It's back to school season, and at my house that's already meant a lot of math. Both of my kids are taking quantitative science courses along with math courses, so every few nights I'm getting to help with math-related homework of one sort or another. It's an interesting opportunity to see what I remember and don't remember from when I took those classes, and what comes easier with more experience and what doesn't. Fundamental principles seem to stick better than specific techniques. For example, I helped my son with a … [Read more...] about Science Corner: Back to Math Class
number theory
Science Corner: Math Goes Sci-Fi & A Blog Film Festival
In the ten-day window when the dates are all palindromes (9 10 19, 9 11 19, etc.), let's have some math news. Fans of Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy can rarely pass up an opportunity for a 42 reference. The number is famously the answer given in the book to the ultimate question of life, the universe and everything. And now, it is also the answer to which number was most recently proven to be representable as the sum of three cubes. As with many math puzzles, the statement is simple but the solution … [Read more...] about Science Corner: Math Goes Sci-Fi & A Blog Film Festival