education
What Are Fractals?
What Are Fractals? Animated fractal mountain (Photo credit: Wikipedia) Fractals If you try to measure something irregular, like the coastline along a creek, you will find that the shorter the measuring unit you use, a one-foot long stick instead of a three-foot-long yardstick, for example, the longer the thing will be, infinitely. Normally, in geometry, you […]
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Make Your Own Abacus with Popsicle Sticks
Make Your Own Abacus with Popsicle Sticks How to Use an Abacus A Chinese abacus (Photo credit: Wikipedia) Although I studied Chinese in college and have been to China three times, most recently this summer, I had never learned how to use an abacus until researching this activity. If you understand simple addition and subtraction, you can […]
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Seven Bridges of Konigsburg
Seven Bridges of Konigsburg Graph theory. The problem of the Seven Bridges of Königsberg. (Photo credit: Wikipedia) I used to think that there was no point in giving someone a math problem that was unsolvable. What could you learn from that except your tolerance for frustration? It turns out, though, that mathematicians, even when they suspect a […]
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The Four-Color Theorem
The Four-Color Theorem Normally, when you color in a pattern in a coloring book, you don’t pay attention to how many colors you need. You use as many crayons as you have available. But, what if you only had two or three or four crayons and you were asked not to let any color meet the same […]
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