math

Non-Euclidean Doom, where the value of pi is not 3.14159

Weirdly beautiful. Wonderful bit of game history exploring why the code for the 1993 game Doom uses a slightly wrong…

6 months ago

Shakespeare-themed Math Puzzles

I didn't know I had a Shakespeare-themed-match itch to scratch. 1. Hours and hours How many hours are there in…

7 months ago

Pythagorean Theorem Found On Clay Tablet 1,000 Years Older Than Pythagoras

Translating the markings from base 60 – the counting system used by ancient Babylonians – showed that these ancient mathematicians were aware…

1 year ago

Fun with Geometry — Biological and Theoretical

For some reason today I was thinking of the 3D shape scientists recently discovered in our cells -- I had…

2 years ago

Ungrading after 11 weeks

Mathematics professor Robert Talbot reports on his ongoing experiment with ungrading -- giving feedback and emphasizing the students' metacognition, rather…

3 years ago

“We hate math,” says 4 in 10 – a majority of Americans

If 30% love math, and 30% are neutral about math, then the 40% that hate it could be the largest…

3 years ago

Big Calculator: How Texas Instruments Monopolized Math Class

My math education predated the widespread use of graphing calculators. I remember writing my own BASIC programs to graph simple…

5 years ago

The history of Tetris randomizers

A pleasantly detailed analysis of how the various editions of Tetris chose what piece was next. In 1985, Alexey Pajitnov…

5 years ago

So this is Pi Day

My wife says she bought the pies intending to use them for a math lesson, but she just ended up…

7 years ago

One Teacher’s Brilliant Strategy to Stop Future School Shootings

Every Friday since Columbine, one schoolteacher has asked her students to to submit a list. Who would they like to…

7 years ago

Sorry, Wrong Number

Numerical errors usually occur for one of these five reasons: A journalist mishears a correct number given to them by…

7 years ago

Journalism by the Numbers (a pedagogical play in one scene) #math

(Lights up on a college journalism classroom. The professor enters, surveys the room.) Professor: Math! Students: (Shocked reaction.) Professor: Math!!…

7 years ago

What Khan Academy’s Fun, Free Learning Empire Has to Do with Dystopian Social Control

Over the Christmas break, I've been churning through Khan Academy math drills, so that I can be a more effective homeschool parent. It's actually…

9 years ago

How to Lie with Data Visualization

Data visualization is one of the most important tools we have to analyze data. But it’s just as easy to…

11 years ago

The Value of Failure

Upon reading that recent message from my inbox, I wanted to shout out “let your child fail.” The shouting was…

11 years ago

Students say “math class is stupid and boring,” and they are right. –Mathematician Paul Lockhart

I am working on some conference papers that touch on coding as a liberal art. While reviewing classics, like Stephenson's…

11 years ago

Surprise! ‘Star Trek’ gold shirts more deadly than red shirts

Fascinating. Barsalou then goes all math geek and applies to the data the Bayes' Theorem formula for calculating conditional probabilities.…

12 years ago

Journalist math fail: “New pay-per-mile scheme would boost taxes 250 percent”

Hold on... An on-again, off-again move by the Obama administration to scrap the federal gas tax in favor of a…

12 years ago