Friday, September 28, 2007

Wednesday, September 26, 2007

The Web In The Sea Fishbowl #1

Your ideas here!

Math For Smarty Pants Fishbowl #1

If you are reading Math For Smarty Pants, you can comment in this post :)

A Whole New Mind Fishbowl #1

A fishbowl is a place to share ideas and opinions. Comment about A Whole New Mind in this post.

Due Sunday 9/30 5:00

Have fun with the following:

You can read and comment on what others write but at the end write your own answer.

1. Read the first chapter of Daniel Pinks book and write in the new post that will be created

2. Start SeeLogo Type in command line: NEW A
the copy and paste into the editor:
SIZE 3 [STARSK 1 5 STARSK 2 5]
Describe the picture you see.

3. In the picture that you created are many triangles. How many can you find? How can you be sure you are right and that are no more?

4. If you change the number 3 to 2 in the command above (and click Redraw) in what way does the picture change? Give a logical explanation

5. type NEW B
Then Paste into the editor and Redraw (Wait 2 means to wait 2 seconds)
STARSK 1 7
WAIT 2
STARSK 2 7
WAIT 2
STARSK 3 7

click redraw several times until you get a feeling of understanding or until you are tired and write down an explanation to what happened

6. What are the values of X and Y that make this picture in STARSK X Y

Tuesday, September 25, 2007

A movie about fractals

One aspect of the class is to learn about Fractals and Ed emailed me an article about a movie that that Cornell students Created. I am posting the article as the first response to this and the link to the movie is:

http://animationhistory.blogspot.com/

Wednesday, September 19, 2007

A Journey Towards Infinity. First Step 9/19/07

I am asking that you respond to this blog before Sunday at 5:00

A journey towards Infinity.

Discovering the connection between two magic numbers: Pi and Phi

The numbers Pi and Phi captured the imagination of humanity for thousands of years and it still does. The wikepedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pi has some fascinating information about the history of Pi and various approximations to it.

So why is Pi so captivating so many people? Every one can answer this question in his own way. As for me, Mathematics is an art form like music and one cannot explain logically why we enjoy a certain piece of music so much. Still, just like one can approximate Pi and come closer and closer to it, one can approximate the answer and it will be interesting to read your answer to this question:

Another number that captivated the imagination of humans for centuries is the number Phi (Pi with h in the middle). This number is also called the golden mean or the golden Ratio and the Wikipedia has a full explanation for it.

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_ratio

What I want to share with you here is something most beautiful that most people in the world do not know yet and this a sacred connection between these two numbers.

In order to understand this I want you to be able to go through a series of seemingly technical steps but gradually create meaning out of them. This process could be slow and a little frustrating and the one thing that can help you keep going is the knowledge that at the end of this journey you will see and feel something most beautiful, divine and sacred. I hope you want to join me in this adventure.

Here are some technical preliminary exercises:

1. What is Pi? and What is Phi (you can read in Wikipedia but write your own understanding)
2. Why are Pi and Phi so captivating?
3. Down Load SeeLogo and paste the following program and play with it by changing the value of x from 6 to 7,8,9,10,11... and also the value of y to different numbers. We will explain the program in class but I want you understand it and to explain it in your own words. It may be very frustrating at the beginning but if this happens it is a good sign and not a bad one.

LOCAL X Y
X=8 Y=3
REPEAT X [FD 40 RT 360/X]
RT 90 FD 40*X/Y

Sunday, September 16, 2007

Ultimate Truth and the World Map

On Thursday we took a look at how we perceive the world, through our eyes, our comprehension, and our "facts".

Is math culturally bound? Can Math truly serve as a universal language? Is there even such a thing as a "universal language"?

Please think about these questions and comment

Thursday, September 13, 2007

Reactions to Silent Learning

Please respond to the statement below:

All research shows that we learn by doing. That is, by applying what we have learned, in order to answer questions for example. This makes learners process the information and make their own sense of it. This is called ‘constructivism’.

Here are a few questions to consider:

Do you agree or disagree? What are the pros and cons? Can this be related to teaching math?

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

Interesting events

Johnson Museum of Art
Cornell University

Explore the role of creativity, cognition, and embodiment in contemporary sciences and Tibetan Buddhist tantric practice with presenters Vesna Wallace (Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara), William Bushell (Surgery, Columbia), Neil Theise (Pathology & Medicine, Albert Einstein College of Medicine), Ted Arnold (Namgyal Monastery), and Kavita Bala (Computer
Science, Cornell).

Free and Open
Organized by the Namgyal Monastery

These sessions will focus on the divergent understanding of the body in contemporary biology and medicine and in Indo-Tibetan Buddhism. Wallace will present an amazing analysis of esoteric Buddhist theory and practice in which the body and mind are considered innately capable of radical transformation at their most subtle level. Bushell and Theise, collaborators on groundbreaking studies of the relationship between yoga and meditation and bodily self-regeneration, will present evidence from contemporary medicine that the body is capable of just such radical transformation through an array of psychophysical interventions. As Buddhist esoteric practice is also a highly creative, embodied process based on fundamental cognitive restructuring, Arnold will introduce these three speakers with an overview of these relationships and a focus on Indo-Tibetan cognitive theory. Bala will present the results of a unique collaboration between her and the Namgyal monks: a computer-generated, three-dimensional mandala of the Kalachakra (Wheel of Time) system. Since Buddhist esoteric practice aims at restructuring cognitive processes (seeing) whereby one finally transforms completely, mentally and physically (being), into a fully enlightened deity such as Kalachakra, this is the perfect symbol of the panel.


--
Cathy Rosa Klimaszewski
Associate Director/Ames Curator of Education
Johnson Museum of Art
607 254-4627
-------------------

Monday, September 10, 2007

Another try to reach your Math Heart

Dear What Is Math Class?
Did I scare you or confuse you with the weekend assignment that was to spend 2 hours and create/write something beautiful that has to do with Math? I did not see any one actually do it even though a few people responded in a beautiful way on the blog.


My style of teaching is so different than what you are used to that probably you do not understand yet my intent but I am not going to give up on you since I believe that each and every one of us has a unique gidt, a flower of creativity that is waiting to be opened and Mathematics (the queen) is part of it. So here I am offering you more structure but am asking that you will be honest and devote 2 hours for every class time we have from now till then end of the semester and if you do it you will learn a tremendous amount. Part of that time should be used to write your thoughts/projects/creation etc. in the blog to share with me and others. I also remind you to look again at .


Pick one or more of the following topics (you can use google and other web tools)


1. Study what the concept Dimension mean? What does it mean for you personally and what does it mean in principle.


2. Download SeeLogo from http://www.ithaca.edu/dani/SeeLogo/index.htm and create the spiral of life art design and master how to do it. (after you download click lessons what is Math and Spiral of Life Introduction


3. Go for a trip downtown with some friends and visit some churches (start with the chapel at IC and sketch some of the divine art take pictures and share with class)


4. Study what the divine proportion means and describe it in your own words after you get the feeling. (google)


5. Do several activities from the book "Math for Smarty Pants" and write about them.


6. Pick a beautiful Math Thought and write about it (from the following link:)



Math Thoughts

http://www.ithaca.edu/dani/classes/Wim/Math_Thought_of_The_Day/Math_Thoughts.html

Friday, September 7, 2007

Plan for September 7th

Today is a free exploration day. I will share the details in class. The HW besides commenting about the lessons and what your learned and commenting on other people (this happens every week) is going to be given in class. Stay tuned....

Tuesday, September 4, 2007

Plan for September 5, 2007

Hi folks,

I read what you wrote so far and I want to encourage you to write. This is one of the things that I do require for this class. I am asking that you respond to every class and am requesting your utmost attention so you can write beautiful summaries which others will read and enjoy.

Last time we focus on the number zero, the empty set and the beautiful idea of magic squares.

This lesson we will focus on:

1. Activities with Mike (Birthday)
2. Finding What Day of the week you were born?
------------------------------------------------
  1. Take the last two digit of the year you were born, call it A
  2. Divide A by 4 and discard the remainder, call it B
  3. Pick the day of the month you were born, call it C
  4. Find the month key value using the code, but subtract 1 for January or February of a leap year, call it D

(For our purposes a leap year is a year that is evenly divisible by 4, 1984 for example but not 1983)

J F M A M J J A S O N D
1 4 4 0 2 5 0 3 6 1 4 6

6. Find A+B+C+D
7. Divide by 7 and take the remainder. The answer gives you the day you were born:
(0 Saturday, 1 Sunday, 2 Monday etc..)

-------------------------------

The idea of Fibonacci Sequence, The idea of Dimension and the idea of Fibonacci sequence in higher dimension