MAT115R: Math for Liberal Arts

Assignments

Day Date Activity Assignment
Mon1/13 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....

Tue1/14 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?

  • 64
  • 210
  • 229

Read The Loneliest Numbers.
Thu1/16 One-to-one correspondence and Rock Groups (Primes: the first great factorization) Homework:

  • Make sure that you can draw all of the Complete Graphs up to \(K_8\), using colors to illustrate the divisibility of the number.
  • Please read Early Concepts of Number and Counting for next time.

Mon1/20 Martin Luther King, Jr. Day  
Tue1/21 Primitive Counting Homework (referring to Early Concepts of Number and Counting for next time):
  • "...a messenger could be sent to another tribe with the message that they wish to trade 20 baskets of food for 15 pearl necklaces, say. This could have been done by simply indicating the point on his body that corresponded to the correct number of objects." Use the "Body counting" guide on page 3 to answer the following:

    • Which parts of the body would the messenger point to, for 20 and 15?
    • And if it were 33 baskets of food for 11 pearl necklaces?
    • Would you trade left foot little toe baskets of food for right knee pearl necklaces?
    • Do you notice any rhyme or reason to the ordering of the body parts?

  • Draw a cartoon of the Baker and the woman buying bread, comparing their tally sticks.
  • Draw a knotted string like that of "The Example 3643", but for the number 1294.
  • How do the South Africans mentioned count to numbers above 100?
Thu1/23 Binary numbers, The Great Fraudini, and the second great factorization  
Mon1/27 Pascal's Triangle  
Tue1/28  
Thu1/30  
Mon2/3 The Egyptians: back to binary  
Tue2/4  
Thu2/6  
Mon2/10 The Babylonians and the Mayans (other bases)  
Tue2/11  
Thu2/13  
Mon2/17 Nim: the third great factorization  
Tue2/18 Fibonacci numbers  
Thu2/20  
Mon2/24 Golden Rectangles: from numbers to geometry  
Tue2/25 Review  
Thu2/27 Exam 1  
Mon3/3 Symmetry  
Tue3/4  
Thu3/6  
Mon3/10 Spring Break  
Tue3/11 Spring Break  
Thu3/13 Spring Break  
Mon3/17 Platonic Solids and Symmetry  
Tue3/18  
Thu3/20  
Mon3/24 Fractals  
Tue3/25  
Thu3/27  
Mon3/31 Links and Knots: all tied up  
Tue4/1 Review  
Thu4/3 Exam 2  
Mon4/7 Distinguishing Knots  
Tue4/8    
Thu4/10    
Mon4/14 Distinguishing Knots  
Tue4/15 Angels and Miracles  
Thu4/17  
Mon4/21 To Infinity, and beyond!  
Tue4/22  
Thu4/24  
Mon4/28 Review  
Tue4/29 Logo Day!  
Thu5/1 Project Day!  
Mon5/5 Rest up...  
Tue5/6 Rest up...  
Thu5/8 Comprehensive Final Exam 4:40pm