# Scale of the Universe

Have you checked out this amazing, zoomable application that allows you to get a feel for the scale of the universe? Go there now. I think I checked this out a year or two ago, but these kids have updated it recently.

That’s right, I did say kids. This cool app was designed and programmed completely by two high school students in California. ABC News has a nice article about them.

# 87th Carnival of Mathematics

The 87th Carnival of Mathematics has arrived!! Here’s a simple computation for you:

What is the sum of the squares of the first four prime numbers?

That’s right, it’s

Good job. Now, onto the carnival. This is my first carnival, so hopefully I’ll do all these posts justice. We had lots of great submissions, so I encourage you to read through this with a fine-toothed comb. Enjoy!

# Rants

Here’s a post (rant) from Andrew Taylor regarding the coverage from the BBC and the Guardian on the Supermoon that occurred in March 2011. NASA reports the moon as being 14% larger and 30% brighter, but Andrew disagrees. Go check out the post, and join the conversation.

Have you ever heard someone abuse the phrase “exponentially better”? I know I have. One incorrect usage occurs when someone makes the claim that something is “exponentially better” based on only two data points. Rebecka Peterson has some words for you here, if you’re the kind of person who says this!

# Physics and Science-flavored

Frederick Koh submitted Problem 19: Mechanics of Two Separate Particles Projected Vertically From Different Heights to the carnival. It’s a fun projectile motion question which would be appropriate for a Precalculus classroom (or Calculus). I like the problem, and I think my students would like it too.

John D. Cook highlights a question you’ve probably heard before: Should you walk or run in the rain? An active discussion is going on in the comments section. It’s been discussed in many other places too, including twice on Mythbusters. (I feel like I read an article in an MAA or NCTM magazine on this topic once, as well. Anyone remember that?)

Murray Bourne submitted this awesome post about modeling fish stocks. Murray says his post is an “attempt to make mathematical modeling a bit less scary than in most textbooks.” I think he achieves his goal in this thorough development of a mathematical model for sustainable fisheries (see the graph above for one of his later examples of a stable solution under lots of interesting constraints). If I taught differential equations, I would  absolutely use his examples.

Last week I highlighted this new physics blog, but I wanted to point you there again: Go check out Five Minute Physics! A few more videos have been posted, and also a link to this great video about the physics of a dropping Slinky (see above).

# Statistics, Probability, & Combinatorics

Mr. Gregg analyzes European football using the Poisson distribution in his post, The Table Never Lies. I liked how much real world data he brought to the discussion. And I also liked that he admitted when his model worked and when it didn’t–he lets you in on his own mathematical thought process. As you read this post, you too will find yourself thinking out loud with Mr. Gregg.

Card Colm has written this excellent post that will help you wrap your mind around the number of arrangements of cards in a deck. It’s a simple high school-level topic, but he really puts it into perspective:

the number of possible ways to order or permute just the hearts is 13!=6,227,020,800. That’s about what the world population was in 2002. So back then if somebody could have made a list of all possible ways to arrange those 13 cards in a row, there would have been enough people on the planet for everyone to get one such permutation.

I think it’s good to remind ourselves that whenever we shuffle the deck, we can be almost certain that our arrangement has never been created before (since  $52!\approx 8\times 10^{67}$  arrangements are possible). Wow!

Alex is looking for “random” numbers by simply asking people. Go contribute your own “random” number here. Can’t wait to see the results!

Quick! Think of an example of a real-world bimodal distribution! Maybe you have a ready example if you teach stat, but here’s a really nice example from Michael Lugo: Book prices. Before you read his post, you should make a guess as to why the book prices he looked at are bimodal (see histogram above).

# Philosophy and History of Math

Mike Thayer just attended the NCTM conference in Philadelphia and brings us a thoughtful reaction in his post, The Learning of Mathematics in the 21st Century. Mike wrote this post because he had been left with “an ambivalent feeling” after the conference. He wants to “engage others in mathematics education in discussions about ways to improve what we do outside of the frameworks that are being imposed on us by those outside of our field.” As a secondary educator, I agree with Mike completely and really enjoyed his post. Mike isn’t satisfied with where education is going. In his post, he writes, “We are leaping ahead into the unknown with new educational models, and we never took the time to get the old ones right.”

Edmund Harriss asks Have we ever lost mathematics? He gives a nice recap of foundational crises throughout the history of mathematics, and wonders, ultimately, if we’ve actually lost any mathematics. There’s also a short discussion in the comments section which I recommend to you.

Peter Woit reflects on 25 Years of Topological Quantum Field Theory. Maybe if you have degree in math and physics you might appreciate this post. It went over my head a bit, I’m afraid!

# Book Reviews

In this post, Matt reviews a 2012 book release, Who’s #1, by Amy N. Langville and Carl D. Meyer. The book discusses the ranking systems used by popular websites like Amazon or Netflix. His review is thorough and balanced–Matt has good things to say about the book, but also delivers a bit of criticism for their treatment of Arrow’s Impossibility Theorem. Thanks for this contribution, Matt! [edit: Thanks MATT!]

Shecky R reviews of David Berlinski’s 2011 book, One, Two Three…Absolutely Elementary mathematics in his Brief Berlinski Book Blurb. I’m not sure his review is an *endorsement*. It sounds like a book that only a small eclectic crowd will enjoy.

# Uncategorized…

Peter Rowlett submitted this post about linear programming and provides a link to an interactive problems solving environment.

Peter Rowlett also weighs in on the recent news about a German high school boy who has (reportedly) solved an open problem. Many news sources have picked up on this, and I’ve only followed the news from a distance. So I was grateful for Peter’s comments–he questions the validity of the news in his recent post “Has schoolboy genius solved problems that baffled mathematicians for centuries?” His comments in another recent post are perhaps even more important though–Peter encourages us to think of ways we can remind our students that lots of open problems still exist, and “Mathematics is an evolving, alive subject to which you could contribute.”

Jess Hawke IS *Heptagrin Girl*

Here’s a fun-loving post about Heptagrins, and all the crazy craft projects you can do with them. Don’t know what a Heptagrin is? Neither did I. But go check out Jess Hawke’s post and she’ll tell you all about them!

Any Lewis Carroll lovers out there? Julia Collins submitted a post entitled “A Night in Wonderland” about a Lewis Carroll-themed night at the National Museum of Scotland. She writes, “Other people might be interested in the ideas we had and also hearing about what a snark is and why it’s still important.” When you check out this post, you’ll not only learn about snarks but also about creating projective planes with your sewing machine. Cool!

Mike Croucher over at Walking Randomly gives a shout out to the free software Octave, which is a MATLAB replacement. Check out his post, here. MATLAB is ridiculously expensive, and so the world needs an alternative like Octave. He provides links to the Kickstarter campaign–and Mike has backed the project himself. I too believe in Octave. I’ve used it a few times for my grad work and I’ve been very grateful for a free alternative to MATLAB.

# The End

Okay, that’s it for the 87th Carnival of Mathematics. Hope you enjoyed all the posts! Sorry it took me a couple days to post it–there was a lot to digest :-).

If you missed the previous carnival (#86), you can find it here. The next carnival (#88) will be hosted by Christian at checkmyworking.com. For a complete listing of all the carnivals, and more information & FAQ about the carnivals, follow this link.

Cheers!

# Nine important equations

Certain Uncertainty: Schrödinger Equation

From Wired.com

9 Equations True Geeks Should (at Least Pretend to) Know

By Brandon Keim

Even for those of us who finished high school algebra on a wing and a prayer, there’s something compelling about equations. The world’s complexities and uncertainties are distilled and set in orderly figures, with a handful of characters sufficing to capture the universe itself.

For your enjoyment, the Wired Science team has gathered nine of our favorite equations. Some represent the universe; others, the nature of life. One represents the limit of equations.

We do advise, however, against getting any of these equations tattooed on your body, much less branded. An equation t-shirt would do just fine.

The Beautiful Equation: Euler’s Identity

Also called Euler’s relation, or the Euler equation of complex analysis, this bit of mathematics enjoys accolades across geeky disciplines.

Swiss mathematician Leonhard Euler first wrote the equality, which links together geometry, algebra, and five of the most essential symbols in math — 0, 1, i, pi and e — that are essential tools in scientific work.

Theoretical physicist Richard Feynman was a huge fan and called it a “jewel” and a “remarkable” formula. Fans today refer to it as “the most beautiful equation.”

(more)

I was glad to see that the first “must have” equation was Euler’s Identity (note that “Euler’s Identity” is the accepted name for this, not to be confused with Euler’s Formula or Euler’s Polyhedron Formula or any of the other amazing facts named for Euler). I think there’s large consensus in the math community that this is, indeed, a breathtaking equation. It may not be the most fundamentally important, but it definitely showcases why mathematicians delight in math.

I’m ashamed to say it, but I hardly knew any of the other equations. I knew Boltzman’s equation; Maxwell’s equations and Schrödinger’s equation have come up in some of my graduate coursework, but the others I hadn’t ever seen. One might argue that the other equations are not so important. (If you like arguing about such things, join those commenting on the article).  You should still look through the list yourself; how many of these equations do you know?

Granted, this was a general article that encompased all “true geeks” not just math geeks. But still, don’t we all want to be a true geek?

(Oh, and happy birthday to Johan (III) Bernoulli, who had no notable equations named for him :-))

# USA Science & Engineering Festival

I went down to the USA Science & Engineering Festival yesterday. There were thousands of people there, including our science teacher Mr. Martz at the QuarkNet booth, and our distinguished guest Glen Whitney with the Math Museum exhibit. (I also saw a few of you, too!)

A kid tries to build an unsupported arch of overlapping rectangular bricks.

At the Rockville Science Center‘s booth (the Rockville Science center doesn’t exist yet), I stopped because I immediately recognized an application of the harmonic series! The goal is to stack thin 8″ rectangular bricks in such a way that they span a gap of 22″. This girl needed a bit of my help to get started, but as you can see in the photo, now she’s doing marvelously. As I remember, the literature at the table gave instructions to overlap the top brick by half, the next by a quarter, the next by an 8th and so on. But the mathematicians in the crowd know that this overlapping strategy would limit us to a spanning distance of 16″, even given an infinite number of bricks (do you remember why?). It actually turns out that you can build this kind of stack with an infinite overlap. The overlaps are proportional to the harmonic series, which is divergent. Here’s a nice paper about it.

My origami-approximation to the hyperbolic paraboloid.

I stopped by the MAA’s booth long enough to make this origami hyperbolic paraboloid. You can learn to make your own here.

Me and Glen Whitney

Right next to the MAA’s booth was the Math Museum‘s booth. I stopped by to say hi to Glen, our speaker from the previous day. And while I was there I made a tetraflexagon (directions on their website). And I made my own Math Museum logo. Cool! Also, they have this circular laser array that allows you to see slices of solid figures. Check out my slices:

A triangular slice of the dodecahedron.

A pentagonal slice of the dodecahedron.

A slice of Mr. Chase :-).

I played around with the dodecahedron. With it you can get slices that are regular triangles & hexagons (by moving through a vertex), regular pentagons & decagons (by moving through a face), or squares & octagons (by moving through an edge). Remind anyone of Flatland? It made me curious to try some other platonic solids. My intuition is that the dual of each platonic solid would yield the same regular cross sections. But I have no idea. Anyone else know?

Here are some other things I saw:

Autonomous robot soccer player.

I also saw this giant person-operated spider robot. Very cool :-).

Mr. Chase is approximately 2 billion nanometers tall.

The last thing I did yesterday was the Nano Brothers Juggling Show. Very cool. I’ve actually seen them perform before. Those of you who know me, know I’m an avid juggler. The juggling was fun, but even more fun was the way they incorporated science into the show.