Day |
Date |
Activity |
Assignment (due dates should be noted) |
Tue | 8/24 |
Fun and games |
Due Thursday, 8/26:
Read Idea #33 -- The birthday problem, p. 132-135.
Consider the following three puzzles:
- You are at a fork in a road, with two paths leading away. One leads to
heaven, while the other leads to hell. In front of each path is a monster. One
always tells the truth, while the other always tells a lie. You have no idea
which monster is in front of which path. You can ask one of the monsters one
question to correctly determine the path to heaven. What question do you ask?
Remember: you don't know which monster is which....
- Three missionaries and three cannibals arrive at a river, and need to
reach the other side. A canoe sits, ready to carry them to the other side --
but it can only take two. If at any moment the cannibals outnumber the
missionaries on a side of the river, they'll gobble up the missionaries. How
can you get all six safely to the other side?
- You're incredibly thirsty, and luck upon a lemonade stand. A sign says "8
ounces of lemonade, $1.50", and you've got the cash. Unfortunately, the
perverse lemonade salesman doesn't have any 8 ounce cups (only 6 and 10 ounce
cups), so he refuses to sell you any (because he can't actually provide 8 ounces of
lemonade). How can you convince him that he can actually dispense exactly 8 ounces of liquid?
Prepare a typed paragraph in response to each as you attempt to solve each of
these for next time. Diagrams or any other illustrations may be hand-drawn.
This will be handed in. Writing is important! Pay attention to spelling,
grammar, and the clarity of your ideas.
|
Thu | 8/26 |
More fun and games |
Due Tuesday, 8/31: type up a paragraph giving your answer to the following questions:
- What is the biggest number that you can express with your two hands (assuming 10 fingers)?
- What does each of the digits in the number 1729 mean?
|
Tue | 8/31 |
Binary Card Trick |
For next time: read Idea #02: Number Systems, p. 8. See if you can
understand the math problem(s) explained in the video Tom Lehrer's New
Math
Due Tuesday, 9/7: type up paragraphs (or do the follow calculations) in
response to the following questions or problems:
- How was Lewis Carroll using bases to do the math in
chapter two of Alice
in Wonderland? On about the third page of chapter
two (after the graphic of "Giant Alice watching Rabbit
run away"), Alice starts speaking out some bizarre
equations:
"Let me see: four times five is twelve, and four times
six is thirteen, and four times seven is -- oh dear! I
shall never get to twenty at that rate!"
Find some reasonable bases to make the "calculations"
work out....
- Read the on-line Bases
reference, and do the exercise at the bottom: "How do you
add numbers in base eight? Of course, you do it the same as
base ten, but you have to be careful: for instance, "6+4=12" in
base eight! Make up and try some problems [try four different
ones], and check your answers by converting everything to base
ten."
In particular, show how to add 147 and 173 (both numbers expressed in base 8).
- Rewrite the number we know as 1729 (in base 10), only using base 2.
|
Thu | 9/2 |
More Bases |
For next time: please read Idea 01: Zero (p. 4), and Idea 03:
Fractions (p. 12). You have a problem set to hand in Tuesday. |
Tue | 9/7 |
Egyptian Math |
Your assignment for Tuesday, 9/14:
- Use Egyptian mathematics to
- Multiply 27 by 82.
- Divide 5 by 8.
- Divide 5 by 9.
- Write the first 16 numbers in base 8, as though you were counting.
- We can write binary "decimals" ("binimals?"), by adding places for
1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 1/16, etc.
Demonstrate how to add 10110101.101 and 100101.01 in base two.
|
Thu | 9/9 |
More Ancient Math: The Babylonians |
For next time: Read Ideas #9 (prime numbers), and #11 (Fibonacci numbers); complete the homework assigned last time. |
Tue | 9/14 |
Fibonacci numbers |
Due 9/21:
- Check the Fibonaccis: starting from the first two Fibonacci numbers 1 and
1, and using the recursive formula, compute the first 21 Fibonacci numbers.
- By experimenting with numerous examples in search of a pattern, determine
a simple formula for
that is, a formula for the sum of the squares of two consecutive Fibonacci
numbers.
- By experimenting with numerous examples in search of a pattern, determine
a simple formula for
that is, a formula for the difference of the squares of two
non-consecutive Fibonacci numbers.
- Fibonacci Nim: Suppose you are about to begin a game of Fibonacci nim. You
start with 50 sticks. What's your first move?
- Fibonacci Nim: Suppose you are about to begin a game of Fibonacci nim. You
start with 100 sticks. What's your first move?
- Fibonacci Nim: Suppose you are about to begin a game of Fibonacci nim. You
start with 500 sticks. What's your first move?
- Fibonacci Nim: Suppose you begin a game of 15 sticks by taking 2; your
friend takes 4; what's your next move, that will lead to victory provided you
know the strategy?
- The rabbits rest. Suppose we have a pair of baby rabbits -- one male and
one female. As before, the rabbits cannot reproduce until they are one month
old. Once they start reproducing, they produce a pair of bunnies (one of each
sex) each month. Now, however, let us assume that each pair dies after three
months, immediately after giving birth. Create a chart showing how many pairs
we have after each month from the start through month nine.
|
Thu | 9/16 |
More Fibonacci (spirals!) |
Read Idea #12: Golden Rectangles (for next time)
Do the following to hand in (Due 9/23):
- Find the prime factorization of the following:
- What is the golden ratio? How does it relate to the Fibonacci
numbers?
- Draw a really beautiful Fibonacci spiral, using graph paper and colors.
You can make your own graph paper at this site.
- Describe how the Fibonacci spiral relates to the golden mean.
- Visit this website and generate an image in a Fibonacci spiral: web interface. Email me a copy of your final spiral image!
|
Tue | 9/21 |
Golden Rectangles |
No new assignments, in preparation for your exam. |
Thu | 9/23 |
More Gold |
No new assignments, in preparation for your exam. |
Tue | 9/28 |
Exam 1 |
Visit
this site to prepare for the platonic solids.
|
Thu | 9/30 |
Platonic Solids |
Homework (for next time) -- this is for our discussion, rather than to be turned in:
- Visit this
Wikipedia site to learn more about the platonic solids.
- Complete your set of paper platonic solids. You'll be able to bring those to the next exam! If you need another sheet, you can can get one here: Platonic Solids in 2-D (paper template)
- Think of another application of platonic solids (besides a calendar for the dodecahedron!).
- Attempt to sketch drawings of the tetrahedron, cube, and octahedron from various perspectives.
|
Tue | 10/5 |
More Platonic Solids |
Due Tuesday, 10/12:
- For each of the Platonic solids, compute the following,
where F is the number of faces, E the number of edges, and
V the number of vertices. What do you discover?
- Find a soccer ball and try the same thing on that: what do you discover?
- Suppose you have a cube with sides of length 1. Suppose you construct an
octahedron inside it whose vertices are in the centers of the faces of the
cube. How long are the edges of that octahedron?
- Suppose you have a cube with sides of length 1. Suppose you
construct an octahedron around it by making the center of each
triangle of the octahedron hit at a vertex of the cube. How long are
the edges of the octahedron?
- Report on another application of platonic solids (besides a calendar for
the dodecahedron, or any other application we've already discussed).
|
Thu | 10/7 |
Mosaic Tilings and Symmetry |
For next time, Tuesday, 10/12: Read Idea #29, p. 116: Graphs.
|
Tue | 10/12 |
More Knots, Tiles, and Graphs |
For next time, Thursday, 10/14: Read Idea #23, p. 92: Topology
Problems, due Thursday, 10/21:
- Draw all the distinct simple graphs with five vertices (by hand). Make
sure that you have them all! How many are there? How many are there of
each "type", given by the number of edges? How can you use symmetry to
help you find all the graphs?
- Draw your family tree with one of your grandparents as the root of the
tree (include only those actually descended from that grandparent).
- Make your own (attractive, hand-drawn -- although you may use mosaic
tiles) "Knots and Links" display chart, on a single page, illustrating the
following knots and links on one 8.5x11 sheet of paper:
- Borromean rings
- Trefoil knot
- Figure eight knot
- Both five knots
- There are two knots with five crossings. Demonstrate that they're different.
|
Thu | 10/14 |
Topology and Mobius Bands |
For next time: read Idea #25: Fractals (p. 100)
|
Tue | 10/19 |
Fall Break |
No Class |
Thu | 10/21 |
Fractals |
Homework (due Tuesday, 10/26):
- Try my funhouse mirror generator: make your own
funhouse mirror image, using my web
interface and your own image, and I'll post them on our "website gallery".
- Create your own fractal: create a process/image/graph whatever that has fractal properties. It should not be something you merely found on the internet, but should possess some feature unique to yourself.
- Write up (one page) an idea you have for your project. Do not write "I have no idea."
|
Tue | 10/26 |
Fractals encore; voting |
For next time, please read the following, and answer the associated question(s):
- The problems with voting methods
- What voting system do we generally use in the United States?
- What can go wrong? Could you explain the example to a friend?
- What are some of the suggested alternative voting systems, and
what are their advantages over our usual voting system?
(Here's another similar reference, for your information.)
- Schooling the Vote
- How could one use the results of this study for good, or for evil?
- Ballot Roulette
- What are some of the worst failures of technology in voting history?
- Which do you think is the best system for preventing "spoiled" elections?
Responses to questions are due 11/4.
|
Thu | 10/28 |
Voting schemes and polling |
What you will provide from our voting experiment (due Tuesday, 11/9, and
worth two homework grades):
- A picture of you at your precinct, with your voting container;
- A written description of your experience (one page, typed, submitted to me via
email -- to be shared with the class through our homepage, so make sure
you don't include anything you wouldn't want out on the internet)
- The results at your precinct. Include
- Time of day (start, end)
- The number of voters you contacted (include all voters you spoke
with, including those who refused to answer), and the tally for
each candidate.
|
Tue | 11/2 |
No class -- vote! And collect data.... |
|
Thu | 11/4 |
Chaotic |
Read Idea #26: Chaos (p. 104).
For Tuesday, 11/9: revise your project idea (make sure you type it, or
you will be losing points). Email it to me by Tuesday.
|
Tue | 11/9 |
Still Chaotic |
Your chaos homework (due Tuesday, 11/16)
- Consider the iterated map
Run 10 steps, with
, , , and
each time starting from the value
How would you characterize the long term behavior (if we keep doing this) in
each case? What would happen in each case if we continued iterating forever?
You might use the on-line
animation to do this exercise.
- Use the Excel
spreadsheet, and make small changes in the initial value with . Describe
what happens to the first few iterates, compared to the last few iterates. You
can describe how the pattern of dots changes in the scatterplot. Find a small
change that doesn't seem to affect any dots, and a small change that seems to
affect most of the dots.
- Use the logistic
handout, , and cobweb starting from two different values of the initial value
(the sheets show the choice ). Do at
least four iterations.
|
Thu | 11/11 |
The Game of Life |
You'll want to do the following before the exam (it will not be turned in):
Create our own universe, using some version of the Game of Life (e.g. www.bitstorm.org/gameoflife/ --
with a finite checkerboard). Find several universes (at least three of each)
that satisfy the following:
- What sorts of patterns of cells that will lead to "extinction" (no cells alive)?
- What sorts will lead to a stable (unchanging) universe?
- What sorts will lead to a repeating universe (in the sense that
the pattern of live cells will eventually appear the same as the
initial universe, but not be static and unchanging)?
- What are some that will grow larger and larger (i.e. more cells
alive) as time goes on?
Challenge yourself: Can you find a "relatively large" pattern that would
persist, but goes extinct with the change in a single cell?
|
Tue | 11/16 |
Review and More about Life |
|
Thu | 11/18 |
Exam 2 |
|
Tue | 11/23 |
The Logic of Lewis Carroll |
Carry out the instructions on this sheet containing selection of Trios of Concrete Propositions for homework (due 12/2). |
Thu | 11/25 |
Thanksgiving |
No Class |
Tue | 11/30 |
The Logic Continues |
|
Thu | 12/2 |
To Infinity & Beyond! |
|
Tue | 12/7 |
Vignette discussions |
|
Thu | 12/9 |
Vignette discussions |
Projects due by today, in electronic form to be put on the web. |
Tue | 12/14 |
No Class |
Prepare |
Thu | 12/16 |
Final: 10:10-12:10 |
Relax! |