Category: Uncategorized
-
The Upstate New York Math Team
Hey, I want to tell you about one of my recent projects, re-booting the Upstate New York Math Team. This was a regional math team, designed to help high school students from around Upstate New York to compete in ARML each year. The team was active and successful since almost the beginning of ARML (see…
-
Hello world v2.0!
Notice something different? I’ve changed servers (from Powweb to Dreamhost) and tried to move my WordPress site over. The text is here, but somehow the photos haven’t made it yet (but they are backed up), and the theme is changed. I tried to do this earlier this year, but didn’t have enough time to solve…
-
How to catch a cheater
I proctored the AIME II contest this week, and caught a cheater. Here are some details and thoughts about the occasion. At about 4pm the day before the contest, I started getting emails and phone calls from parents, from tutors, some students, and even my math colleagues at Bard who had been contacted as well, in…
-
Uniqueness of Factorization
A few days ago I came across a proof of the Fundamental Theorem of Arithmetic (aka Unique Factorization) in Courant and Robbin’s What is Mathematics that I hadn’t seen it before. I liked it enough to learn it. Then another surprise – I saw it again yesterday in Primes and Programming by Peter Giblin, a book…
-
How to Give a Good Math Talk
There are a lot of sites with useful advice out there. This post is intended to collect several links for future reference. Technically Speaking – Videos of math research students presenting their findings. I love the examples of bad style along with good style. This comes out of an NSF-funded project. Joe Gallian’s Advice on…
-
Math Conference photos
Going through some old papers, I found the following conference photos from Fall 1996 Fields Institute, Algebraic Model Theory Program July 1-10, 1998, XI Simposio Latinoamericano Lógica Matemática, Mérida, Venezuela 1998 Szeged Conference on Lattices and Universal Algebra
-
Found Math
I sent this photo in to the MAA Found Math series, and it was published! This looks very much like a geometric dissection proof of the Theorem of Pythagoras, but in the form of a discarded foldable card table.
-
What is Algebra good for?
Algebra represents a shift into mathematical abstraction, providing tools necessary for further study, a focus on properties and principles that deepen our understanding of number, and also reasoning and insight that transfer to other domains of human knowledge.
-
The Emperor has no Clothes
The NYC DOE recently released effectiveness ratings (TDRs for Teacher Data Reports) for all public school elementary and middle school teachers in NYC. Newspapers and websites immediately published them. The teacher with the lowest rating was identified and publicly ridiculed. The teachers with the highest ratings were lauded. Some important public figures also commented: Bill…
-
Pi Day Resources
My brother pointed me to some Pi Day resources today on the NCTM website: Celebrate Pi Day It’s nice to see this collection, which is a great resource for teachers to easily roll out their own Pi Day celebration. If any readers can point me to other Pi Day resources, please do: I hope to…