Recent Posts - page 124

  • Toast

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    Just finished reading Nigel Slater’s memoir, Toast. Don’t bother.

  • Two kinds of skepticism

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    As I mentioned in my post of March 11, some interesting issues were raised on the unfortunate March 10 episode of Numb3rs. There was no explicit mention of the dispute between two kinds of skepticism, but that was actually the… Read More ›

  • Taking the mission seriously

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    Earlier this year I tried to figure out whether I had a common mission in all the math classes that I teach. Here’s what I eventually came up with: To empower all students to represent the world quantitatively and to… Read More ›

  • Turning back the clock

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    One of the many virtues of writing in a wiki is that previous versions of a document are always readily available. I’m still trying to get used to this. Want to turn the clock back to the way your document… Read More ›

  • The Murder Room

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    Just finished listening to the audio CD version of The Murder Room, by P.D. James. It makes an interesting contrast to the Greg Bear novel that I discussed in yesterday’s post. (No, I don’t find it confusing to listen to… Read More ›

  • Darwin's Children

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    I’m currently reading the last chapter of Greg Bear’s Darwin’s Children, the sequel to Darwin’s Radio, which I read last month. I wish I liked this one better than I do. You know how sometimes you have the experience of… Read More ›

  • Not surprised by model railroading

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    One of my students was surprised — not to mention perplexed and amused — to hear that one of my hobbies was model railroading. “Why are you surprised?” asked one of his classmates. “He’s a math and computer science teacher… Read More ›

  • If the IRS had discovered the quadratic formula

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    As you’re sitting there figuring out your taxes, take a look at what the quadratic formula would look like if the IRS had discovered it.

  • A billion is a substantial number

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    According to an Associated Press article, dated yesterday, “a billion is a substantial number.” I don’t think we can disagree with that. But the context is, shall we say, a bit implausible: Federal authorities investigating a man who smuggled money… Read More ›

  • Pi Day

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    Today, of course, was Pi Day. One of my mathematically devoted students not only baked brownies decorated with the digits of pi — only a small fraction of them, alas 🙂 — but also brought in a CD of “Mathematical… Read More ›

  • George Bush, student of English

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    One of my students is having great difficulty understanding the abstract ideas of additive and multiplicative inverses and identities, especially in the context of matrix algebra. Finally he’s so frustrated that he exclaims, “I feel like George Bush in an… Read More ›

  • Wiki values & learning curves

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    Why am I finding it so difficult to get used to be a writer on a wiki, not merely a reader? There’s something about the whole process that still feels alien to me. Somehow the learning curve seems unnecessarily steep…. Read More ›

  • Skepticism is a virtue

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    One of my tenth-graders gleefully tells me about a CS professor at the University of Wisconsin who held a contest in which he challenged others to “hack” into his Mac, and someone did so in 30 minutes. At least that… Read More ›

  • The Nobel Laureate

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    We got to hear a lecture by a Nobel Laureate today: Dr. Frank Wilczek, co-winner of the 2004 Nobel Prize for Physics. He came to speak to all Honors and AP science students at Weston, as well as interested faculty…. Read More ›

  • The exam compromise

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    We’ve reached a compromise — of sorts — about the exam issue. We’re going to have a dedicated exam week, so that’s a major victory. But only the Math Department wanted to hold all its exams at the same time!… Read More ›

  • Black History Month Assembly

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    Interesting Black History Month assembly this morning. (I know, Black History Month was last month, but we’re a little behind the clock here.) Usually these assemblies consist of performances and readings by Weston students, but this year it was different:… Read More ›

  • Problems in integrating programming into math

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    A month ago, I posted an entry that included the following bullet item: We’ve made a valiant effort in our project of integrating computer programming into the regular math curriculum, but we still have far to go. In particular, programming… Read More ›

  • A revised scenario

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    A follow-up to my post of Saturday, 3/4: How’s this for a (slightly) revised course scenario? You are a Special Agent of the NBI (National Bureau of Investigation) assigned to a new group set up jointly with the FSA (Federal… Read More ›

  • Wikipedia and epistemology

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    There’s a fascinating article about Wikipedia in The Village Voice: … Larry Sanger, a philosophy grad student at Ohio State University, … acknowledges that the site is “very cool.” But as a philosophy professor with a specialty in epistemology, he… Read More ›

  • Is the real world too scary for kids?

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    To what extent do fifth-graders need to be protected from the so-called “real world”? At The Saturday Course I teach a cryptology class to public-school fourth, fifth, and sixth graders who have been identified as gifted and talented. There is… Read More ›