Surfer Quaid Birchell of Morrow Bay CA by Mike Baird
licensed under CC by A

MYP5, Speed of Light - Good Geekery with Minute Physics. Minute Earth

Today we answered some of our bigger questions that emerged from wondering how long light from Earth takes to get to the moon.  We used this to explore scientific notation, exponents, large numbers and more.

When I have big questions one of my favourite Youtube Geekery Channels is minute physics - hope you like it too.

We wondered if light would travel forever in the universe and if we could see the light (from a torch) on the moon when we turned it on and off.  What can we see from the moon on Earth?

More questions emerged after these videos what is the speed of light in a vacuum (space)? what is the speed of light in water (space)? can animals see more stars than us?

Here are some cool geek videos that answer questions but make you ask even more...




and this for does the torch light beam widen and more