“For the things of this world cannot be made known without a knowledge of mathematics.”
–Roger Bacon (Opus Majus part 4 Distinctia Prima cap 1, 1267)
August 8, 2010
Simeon Poisson: A Quote
“Life is good for only two things, discovering mathematics and teaching mathematics.”
– Poisson, Simeon (Mathematics Magazine, v. 64, no. 1, Feb. 1991)
August 7, 2010
That 1895 Salina, Kansas Exam
Someone has posted their answers to the exam. Nice.
An example answer:
9. Use the following correctly in sentences, Cite, site, sight, fane, fain, feign, vane, vain, vein, raze, raise, rays.
• a.) The cite which was given as a source for the quote was incorrect.
• b.) The site was surveyed yesterday.
• c.) My rifle has a front and a rear sight.
• d.) We celebrated the re-birth at fane.
• f.) She would fain stay with her husband.
• g.) Can she feign surprise and excitement?
• h.) The vanes on the windmill are broken.
• i.) It is vain to think you are better than others.
• j.) Mother has a varicose vein in her leg.
• k.) Tomorrow they will raze the old barn.
• l.) Today they started to raise a new barn.
• m.) The rays of the sun feel good in the spring.
HT: Patrick D.
August 5, 2010
Summer Is At An End
Well, time to get back to school. Some students (actually, their parents) have been really smart, and have gotten tutoring most every week this summer. They’ll be ready to hit the ground running, and they’ve taken time to learn things they might not otherwise learn — most importantly, how to reason, how to learn.
And some students have started to get back into the swing of things recently. They’ve been able to review concepts and methods they have forgotten (e.g., how to graph a line!!), and have been able to gain a context for why we do math — a context they will only rarely get anywhere else, and a context that involves math, not merely points out its history and application. Good for them!
“Charging Horsemen Outside the Northern Cemetery” by Giulio Rosati (1858-1917)
Image from the Art Renewal Center.
May 13, 2010
Progress
Nice: worked with a student for only 6 hours, and helped get his SAT score up 90 points. Would have been even better if he’d have studied on his own.
And a geometry student made a 96 on his last test. Just in time for his birthday. :)
Still busy here. Things have slowed down a little since students in college are done for the semester, but there is still work to do, and lots of personal odds and ends to catch up on.
March 20, 2010
March 14, 2010
Happy Pi Day!!
At 3:14:15 PM, I was tutoring mathematics: inscribing circles in triangles and circumscribing circles around triangles. :)
Update (10:47 PM): Fixed a typo. I had written 3:14:59 instead of 3:14:15!
March 13, 2010
March 10, 2010
A Math Problem
If:
2 + 3 = 10
7 + 2 = 63
6 + 5 = 66
8 + 4 = 96
Then: 9 + 7 = ????
It took me, what? 15 seconds? 30 seconds? 3 minutes?. It was fascinating how my subconscious grasped the answer, but then it took 1/4 second to 2 seconds for me to identify explicitly the pattern needed to get the answer and to put the answer into words.
(HT: my brother)
