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Mathematics and Multimedia Blog Carnival #16

By Murray Bourne, 24 Oct 2011

This is the "coming of age" edition of the Mathematics and Multimedia Blog Carnival. Here are some (customary & mandatory) factoids about the number 16:

  • In many countries, 16 is the age of consent, and the age where young people can get a license to legally control a 1-tonne projectile. Also, sixteen happens to be the age of many of our students.
  • In Chinese and Japanese, where numbers are written more logically than in European languages, "16" is made up of "10" plus "6", as follows:

16 in Chinese
Chinese characters for "16"

  • Sixteen is the sum of the first 4 odd numbers.
  • Sixteen is the base for the hexadecimal number system, used extensively in computing. Here is the number 16 written using hexadecimal numbers: 1016.

On with the show.

(I'm using the topic headings as decreed in the Mathematics and Multimedia Blog Carnival manifesto.)

Mathematics teaching

(1) Bon Crowder of Math is not a Four Letter Word has written an interesting thought piece on the difference between motivating and inspiring students, in:

Are You Teaching Math Through Motivation or Inspiration?

(2) Denise in Let's Play Math! says "Let’s look at two common mental models β€” partitive division and measurement division β€” to see how the sister could have divided her pie…" in:

How to Understand Fraction Division

(3) Colleen Young (who has a "keen interest in how new technologies can deepen the learning experience for students") has begun a new blog aimed at students. She's right - most math blogs preach to the choir - it's about time there were more blogs addressed to students.

Hello Students!

(4) And finally in this section, here are my suggestions (right here in squareCircleZ) on:

How to make math class interesting?

Technology integration

John Golden, of MathHombre, was inspired by a Dor Abrahamson video to create a GeoGebra app which helps students understand fractions. Here it is:

Fraction Sense.

16 GB memory
16 GB MicroSDHC card

Mathematics

(1) Natasha wrote an article in eIMACS about a professional mathematician in:

IMACS Alumni Profile: Dan Dugger, Mathematician

(IMACS is the Institute for Mathematics and Computer Science, an independent teaching and educational research institute.)

(2) Earl Samuelson (of samuelson mathxp's posterous) submitted 3 articles for this Carnival. In the first, he outlines graphical, algebraic and logarithmic approaches to solving exponential functions

Solving Exponential Equations: "Various Perspectives"

(3) In the second article, entitled "Carpe Diem" (seize the day), Earl writes an interesting exposition involving the math of time measurement:

"Carpe Diem"

(4) Guillermo P. Bautista Jr. (the father of this blog carnival) in Mathematics and Multimedia presents:

Subset: a set contained in a set

Math connections

Erlina Ronda at Mathematics for Teaching explains how to find the number of shortest paths on a chess board, in Connecting Pascal's triangle and permutations with identical objects

Color blindness test
Color-blindness test [Image source]

Real life math

(1) John Cook of The Endeavour gives us a curve with an interesting property, in:

Moby Dick and the tautochrone

(2) Earl Samuelson was moved by the same Dor Abrahamson video that inspired John Golden. Here is Earl's third submission for this carnival:

The Mathematics of Music

(3) Katie Sorene of TripBase gives us the second list in a series of mathematically interesting buildings, in:

Most Mathematically Interesting Buildings in the World

The next Mathematics and Multimedia Blog Carnival

Carnival #17 will be hosted by Mathematics for Teaching on 28 Nov 2011.

See the 11 Comments below.

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