Day | Date | Activity | Assignment | ||||||||||||||||
Mon | 1/13 | Welcome and Intro, including an intro to Mathemalchemy! | Read From
Fish to Infinity (and make sure you watch the video from Sesame Street
-- which may not load from the article). (Let me know if you hit a paywall
in trying to view anything!)
Also begin watching the Mathemalchemy documentary (you might just want to skim through it at the moment to get the big idea of it). I'll point out some of the highlights as we go along.... |
||||||||||||||||
Tue | 1/14 | Chipmunks: Primes and Prime Factorization; busting up rocks with trees |
Read Rock Groups Try computing the prime factorizations for some numbers (and draw their trees): or are they prime?
|
||||||||||||||||
Thu | 1/16 | One-to-one correspondence and Rock Groups (Primes: the first great factorization) |
Homework:
|
||||||||||||||||
Mon | 1/20 | Martin Luther King, Jr. Day | |||||||||||||||||
Tue | 1/21 | Primitive Counting |
Homework (referring to Early Concepts
of Number and Counting for next time):
|
||||||||||||||||
Thu | 1/23 | Binary numbers, The Great Fraudini, and the second great factorization |
|
||||||||||||||||
Mon | 1/27 | The Binary Factorization |
|
||||||||||||||||
Tue | 1/28 | Pascal's Triangle |
Please check out some readings (found here --
view each image separately for easier reading):
If you want to solve the following problems, we can use particular rows of Pascal's triangle:
|
||||||||||||||||
Thu | 1/30 | More Pascal | Please read this short reading. Continue working on those previous problems. | ||||||||||||||||
Mon | 2/3 | More Pascal |
|
||||||||||||||||
Tue | 2/4 | The Egyptians: back to binary |
Please enjoy this
reading which will help to prepare us for the next several
"units": it includes some material which you've already seen
elsewhere, but also includes information on the Egyptians.
|
||||||||||||||||
Thu | 2/6 |
|
|||||||||||||||||
Mon | 2/10 | The Babylonians and the Mayans (other bases) |
You might re-read on number
systems, for an overview of some of the things that we've discussed lately,
and a reminder of those Babylonians.
Please read the following from Georges Ifrah's "The Universal History of Numbers": For practice, try writing the following numbers in Babylonian and Mayan:
|
||||||||||||||||
Tue | 2/11 | Please make sure to read Georges Ifrah's introduction to the Babylonian's Positional System. | |||||||||||||||||
Thu | 2/13 |
Make sure that you've read Georges Ifrah's introduction to the Mayan's Positional
System. You might also be interested in this lovely
history of the Mayan calendar we study.
You should finish the translation of the Mayan calendar, on your own, so that you know how to write and interpret Mayan numbers. Sean noticed that the first four numbers at the top were just multiples of 177. But that eventually fails. In which column? |
|||||||||||||||||
Mon | 2/17 | Nim: the third great factorization | |||||||||||||||||
Tue | 2/18 | Fibonacci numbers |
|
||||||||||||||||
Thu | 2/20 | ||||||||||||||||||
Mon | 2/24 | Golden Rectangles: from numbers to geometry |
Use the Fibonacci
Spiral Fractal maker, with your own image, to make a photo Fibonacci spiral.
You might try some of the "art" features. Email me this, and we'll hold an art show of spirals, with "get out of quiz free" prizes.... (Due Wednesday, 3/5) |
||||||||||||||||
Tue | 2/25 | Review | |||||||||||||||||
Thu | 2/27 | Exam 1 | |||||||||||||||||
Mon | 3/3 | Symmetry |
|
||||||||||||||||
Tue | 3/4 | ||||||||||||||||||
Thu | 3/6 |
Cut and create Platonic solids out of paper, using this template.
You will be allowed to use these as a cheat sheet for the next exam. |
|||||||||||||||||
Mon | 3/10 | Spring Break | |||||||||||||||||
Tue | 3/11 | Spring Break | |||||||||||||||||
Thu | 3/13 | Spring Break | |||||||||||||||||
Mon | 3/17 | Platonic Solids and Symmetry | |||||||||||||||||
Tue | 3/18 | Platonic Solids and Graphs (Euler's formula) |
Please read
The Enemy Of My Enemy.
|
||||||||||||||||
Thu | 3/20 |
Please read this short summary of some of our graph theory material.
|
|||||||||||||||||
Mon | 3/24 | Fractals |
|
||||||||||||||||
Tue | 3/25 | ||||||||||||||||||
Thu | 3/27 |
Please read this short summary of fractals.
Can you identify some fractals in nature, or in human society? Can you create some fractals of your own, using sticks, rectangles, triangles, etc.? Try using the on-line gasket maker to make some fractals, and try out the L-system fractals. What can you create? You've already created a fractal of your own, if you tried my Fibonacci Spiral Fractal maker! |
|||||||||||||||||
Mon | 3/31 | Links and Knots: all tied up |
Enjoy these videos from Vi Hart:
|
||||||||||||||||
Tue | 4/1 | Review | |||||||||||||||||
Thu | 4/3 | Exam 2 | |||||||||||||||||
Mon | 4/7 | Distinguishing Knots | Please watch these videos by Vi Hart: | ||||||||||||||||
Tue | 4/8 | Fun things to do with a Mobius band: Try this exercise. It's something for your mother, on Mother's day! And it won't cost you an arm or a leg. But use some colored paper.... | |||||||||||||||||
Thu | 4/10 | Please read Knots: a handout for mathcircles. | |||||||||||||||||
Mon | 4/14 | Distinguishing Knots: Reidemeister Moves |
Check out this careful introduction to using Reidemeister moves: Knot Theory - What's Knot to Love?
|
||||||||||||||||
Tue | 4/15 | Distinguishing Knots: tricolorability |
Check out my "knot
review" for a summary of a lot of what we've done.
For Monday: please provide a one paragraph description of your project and a one paragraph description of your logo; I want to make sure that everyone has something interesting to share on the following Monday and Tuesday, April 28 and 29. For a much more thorough introduction to both Reidemeister moves and tricolorability, check out Tricolorability of Knots, by Kayla Jacobs. |
||||||||||||||||
Thu | 4/17 | Is this knot the end as we know it?? | |||||||||||||||||
Mon | 4/21 | To Infinity, and beyond! |
Project and Logo descriptions are due.
A review of knots: see if you can follow along as I make a transition between the circle and that thing that looked like a four knot (but is truly an unknot). Is it not tricolorable in each rendition?
|
||||||||||||||||
Tue | 4/22 |
Please watch our friend Vi Hart describe Doodling in Math:
Sick Number Games. In particular, I'm interested in her observation at 2
and a half minutes that Pascal's triangle
lives in a sea of invisible zeros....
Then watch the Numberphiles episode which covers the material from today's lecture. |
|||||||||||||||||
Thu | 4/24 | Pascal's Infinities |
Make sure to watch the Numberphiles
episode which covers a part of the material from today.
Make sure to email me your logo at least several hours before Monday's class! For those struggling with Cantor's diagonalizability argument, listen in to see what Vi Hart has to say about it!
|
||||||||||||||||
Mon | 4/28 | Logo Day! | You should email me your logo before Monday at 2pm. | ||||||||||||||||
Tue | 4/29 | Project Day! | |||||||||||||||||
Thu | 5/1 | Review | |||||||||||||||||
Mon | 5/5 | Rest up... | |||||||||||||||||
Tue | 5/6 | Rest up... | |||||||||||||||||
Thu | 5/8 | Comprehensive Final Exam | 4:40pm |