Math Movement

On November 20, 2012, Grinnell College played Faith Baptist Bible College in a men’s basketball game that got the NBA’s attention. Why? Grinnell’s freshman guard, Jack Taylor scored an unbelievable 138 points. Soon, NBA stars were talking to reporters and tweeting about the game. LeBron James compared the college player to the likes of Kobe […]

Just over a month ago, Usain Bolt electrified the Olympic track and field stadium in London as he won a second gold medal in the 100-meter dash. The New York Times published, in a stunning interactive graphic entitled One Race, Every Medalist Ever an analysis in which every Olympic medalist in the 100-meter sprint races […]

In several hours, Super Bowl XLVI will begin. Sports fans will fall silent as the Giants and Patriots meet, yet again, in the championship game. Fans and not-so-strong-fans will turn and focus on the TVs, large and small alike, as the multimillion dollar adds will also air. This year, a 30 second commercial costs 3.5 […]

Last Sunday, the Carolina Panthers narrowly lost to the New Orleans Saints 27-30 in week 5 of the 2011 NFL season. From the score, Cam Newton appears to have led the Panthers to 3 touchdowns and 2 field goals. The score gives a sense of how the game unfolded that afternoon in Charlotte. Or does […]

Algebra covers solution techniques to solve linear systems like 2x – 3y = 5 and 3x + 2y = 1. Removing y, for instance, solving for x and then substituting the value for x to find y yields the solution x = 1 and y = -1. Another way to represent the equations is as […]

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, […]

Are you ready for some Monday Night Calculus? With the NFL season having started only a few days ago, it is time to perform some gridiron mathematics! Our calculations will focus on the logo for the Pittsburgh Steelers seen below. The outer edge of the emblem is a circle, which has the well-known ratio of […]

Interested in math and baseball? golf? football? soccer? basketball? Check out the newly released Mathematics and Sports book edited by Joe Gallian! My work on math and soccer, which includes a contributed article in that book, led me to help with the ESPN show, Sports Science, during the 2010 World Cup. This post is about […]

Given the last blog entry detailed my input on the Sports Science piece on home runs, it seems only appropriate to give the details of how my connections with Sports Science started.  The week before the World Cup began, I was in NYC with my family. The trip combined work and fun activities in the […]

It was a simple enough meal. I was sitting with my children eating fast food when suddenly my cellphone rang, which isn’t alarming in itself. Suddenly, I noticed the caller wasn’t my wife or parents. In fact, I didn’t even recognize the area code. It’s important to realize, if you haven’t already, that I’m not […]