Month: January 2006

The Sudoku/Systems connection

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Epiphany: A comprehension or perception of reality by means of a sudden intuitive realization (definition 3b in the American Heritage Dictionary) So I guess I was visited by an epiphany this weekend: I realized that Sudoku has a surprising connection… Read More ›

Static or dynamic systems

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How do we think about systems of equations (or inequalities)? I know, most of us don’t think about them at all. But teachers and students of algebra certainly do. Whether we call them systems of equations or simultaneous equations, we… Read More ›

Back from the show

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Just got back from the Amherst Railway Society’s annual model railroad show, which is held in…no, not Amherst…Springfield, MA. Barbara wasn’t interested in going, so Meredith accompanied me. Although she isn’t a model railroader, her interests in crafts and technology… Read More ›

What's in a name?

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Does the name of a course matter? At Weston High School we recently renamed our two-year college-prep precalculus sequence. The first course, taken primarily by juniors but always including a few seniors, used to be called Math 4. What does… Read More ›

Playing with Trains

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Currently I’m halfway through reading Playing with Trains: A Passion Beyond Scale, a memoir by Sam Posey. There’s a certain irony to the title. The word “passion” is accurate, for this book is truly about Posey’s deep enthusiasm and passion… Read More ›

The hub of the Hub?

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Dot! Dorchester is becoming the city’s hip new destination after dark says the headline above Johnny Diaz’s big story splashed over the front page of the Living section of today’s Boston Globe. Not Landsdowne Street, not the South End, says… Read More ›

Calculus limericks?

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I can’t resist quoting from Rudbeckia Hirta’s post in her blog today: I have been dared by one of my colleagues to write one of the questions on my calculus exam in the form of a limerick. This is especially… Read More ›

Getting things done

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For several months now, I’ve been determined to implement some version of David Allen’s compelling Getting Thing Done. His book by that title was one of those rare self-help books that immediately grabbed my attention and thoroughly convinced me that… Read More ›

Graphic organizers

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Many high-school teachers believe that so-called graphic organizers are helpful to students. Readers who are my age may wonder what a graphic organizer is. According to the North Central Regional Educational Laboratory, a graphic organizer is an instructional tool used… Read More ›

dbar

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Dorchester is actually getting some high-quality restaurants. A couple of years ago, the Blarney Stone in Fields Corner transformed itself from a typical Irish pub to an excellent restaurant. The new C.F. Donovan’s in Savin Hill serves inexpensive but reliably… Read More ›

Who buys lottery tickets?

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Try doing a Google search on the pair of phrases “lottery tickets” “tax on the poor”; you’ll find surprisingly few hits. Change poor to stupid and you’ll collect a few more hits, but still only 507 (at this moment). I’ve… Read More ›

Pre-fix

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One of my precalculus students (or is it the hyphenated pre-calculus?) thought that he was studying calculus. He figured that precalculus was a kind of calculus, just as differential calculus is a kind of calculus. What does that prefix “pre-”… Read More ›

Numbers and Palindromes

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Numbers and Palindromes. No, not numbers that are palindromes: Numbers and Palindromes, the television show and the movie. I wrote about Numbers six months ago; at that point I had only seen three episodes, and it would have been premature… Read More ›

Identifying a language

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I was excited to read about Xerox’s Language Guesser. If you can’t identify a sentence in a foreign language, just paste the sentence into their convenient type-in field, and the intelligent Xerox software will correctly guess the language. Sounds like… Read More ›

What's wrong with this problem?

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The problem below comes from the Education Records Bureau’s Independent School Entrance Examination (ISEE) for middle school students. How many things can you find wrong with it? Thanks for Thane Plambeck for the pointer.