The DaVinci Code Quest Sunday

It started last week. Google releases one puzzle each day for 24 days until the movie "The Da Vinci Code" is released in May. So far 7 puzzles have been released. You have to solve the puzzle to reveal a clue. Then you have to answer the clue question(s) to advance to the next puzzle. You can win a prize for solving all 24 puzzles. Now I realize this is all about marketing and they're really just trying to get as many of us as possible to go see the movie but the puzzles are really cool! Google searching often helps to find the answers. One of the puzzle questions can be answered using The Fundamental Principle of Counting and the very first (sudoku-like) puzzle uses a couple of mathematical symbols.

Challenge 1: What is the question that can be solved using The Fundamental Principle of Counting and how do you use the counting principle to find the answer?

Challenge 2: What mathematical symbol is used in the very first puzzle and what number does it represent? (Not the "delta," in a later puzzle it has a different meaning.)

You have to sign up for a Google Homepage in order to play, but that's a free and very useful service. After that you can begin the game. Click on the US button to start 24 days of fun! (Actually, 17 because you could work through the first eight today.) Don't forget to also find the answers to the Challenge Questions above!. ;-)

BoB

Parabola = easy
Elipse = take time and it's easy
Hyperbola = Just need to tell the difference of which value is transverse axis and conjigate axis.

That's all. Van's BoB! (blogging on blogging)

Blogging on Blogging

This unit is half-half.Half easy and half average. The part that bothered me is the problem when you have given the focus and directrix then you have to find the equation of the parabola, but the rest is good except the hyperbolas maybe because Mr. K didn't explain that much with example but it's alright. Adios....

Four Colour Sunday!

You may have heard that any map can be coloured with four colours in such a way that neighbouring countries receive different colours. That it can be always done is one thing. How to do it is another. Are you ready to start colouring?

(Thanks again to Think Again!)

Scribe # (insert actual number here)

Yo. This is Van, doing the scribe, and if I didn't have enough work to do already, Calvin felt like messing me up with the scribe for today (sorry if that's inappropriate, I'll change it later if need be, but if it's funny, then I've succeeded in my goal that tried to be slighty humorous). ANYWAYS, onto the scribe which has, 3 pictures. Teddie's right, pictures are actually fun to make... till Paint gets annoying.

So today, we have a double class, (even more reason for me to spite Calvin) and we learn what the focus and directrix means. Meanwhile, Mr.K goes off topic, and onto the USE of these parabolas. He also spites MTS, because he says "What does the rain have to do with my Cable/internet?". So he draws a picture of how we get the signal onto our tv and watch it!

So, the focus, is recieving concentrated signals from the distributors, and the cable box has to be activated to descramble the signal. "Neat stuff he says". "You should go into computer science.". "Wanna make a LOT of money?, Go into MATH". Then he talks about how Amazon.com is cool and how mathamatizing humanity is in progress. Of course, everyone is dumbfounded. I'm off topic myself, off to the real stuff we're supposed to learn. So after his ranting about the parabola and satelites, we begin to write in our math dictionaries!. (Oh joy)










Parabola - The Locus of points that are equidistant from a Fixed line (directrix) and a Fixed point (focus).

The Anatomy of a Parabola

Equation
(x-h)² = 4p(y- k)

Properties
P>0 opens up
P<0 style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);">Focus at (h, k+p)
Equation of Directrix y= k - p
Equation of axis of symmetry x=h
If |4p| > 1 arms are "wide"
If |4p| <>







Equation
(y-k)² = 4p(x-h)

Properties
P>0 opens right
P<0 style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Vertex at (h,k)
Focus at (h+p, k)
Equation Of Directrix y= h-p
Equation of axis of symmetry y=k
If |4p| > 1 arms are "wide"
If |4p| <>Deriving the Standard Form for the Equation of a Vertical Parabola



















__ __
PD = PF [By Definition]

(y- x)²+[y-(k-p)]² = (x-h)²+(y-[x+p])² [Distance Formula]
(y- k+p)² = (x-h)² + (y- k- p)² [Square both sides & simplify] *Desregard red line on "2kp"
y² - 2ky + 2py - 2kp + k² + p² = (x-h)² + y² - 2ky+ 2kp + k² + p² [expanding]
2py - 2pk = (x-h)² + 2kp + 2py [Balancing]
4py - 4pk = (x-h)² [Balancing]
4p(y-k) = (x-h)² [Factor out 4p]



Okay I'm done the scribe!, Huzzah!. Woohoo, one hour and a half hours invested and time to work on english. Sorry for the late scribe. The next scribe will be Abdi. Enjoy people.

i'm gonna edit this later, someone tell me how to place a square root over a long line of things, and i'll change it

Why Should I Learn Math?

This is taken from an article (Math Will Rock Your World) from Business Week. A few snippets:

Y'wanna get a really interesting job working with people on lots of interesting things?

But just look at where the mathematicians are now. They're helping to map out advertising campaigns, they're changing the nature of research in newsrooms and in biology labs, and they're enabling marketers to forge new one-on-one relationships with customers. As this occurs, more of the economy falls into the realm of numbers. Says James R. Schatz, chief of the mathematics research group at the National Security Agency: "There has never been a better time to be a mathematician."

Learn math!

How'd ya like a six figure salary?

...new math grads land with six-figure salaries and rich stock deals. Tom Leighton, an entrepreneur and applied math professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, says: "All of my students have standing offers at Yahoo! (YHOO) and Google (GOOG)."

Learn math.

D'ya wanna to work on the biggest most cutting edge issues of our day?

This mathematical modeling of humanity promises to be one of the great undertakings of the 21st century. It will grow in scope to include much of the physical world as mathematicians get their hands on new flows of data .... "We turn the world of content into math, and we turn you into math," says Howard Kaushansky, CEO of Boulder (Colo.)-based Umbria Inc., a company that uses math to analyze marketing trends online.

Learn math.

Y'wanna make one of the most significant contributions to the betterment of humanity?

"The next Jonas Salk will be a mathematician, not a doctor."

Learn math.

What are the implications for k-12 education?

Outfitting students with the right quantitative skills is a crucial test facing school boards and education ministries worldwide. This is especially true in America. The U.S. has long leaned on foreigners to provide math talent in universities and corporate research labs. Even in the post-September 11 world, where it is harder for foreigners to get student visas, an estimated half of the 20,000 math grad students now in the U.S. are foreign-born. A similar pattern holds for many other math-based professions, from computer science to engineering.

The challenge facing the U.S. now is twofold. On one hand, the country must breed more top-notch mathematicians at home, especially as foreigners find greater opportunities abroad. This will require revamping education, engaging more girls and ethnic minorities in math, and boosting the number of students who make it through calculus, the gateway for math-based disciplines. "It's critical to the future of our technological society," says Michael Sipser, head of the mathematics department at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. At the same time, school districts must cultivate greater math savvy among the broader population to prepare it for a business world in which numbers will pop up continuously. This may well involve extending the math curriculum to include more applied subjects such as statistics.

Learn more math!

"But I don't like math. Besides, I don't need it. I'm going into the humanities or business!"

As mathematicians expand their domain into the humanities, they're working with new data, much of it untested. "It's very possible for people to misplace faith in numbers," says Craig Silverstein, director of technology at Google. The antidote at Google and elsewhere is to put mathematicians on teams with specialists from other disciplines, including the social sciences.

Just as mathematicians need to grapple with human quirks and mysteries, managers and entrepreneurs must bone up on mathematics. Midcareer managers can delegate much of this work to their staffers. But they still must understand enough about math to question the assumptions behind the numbers. "Now it's easier for people to bamboozle someone by having analysis based on lots of data and graphs," says Paul C. Pfleiderer, a finance professor at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. "We have to train people in business to spot a bogus argument."

Ya gotta learn more math!

Yes, it's a magnificent time to know math.

'Nuff said.

Roboclaw Sunday!

Move the robot arm to pick up the ball. Clean, simple design. I got to level 19. I died. It's a doozy!