Does 1 = 0.9999...?

Ask yourself the question first. What do YOU think about the question and why?

How about the other ninths?

Once you have puzzled over this question, please enjoy the following two videos from Numberphile and Vi Hart, two legends.

Puzzling needs to take at least five minutes.

Also, DP students, the previous post is very new with you in mind. All others are very welcome.

Vi Hart

Numberphile

teeny and HUGE Numbers

In Diploma Mathematical Studies we are starting the course looking at the story of Number and how we communicate all sorts of things with different types of Numbers.

You are all probably familiar with Natural Numbers and Integers but there are also Rational, Real and Imaginary numbers. When society needs more from mathematics to push through and develop in some way we develop new systems to make that possible.

Number types tell the story of society and its complexity.

Check out these sites:
FSU (where my dad did his doctorate) and their famous Powers of ten
and this famous video - it's old but the numbers are relevant



We have had these types of numbers in this blog before. Please visit or revisit for your mathematical enjoyment about the scale of the universe(s).

CLICK right here

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

We Are Happy - AS A TOKEN OF GRATITUDE TO PHARRELL WILLIAMS

This came across my social media world today:

"AS A TOKEN OF GRATITUDE TO PHARRELL WILLIAMS, WE ARE FROM L.A. - CLÉMENT DUROU & PIERRE DUPAQUIER, FOR THEIR WORLDWIDE CONTAGIOUS HAPPINESS..."

We Are Happy Map of Videos - a map is a graph - enjoy!

Here's the one we looked at

This is HUGE!

Sorry about the lack of posts, I'm planning to make up for it.

And if you find something cool - a video or graphic or story that's mathematical, share it with me and I'll post it (referencing you of course).

It's about our universe, seconds after it began.

It's about theories and persistence

It's about patience and taking the time, a long time...

CHECK IT OUT HERE WOWOWOW

I love science and numbers

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 

MYP2 Coders Online

Hi there - in MYP2 we have started to write our own programs. Some are even investigating the code of other programs online too.

This is where we will publish our code

Here Come the MYP2 Coders!

Anda is first off the blocks with his two codes

A cool Spiral and something quite Disco (if you have epilepsy, Disco is not recommended because there is a lot of flashing).

Click on the links to see the fun.

Disco programming was developed initially by Tera, then Nom and then Anda took it on too. Excellent collaboration.

Anda's Spiral at code.org http://learn.code.org/sh/11921722

Do you want to learn to code - check out the  Hour of Code for lots of tutorials.

Stay tuned - next week all of MYP2s first programs will be live on the blog.

CODING - You should learn to do it.

MYP2 has begun their new unit on coding - computer programming.

The giants of programming and computing must have known that we were going to be doing this unit because they have put together an AWESOME site

code.org/

Below is the video we watched for you to enjoy. In this video you will see some of our high profile teachers.

As well as coding we will be enjoying some 'analogue' activities so that our MYP2s get to see how computers do all that magic inside.

We are starting small, just like Bill Gates did, and building from there.

The site has a wide range of tutorials from phone apps to computer science to first year college courses in programming. Once the MYP2s do the Beyond One Hour Computer Science course, they can take their independent learning in any direction they like.

Coding is a very cool area of mathematics.

MYP2 - please check your Managebac messages to sign up to our course.

If anyone else wants to join, please check out the amazing site and it's one hour introductions into many aspects of coding at code.org/learn

IFLScience‏@IFLScience

If you track the relative positions of Earth and Venus over an 8 year period, this is the resulting pattern. pic.twitter.com/oRbXDxVVIB

from the wonderful sharing world of Twitter

What is Nature's Shape? Does it have a shape? What's your favourite Shape? Do circles make you happy?

In MYP2 we are looking at patterns, and how to communicate what we see using the language of mathematics. This then becomes something we can use to make predictions.

Our Unit Question is "What is nature's shape?" Do you know?

Here is one of my favourite patterns and some of my favourite Mathematics.

Some of my students said "no! anything but Fibonacci" when I first mentioned patterns this year.  That made my mathematical heart and soul ache with sadness for my students. There is so much incredible beauty in nature that can be communicated by the incredible versatility of Mathematics.

I hope this helps to spread the joy and curiosity


Here is the Vimeo Channel of their work.

And if you'd like to get deeper into how they made the video (using gorgeous mathematics) please check out the blog that goes with this video right here.

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.

WOW - Chris Jordan's Running the Numbers art project

This is fantastic.

What a wonderful way to visualise the scale of things.

Please click on the link and enjoy.
Click once on each picture and watch as it either zooms in or out.

Teeny and Huge Things - magnitude

When we study teeny tiny things and large things from whales to the universe we use scientific notation and names.

Here are some of the sites we used in MYP5 today:

Scale of the Universe

cells and scale - slidy thing

And some more mathematical treats
xkcd measuring the universe

Who are you (mathematically speaking)?

Your task is to create an infographic about yourself. Before you get started take a look at some examples and ask yourself:

What do I know?

What do I want to know?

Below you will find three examples of infographics created by students. 

Following the student examples are some infographics from the 

In ManageBac is your task and some more links for you to explore.

Student Infographic #1 - what do you know about this person now?

Student Infographic #3 - what do you know about this person now?

Student Infographic #3 - what do you know about this person now?

http://up.wallwisher.net/20130813/4284c23c4da6a983c578fa4391dd1f62.jpeg

http://www.joelertola.com/grfx/index.html

When Sea Levels Attack - from Information is Beautiful

http://sandiegosurfingschool.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/biggest-waves-1024x576.jpg

http://24.media.tumblr.com/884e2abac0ec848fa6491bf7227ba642/tumblr_mn4gj6Yzeu1s6bw99o1_1280.jpg