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Ed's Scribbles
Your friendly study buddy's blog, preparing you for college.
Harvard and MIT Announce edX
EdX is a not-for-profit joint venture between Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to offer online versions of their classes and those of other universities. At the same time, edX will support Harvard and MIT faculty in conducting research on teaching and learning on campus through tools that enrich classroom and laboratory experiences. The goal of this initiative is to create a global community of online learners while improving education for everyone. To learn more about edX, visit http://www.edxonline.org.
Hard Problems is a feature documentary about the extraordinarily gifted students who represented the United States in 2006 at the world’s toughest math competition—the International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO). It is the story of six American high school students who competed with 500 others from 90 countries in Ljubljana, Slovenia. The film shows the dedication and perseverance of these remarkably talented students, the rigorous preparation they undertake, their individuality, and the joy they get out of solving challenging problems. Above all, it captures the spirit of math competitions at the highest level.
Although American students on the whole rank well behind many countries in mathematics, American math Olympiad teams regularly finish among the top teams. While aiming to inspire and entertain, Hard Problems provides an insightful and thoughtful look at the process that produces successful teams, and ultimately, great mathematicians of the future.
Hard Problems takes a close look at exceptional students who make it to the highest levels of high school math, asking teachers, parents, siblings, the students themselves to shed light on what produces mathematical genius and how to nurture it. As we get to know them, the students in Hard Problems shatter many stereotypes and clichés about the mathematically gifted.
For more info visit http://www.hardproblemsmovie.com/synopsis.html
A real maths problem……a real time problem which we go through every day…
Courtesy leanne ingram
(Source: i-am-not-a-bowtie)
An 18-page anecdotal corollary on living as a mathematician in public. An excellent read.
…here are a few birthday / age-related math riddles for you to ponder. I didn’t write any of them. The first is modified from the March 2012 edition of the New England Math League competition; the second is from an old newspaper clipping (source unknown); the third is the most confusing and the most difficult Algebra I word problem I’ve ever encountered (Algebra: Structure and Methodby Brown, Dolciana, Sorgenfrey, and Cole; p.449). Enjoy! 1. Dad and his two children were all born on March 18, but in different years. Today (their birthday!), the sum of their ages is 40, and the age of each is a prime number. How old is dad? 2. A man says to you: ”Two days ago, I was 28 years old. Next year, I will be 31 years old.” How is this possible? 3. A man is three times as old as his son was at the time when the father was twice as old as his son will be two years from now. Find the present age of each person if the sum of their current ages is 55 years.
The History of English in 10 Minutes
A compilation of ten videos on the history of the English language.
Video source: http://www.open.edu/openlearn/history-the-arts/culture/english-language/the-history-english-ten-minutes?track=378501f80b
(via smithsonianmag)
Coursera Founders: Andrew Ng and Daphne Koller, Stanford computer scientists
Named after the French physicist Léon Foucault, it is a simple device conceived as an experiment to demonstrate the rotation of the Earth.
The experimental apparatus consists of a tall pendulum free to swing in any vertical plane. The actual plane of swing appears to rotate relative to the Earth; in fact the plane is fixed in space while the Earth rotates under the pendulum once a sidereal day. The first public exhibition of a Foucault pendulum took place in February 1851 in the Meridian of the Paris Observatory.
Bottom: Animation of a Foucault pendulum at the Pantheon in Paris (48°52’ North), with the Earth’s rotation rate greatly exaggerated. The green trace shows the path of the pendulum bob over the ground (a rotating reference frame), while the blue trace shows the path in a frame of reference rotating with the plane of the pendulum.
(via crookedindifference)
