{"id":851,"date":"2007-11-02T23:59:05","date_gmt":"2007-11-02T15:59:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.intmath.com\/blog\/?p=851"},"modified":"2016-07-09T11:00:18","modified_gmt":"2016-07-09T03:00:18","slug":"the-carnival-of-mathematics-20","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.intmath.com\/blog\/mathematics\/the-carnival-of-mathematics-20-851","title":{"rendered":"The Carnival of Mathematics #20"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Welcome to the 20th Carnival of Mathematics. <\/p>\n<p class=\"imgRt\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/zoom-in-tight\/1805882597\/sizes\/o\/\"><img src=\"\/blog\/wp-content\/images\/2007\/11\/carnival_sm.jpg\" alt=\"Carnival of Mathematics\" \/><\/a><br \/>\n<em>Carnival Ride in a Bubble<\/em><br \/>\nImage <a href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/zoom-in-tight\/1805882597\/sizes\/o\/\">source<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Because this Carnival is coming from Asia, I thought it would be fun to number the submissions using Chinese and Indian numerals.<\/p>\n<p>During the last 3,000 years or so, the <strong>Chinese<\/strong> have influenced the way numbers were written in most of Asia, but especially in Japan, Korea, Vietnam and Taiwan. While Western numerals are common-place, Chinese numerals are still in wide use in China and Japan.<\/p>\n<p>The <strong>Indian numbering system<\/strong> had a profound influence on mathematical development. Without the Hindu&rsquo;s base 10 positional system, European countries could still be using Roman numerals. The Arabs (especially al-Khwarizmi in the 9th century CE) promoted the \"Indian System\" and contributed greatly to its widespread adoption by the West through the 12th century CE. Hence we have the Hindu-Arabic number system.<\/p>\n<p>Depending on your browser and existing fonts, hopefully you are seeing Chinese &amp; Devanagari (Hindi) characters, and not splodges. I have included binary equivalents if you need a translation \ud83d\ude42 .<\/p>\n<p>On to the Carnival.<\/p>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: center\">&#x4e00; (0001<sub>2<\/sub>) &#x0967;<\/h2>\n<p>Charles Daney has an interesting analysis of the <a href=\"http:\/\/scienceandreason.blogspot.com\/2007\/10\/uniqueness-of-factorization.html\">Uniqueness of factorization<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>His blog is <em>Science and Reason<\/em>.<\/p>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: center\">&#x4e8c; (0010<sub>2<\/sub>) &#x0968;<\/h2>\n<p>In <a href=\"http:\/\/wildaboutmath.com\/2007\/10\/15\/10-ways-to-get-wild-about-math\/\">10 ways to get wild about Math<\/a>, from blogger Sol Lederman, there is a good list of suggestions for math students (and instructors) covering learning styles, math anxiety and time management.<\/p>\n<p>His blog is enthusiastically called <em class=\"textem\">Wild About Math<\/em>.<\/p>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: center\">&#x4e09; (0011<sub>2<\/sub>) &#x0969;<\/h2>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/mathnotations.blogspot.com\/2007\/10\/alec-klein-interview-part-iii-final.html\">Alec Klein Interview - The Final Chapter<\/a> comes from Dave Marain&rsquo;s <em>MathNotations<\/em> blog.<\/p>\n<p>Dave says: The last part of the interview with Alec Klein, the author of the critically acclaimed book, A Class Apart, which spotlights the lives of students, teachers and the culture of one of the legendary specialized schools for gifted math-science students, Stuyvesant HS in NYC. Issues of the needs of the gifted and talented are highlighted and don&rsquo;t miss the comments.<\/p>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: center\">&#x56db; (0100<sub>2<\/sub>) &#x096A;<\/h2>\n<p>Andy Schmitz (who is a high school senior) in <em>LardBucket<\/em> presents us with an analysis of  <i>A Flaw in Shamir&rsquo;s Secret Sharing method?<\/i> He invites readers to critique his logic.<\/p>\n<p>Andy is demonstrating some great skills for a future mathematician (eg willingness to chew over some extra-curricular math in his own time, analytical skills, blog skills using LATEX, etc.)<\/p>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: center\">&#x4e94; (0101<sub>2<\/sub>) &#x096B;<\/h2>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/mathmomblog.wordpress.com\/2007\/10\/12\/middle-schoolers-and-the-unsummables\/\">Middle Schoolers and the Unsummables<\/a> is from <em>MathMom<\/em>. It shows how she used Dave Marain&rsquo;s Unsummables Activity with a group of young middle schoolers, who rose to the occasion and found lots of great conjectures about the patterns they discovered in the way numbers can (and can&rsquo;t!) be expressed as the sum of a sequence of consecutive positive integers.<\/p>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: center\">&#x516d;\u00ad (0110<sub>2<\/sub>) &#x096C;<\/h2>\n<p>Matlab has a nice colorbar scale for 3D graphs but Mathematica does not. Mike Croucher and a friend sat down and came up with a package that addresses the omission: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.walkingrandomly.com\/?p=24\" rel=\"bookmark\">Mathematica version of colorbar<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><em>Walking Randomly<\/em> is a nicely formatted blog.<\/p>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: center\">&#x4e03; (0111<sub>2<\/sub>) &#x096D;\u00ad<\/h2>\n<p>Radu Grigore is next with <a href=\"http:\/\/rgrig.blogspot.com\/2007\/10\/optimal-alphabetic-binary-trees.html\">Optimal alphabetic binary trees<\/a>. The problem arises from the desire to reduce \"dead code\" in Java programming.<\/p>\n<p>Radu&rsquo;s blog is called <em>RGrig&rsquo;s blog<\/em>.<\/p>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: center\">&#x516b; (1000<sub>2<\/sub>) &#x096E;<\/h2>\n<p><em>Vlorbik<\/em>, in <a href=\"https:\/\/vlorbik.wordpress.com\/2007\/10\/31\/on-finally-teaching-calc-ii-at-long-last\/\">On Finally Teaching Calc II At Long Last<\/a>, luxuriates over the joys of teaching a group of students who are &rsquo;into it&rsquo;. It is an interesting set of reflections on what most math educators hope to do, at least at some point in their career &mdash; teach at a level that is personally challenging, with a class that has students who actually want to be there.<\/p>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: center\">&#x4e5d; (1001<sub>2<\/sub>) &#x096F;<\/h2>\n<p>Determinants are the focus at Matt&rsquo;s <em>Matt-amatical Thinking<\/em> (ya gotta love that blog name).<\/p>\n<p>His post, <a href=\"http:\/\/mattamatical.blogspot.com\/2007\/09\/determinants-are-calling-me.html\">Determinants are calling me...<\/a>, has a nice description where his class is given space to explore mathematics, rather than just listen to it. The lesson starts with a question and this triggers some great &rsquo;teachable moments.&rsquo;<\/p>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: center\">&#x5341; (1010<sub>2<\/sub>) &#x0967;&#x0966;<\/h2>\n<p>From <em>Let&rsquo;s Play Math<\/em>, Denise challenges educators to come up with good explanations for middle school fraction FAQs in <a href=\"https:\/\/denisegaskins.com\/2007\/10\/16\/quiz-those-frustrating-fractions\/\">Quiz: Those frustrating fractions<\/a><\/p>\n<p>How would you explain the mistakes to a struggling math student?<\/p>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: center\">&#x5341;&#x4e00; (1011<sub>2<\/sub>) &#x0967;&#x0967;<\/h2>\n<p>Meep (aka Mary) is starting a YouTube series called <a href=\"http:\/\/meep.livejournal.com\/1619627.html\">Meep&rsquo;s Math Matters<\/a>. The series will consist of short videos on basic\/classic math concepts.<\/p>\n<p>She talks about triangular numbers in the first video and requests suggestions for future videos.<\/p>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: center\">&#x5341;&#x4e8c; (1100<sub>2<\/sub>) &#x0967;&#x0968;<\/h2>\n<p>My contribution for Carnival &#x4e8c;&#x5341; is about Web user data in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.intmath.com\/blog\/computers\/crazyegg-web-analytics-865\">CrazyEgg Web Analytics<\/a>, right here in <em>squareCircleZ<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>We are being watched...<\/p>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: center\">&#x5341;&#x4e09; (1101<sub>2<\/sub>) &#x0967;&#x0969;<\/h2>\n<p>Jonathan rants about <a href=\"https:\/\/jd2718.org\/2007\/10\/30\/new-york-sample-algebra-questions\/\">New York Sample Algebra Questions<\/a> in his <em>jd2718<\/em> blog. His commentary is on a newly designed standardized exam.<\/p>\n<p>His conclusion: &rsquo;It&rsquo;s a lousy exam&rsquo;.<\/p>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: center\">&#x5341;&#x56db; (1110<sub>2<\/sub>) &#x0967;&#x096A;<\/h2>\n<p>And for an interesting contrast to Jonathan&rsquo;s New York exam blues, we move to Singapore.<\/p>\n<p>Miss Loi runs <em>J&phi;ss Sticks<\/em>. This visually-rich and popular blog includes <a href=\"http:\/\/www.exampaper.com.sg\/miss-loi-the-tutor\/psle-1-higher-education-0\">PSLE 1 Higher Education 0<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Singaporeans just love acronyms, so let me give you a heads-up: &rsquo;PSLE&rsquo; is Primary School Leaving Examination, &rsquo;JC&rsquo; = Junior College (16 &amp; 17 year-old, pre-university), Secondary One (13 yr old, Grade 7), E-maths (taken by O-Level, or grade 10 students). The bookstores in Singapore are amazing - they consist of shelves full of &rsquo;assessment books&rsquo;, which are exam papers from previous years.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>So that&rsquo;s it - I hope you enjoyed Carnival of Mathematics #20.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Endpiece #1: <\/strong> Don&rsquo;t you hate it when you are listening to someone who mumbles and they are trying to say the number &rsquo;15&rsquo;. How often do you have to ask such people if they said &rsquo;fif<strong>ty<\/strong>&rsquo; or &rsquo;fif<strong>teen<\/strong>&rsquo;? In spoken  Japanese (and Chinese, of course), there is a clear distinction between &#x4e94;&#x5341; &rsquo;<em>go juu<\/em>&rsquo; (50) and &#x5341;&#x4e94; &rsquo;<em>juu go<\/em>&rsquo; (15).<\/p>\n<p><strong>Endpiece #2: <\/strong> And since we started with a quick explanation of Asian number systems, here is a video where you can learn Japanese numbers. I&rsquo;m making it this week&rsquo;s Friday Math Movie:<\/p>\n<div class=\"videoBG\">\n<iframe title=\"YouTube video player\" width=\"480\" height=\"303\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/D3won-7W3Js\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div>\n<p>See previous <a href=\"https:\/\/www.intmath.com\/blog\/videos\">Friday Math Movies<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"alt\">See the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.intmath.com\/blog\/mathematics\/the-carnival-of-mathematics-20-851#comments\" id=\"comms\">11 Comments<\/a> below.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Carnival of Mathematics #20 has an interesting array of topics from 14 contributors, covering math education, number theory, computing, Internet and videos. Enjoy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[127],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intmath.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/851"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intmath.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intmath.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intmath.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intmath.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=851"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.intmath.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/851\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intmath.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=851"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intmath.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=851"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intmath.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=851"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}