Math Movement

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 […]

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 […]

In the classic children’s book, Millions of Cats written by Wanda Gág in 1928, a lonely, elderly couple enter a delightful tale about caring and self-esteem that also lends itself to a discussion of number sense. Toward the beginning of the story, the woman tells her husband that she thinks a cat would make them […]

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 […]

This semester, I’m teaching Calculus II. Yesterday, students submitted homework on finding volumes of solids of revolution. As a quick primer on these shapes, a solid of revolution is generated by rotating a planar region about an axis. For instance, rotating the right triangle below about the vertical axis generates the cone to the right. […]

While I have yet to see the movie, I’ve been the recipient of considerable buzz about the movie Inception. Given this is one of the hot summer movies and simply how amazingly hot it has been this summer, it seems fitting to compose a post on the heat equation! The heat equation is a partial […]

Today, a new header image (the old was simply the default image) appeared on this blog. It seems appropriate to explain the images as the collage is meant to represent the various ways I move mathematically. Let’s start at the left and move our way to the right. Almost hidden in the lower left and […]

In the last post Doodling with Euler, we explored the Euler Characteristic with a sweeping doodle! Now, let’s apply it to some other images! First, consider this image of the Davidson College Wildcat logo. The image is constructed first as a stippling of the standard logo. Then, an algorithm is run that forms a Traveling […]

Let’s learn some math by doodling.  Let’s specifically learn the Euler Characteristic, which given it is attributed to Euler should lead to big expectations as to its power!  Why?  Let’s review a bit of mathematical history. Leonard Euler Euler was a famous mathematician who lived during the 1700’s.  He wrote hundreds and hundreds of pages […]