Archive
Jackson Pollack and Fluid Dynamics
This is an interesting article about Harvard mathematician L. Mahadevan, who studied the physics of how the artist Jackson Pollock created his work.
The author contends that Pollock was essentially experimenting with, and learning, fluid dynamics as he developed his artistic technique.
The drips, drops, and coils seen in Pollack’s work are the result of careful attention to the properties of the various liquids used, and the height and angle of application.
According to the article, Pollock was experimenting with “coiling fluids” quite some time before the first scientific papers appeared on the subject!
Click here to see more in Application.
Math Photo: Triangular Window
And here’s another example of some geometric art on Governor’s Island.
Click here to see more in Photography.
Classroom Resource: Topical Applications of Mathematics
This is a small but useful collection of classroom resources built around applications of mathematics from the Centre for Innovation in Mathematics Teaching.
http://www.cimt.plymouth.ac.uk/resources/topical/
There are lesson plans and student handouts built around topics like Carbon Footprint, Popular Baby Names, Rankings in Sports, and Physical Fitness, among many others.
There are definitely some interesting ideas and resources here, to help bring these topics into your math classroom and to your students!
Click here to see more in Resources.
3D Surface Sculptures
Here are some examples of 3D surfaces sculpted out of floral foam by a Calculus student.
Creative and beautiful! More examples can be seen on my Facebook page.
Click here to see more in Art.
Math Lesson: Fantasy Football
My latest contribution to the New York Times Learning Network is a Math Lesson designed around a simple Fantasy Football-style game.
In this lesson, students use data, statistics, and a novel matchup metric to evaluate players and choose their teams.
As the results come in every week, students can refine their strategies and try to make more accurate projections!
Click here to see more in Teaching.
Fun with the PSAT
My students were recently making fun of some of the math problems on the PSAT. Apparently, one of the questions went something like this:
After having a bit of a laugh about it, we decided to try to help the PSAT exam writers make a more interesting question. Here is our revision:
Creating this new question was far more interesting than solving the original! And thanks to Wolfram|Alpha, we can easily check the answer.
Despite our complaints about the quality of the PSAT, we all know that it couldn’t be nearly as bad as a New York State Regents exam.
Click here to see more in Appreciation.
Polygonal Oddities
This is a crazy collection and categorization of mathematical oddities.
http://www.recmath.org/PolyCur/p6odd/index.html
Here, the word oddity has a specific, technical mathematical meaning: an oddity is a figure with at least one line of symmetry that is made up of an odd number of copies of some polygon.
I’ve never heard of oddities before, and I learned a lot of new vocabulary words while exploring this page: polyform, hexapent, and quinquerotary, to name a few!
Click here to see more in Challenge.
Mr Honner 