27 Jan 2012 No Comments
I’m always looking for fun things on the internet, and this week, one came to me! Fortunately, it showed up from one of my favorite, artistically talented Etsy buddies, who we’ve featured before: Bohemian Bear. Even better: for Valentine’s Day she’s going to give stuff away to one lucky commenter!
Keep reading to find out how to win! More
23 Jan 2012 No Comments
I’m a math person. I like numbers and logic. I don’t so much like words. Thus, I’m not so great at crossword puzzles. I keep trying, but really, I just get stuck a lot. However, I was reading GeekDad (as I often do!) a couple of weeks ago and I found the coolest thing there: a numeric crossword.
Usually in puzzle books, the "number crosswords" are just fill in the blanks with numbers making them logic puzzles, but not math puzzles. This one uses actual clues about math to have you fill in the numbers. I love it! You should all go check it out.
I also scoured a bit further on the internets and found some other similar puzzles here. Now, us math people can do crosswords, too. When are they going to add these to the New York Times?
10 Jan 2012 1 Comment
I like trains. Especially old fashioned steam engines. I like to ride the Walt Disney World Railroad around and around the Magic Kingdom. I also remember the days when we used to visit Pennsylvania and took the train to Paradise. So, given the opportunity to play Ticket to Ride, i was pretty excited because it’s all about trains.
Thanks to Kelly on flickr for the photo!
Specifically, Ticket to Ride is about creating train lines that crisscross the country, and to earn points doing so. You earn points by placing trains, especially longer trains, and by completing routes from one place to another. You place trains by gathering train cards of matching colors. It starts out a little complicated, but the system is actually pretty easy once you play a few rounds. More
09 Jan 2012 5 Comments
I don’t remember too much about geometry in high school. I was already a math nerd, and my teacher was so slow and boring that I developed an addiction to altoids trying to stay awake in her class. However, I do remember doing lots and lots of proofs. You know, those things with steps where you want to show unequivically that some mathematical statement is true. My favorites were always like “Show angle A is equal to angle C”.
I actually liked proofs. Maybe it was because they were super logical and stepwise (perfect for someone who’s almost OCD). However, my favorite bit was right at the end when you made the final statement of “Angle A is, in fact, equal to angle C” you said QED. More
19 Dec 2011 6 Comments
Hey! You might have noticed that we’re on the front page of Penny Arcade with a display that is not for the faint of heart (nor is it safe for work, small children, or anyone who truly treasures the Biblical meaning of Christmas).
I just want to throw a huge shout-out to my husband Billy who really was the demented visionary, designer, and perfectionist in making sure that the details were correct. He cut out the majority of the … ahem, figures (including the amazing camel!) and did a lot of the painting.
I was the master of the dough (which is gluten-free if anyone wants the recipe) and Dawn helped with overall presentation and additional detail work.
Yeah, we’re a little nuts, but we are well planned, creative nuts!
Merry Christmas all!
16 Dec 2011 6 Comments
I’m a pretty hard-core Trekkie. I’ve watched all the series (though not as much Enterprise), love the movies, own the books and some actions figures, wrote my own TNG script, have the biggest crush ever on Wil Wheaton … you know, the usual stuff. Therefore, when the husband discovered this on the internet, I thought it was amazing!
This is ambient engine noise of the Enterprise NCC-1701D. Now, you can make your whole room/house etc. feel like you are hanging out on the Enterprise, in space. I would love to hook that up all the time, but at least I’m planning it for my next party!
Here, check this awesomeness out:
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05 Dec 2011 No Comments
Advent is a time for many things: Christmas carols, decorations, and advent calendars. These things do not forget about the geeks, as I’ve already seen the Lego advent calendar and numerous Star Wars decorations at Think Geek. However, browsing the internets last week, I found the key item for a geeky advent: a math-oriented online advent calendar.
As you can see, it’s set up like a typical advent calendar with doors you can open for each day. However, before each door is a mathematical thing.
Here are a few of the ones I’ve opened so far.
On the 2nd, there were a series of puzzles including writing the year 2011 using only the numeral 4 in any combination with any mathematical operations (like 44/4 would be 1). I love puzzles.
The third was math in sports. Math can even make sports interesting.
The 4th directs you to a new youtube channel all about numbers!
Anyway, countdown to Christmas with me and all the maths!
17 Nov 2011 No Comments
Sometimes, as a geek, there is nothing I like better than letting my geek flag fly. I wear geeky clothes, I make geeky references, and I keep a geeky desk at work. However, sometimes you just have to get that geek out in the world, and specifically, out in your yard! Today’s Etsy shop can absolutely help you with that because Doug makes Zombie Garden gnomes.
14 Nov 2011 8 Comments
Wow, look at all that alliteration! Too bad we don’t have an English day of the week.
Anyway, today I want to talk about the difference between mean and median. I bring this up, because I’m at the point in the semester of college teaching where I’m often comparing grades, exams, and classes among my classes and between my colleagues. Apparently, I’m one of the few people who calculates median and asks others about it. Since even some of my colleagues look at me like I have four heads, I figured you all should be more knowledgeable.
So, the mean of a set of numbers is the average. You add all the numbers and divide by the number of people/objects/etc.
The median is what you find if you line the numbers up from smallest to greatest and find the center.
Keep reading for an example! More
07 Nov 2011 1 Comment
It is Marie Curie’s birthday today (check out the Google doodle!). If you don’t know, she studied radioactive elements, and, together with her husband Pierre, discovered Polonium and Radium. She was also the first female professor at Sorbonne in Paris.
So, I think we’ll do some radioactive math today, specifically: Half-life. No, not the game. Though the game does have one of the best scientist main characters ever!
The half-life of a radioactive element is the time is takes for 1/2 of whatever is there to decay. So, if there are 200 molecules with a half-life of 10 years, then after 10 years there will be 100 molecules, and after 20 years there will be 50 molecules.
This uranium glass looks awesome under UV light!
Some elements with fun half-lives: More
