Math Movement

Did you know that M&Ms can be integral to a Calculus lesson? Be forewarned that you may have a decision to make. Using only pictures, like in this blog entry, you can take more of a theoretical chocolate analysis of Calculus. Or, buy a big bag of M&Ms and dig in, for hands-on learning, of […]

An active area of my recent research has been applying ranking methods to social networks. A popular one that has publicly available network information is Twitter. For the non-tweeter, here is a Twitter tutorial in a few sentences. Twitter is a social networking service. Users tweet by sending a text-based post of up to 140 […]

The programming language processing, is an open source programming language for people who want to create images and animations. Those with computer experience can quickly create code with captivating visual interest. Artists can write code via a frontend that simplifies many aspects of coding. For instance, the image below is created with a for-loop by […]

What if love songs or poems used illustrations from math? Supplying examples to demonstrate how this might (albeit with exceedingly low probability) be done could be a whimsical assignment for a Calculus class that falls nicely into a Valentine’s theme. Here are some of my examples. I imagine students could come up with even better […]

Over the past 6 months, I’ve periodically been contacted by the ESPN program Sport Science, which airs pieces on the science behind sports, to give mathematical advice related to developing segments. This past summer and fall, I helped with pieces related to the World Cup and the Home Run Derby. Just over a week ago, […]

Scientists, engineers and mathematicians often model events in the world with linear systems. Given the bumps, curves and sudden unexpected happenings of life, it can surprise me that such models produce meaningful results. Granted, small time steps may be required as such linearity may sufficiently hold only within a small local neighborhood, but still, life, […]

Let’s continue to explore the use of linear algebra by placing a bedazzling hex on Harry Potter which will make his appearance look the exact same as the image behind him. Harry could, of course, stand behind his invisibility cloak but we’ll assume he’s misplaced it as the word hex conveniently rhymes with convex, which […]

In this entry, the power of matrix operations will transform a youthful Harry Potter to the mature young man seen in the film released just days ago. To begin, we need Harry to enter the matrix, by storing color information of an image in an n by m matrix where the image is comprised n […]

On October 21, 2010, over 60 sites around the world celebrated the life of Martin Gardner. Davidson College was among the locations. Our time together was filled with fun, math, and laughter – a fitting evening in honor of an influential man. While having no formal education in mathematics, Martin Gardner had an enormous influence […]

Today, Celebration of Mind events are being held worldwide to mark what would have been Martin Gardner’s 96th birthday, including an event at Davidson College. Gardner’s wide-reaching career spanned 80 years. He loved puzzles, illusions, and paradoxes. It’s been said that he brought “more mathematics, to more millions, than anyone else,” and also that he […]