We created a movement

Hello fellow math lovers. Sorry I was away for so long – I had a taught year but I am back.

A good news is that since I left a number of new blogs with similar name and theme have started.

I will include links below.  This is great. We are not in competition -  the more people love math the happier we are. I made this blog public so that anyone could freely used and repost any information found here.  Only thing is I hope that with your help we could keep this blog more active.  Your visits are appreciated and your comments and contributions even more.  

And here is a book that inspired me to get back to the blog:

 The Joy of x: A Guided Tour Of Math From One To Infinity” by Steven Strogatz. 

If you could not find it in your library just go and buy it. It is worth it every penny and more  – you could keep it for yourself and lend it to all your smart friends or it could be excellent gift to someone that you find smart.

It is beautifully written and I believe that every single person (including one who hates math) would benefit from it. Recommended age grade 6/7 and up for individual reading yet there are parts that an adults could read to a younger child. 

I am looking forward to hear what part of the book you love the most.

Until next time,

Your Math Fairy 
Ps. I am looking through those links to see which to included. Do you have any suggestions? 

Back to school jokes for everyone

Theorem: Every positive integer is interesting. 

Proof: By contradiction, assume that there exists an uninteresting positive integer. Then there must be a smallest uninteresting positive integer. But that's pretty interesting! Therefore a contradiction!

Q: How many mathematicians does it take to screw in a light bulb?

A1: None. It's left to the reader as an exercise.

A2: None. A mathematician can't screw in a light bulb, but he can easily prove the work can be done. 

A3: One. He gives it to four programmers, thereby reducing the problem to the already solved

A4: The answer is intuitively obvious

Top ln(e^10) reasons why e is better than pi:
10) e is easier to spell than pi.
9) pi ~= 3.14 while e ~=2.718281828459045...
8) The character for e can be found on a keyboard, but pi sure can't.
7) Everybody fights for their piece of the pie.
6) ln(pi) is a really nasty number, but ln(e) = 1.
5) e is used in calculus while pi is used in baby geometry.
4) 'e' is the most commonly picked vowel in Wheel of Fortune.
3) e stands for Euler's Number, pi doesn't stand for squat.
2) You don't need to know Greek to be able to use e.
1) You can't confuse e with a food product.

For more jokes and/ or Calculus help visit the following site
 http://calculus.nipissingu.ca/jokes.html

Buffon's Needle and solving crimes

 There is a professor of mathematics working for FBI as a crime analyst in the NUMB3RS show. In an episode he uses a math theory to narrow a number of relevant court cases to only two. 

Next, the mathematician restricts his focus on only one case and states that Pi points to that case. Could Pi, the ratio of a circle's circumference and its diameter, help the crime investigation? 

Yes. Pi is also important in the field of probability. 

“Buffon's Needle is one of the oldest problems in the field of geometrical probability. It was first stated in 1777. It involves dropping a needle on a lined sheet of paper and determining the probability of the needle crossing one of the lines on the page. The remarkable result is that the probability is directly related to the value of pi.”

http://mste.illinois.edu/reese/buffon/buffon.html#intro 

Small Number

Here is the latest adventure of Small Number

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zosG8V9K5A

Did you hear math-related questions? How many? 

Posted with the author's permission. 

For more on Small Number (and my favorite Math Girl) visit Dr. Veselin Jungic website:

http://people.math.sfu.ca/~vjungic/

Cool arithmetic

Sequential Inputs of numbers with 8

1 x 8 + 1 = 9

12 x 8 + 2 = 98

123 x 8 + 3 = 987

1234 x 8 + 4 = 9876

12345 x 8 + 5 = 98765

123456 x 8 + 6 = 987654

1234567 x 8 + 7 = 9876543

12345678 x 8 + 8 = 98765432

123456789 x 8 + 9 = 987654321