Paving the Alexanderplatz Efficiently with a Quasi-Periodic Tiling

See Ulrich Kortenkamp’s paper. Has anyone been in Berlin latley? Has this design been implemented?

Berlin’s Alexanderplatz and the quasi-periodic tiling designed to pave it

Read Full Post »

Andean Architecture: The power of the trapezoid

From John Baldwin:
You may be intrigued by the short essay and photos I have posted at
http://www2.math.uic.edu/~jbaldwin/pub/incaarch.htm
It suggests the mathematical problem. How you state and prove the statement: A trapezoid is stronger than a rectangle.

Read Full Post »

Immersive games beats classroom in maths?

Seb Schmoller sent me a link to a discussion of a paper
The Effects of Modern Math Computer Games on Learners’ Math Achievement and Math Course Motivation in a Public High School Setting, Mansureh Kebritchi, Ph.D., Atsusi Hirumi, Ph.D. and Haiyan Bai, Ph.D.
My main problem with the study is that I do not understand what they [...]

Read Full Post »

A thought once uttered is untrue

A comment to a phrase from a colleague’s letter:
…proofs lost something when they were written down…
Silentium
Speak not, lie hidden, and conceal
the way you dream, the things you feel.
Deep in your spirit let them rise
akin to stars in crystal skies
that set before the night is blurred:
delight in them and speak no word.
How can a heart expression [...]

Read Full Post »

The zero and the empty set

A discussion on the Dialogue on Infinity blog on an exciting topic: ” Is zero a anatural number?” led me to these comments about zeroes and empty sets:
Zero is not natural, even less so is the empty set.
A proof that any two empty sets are equal usually involves the use of the outrageously infinitistic [...]

Read Full Post »

Multiplication of squares

On a request from a colleague, I republish a post from my old blog.
My old friend and colleague Dmitry Fon-Der-Flaass left a comment to my post Binary numbers:
Offtopic: an elementary and natural proof that every number dividing X^2+1 for some X, is the sum of two squares. Is it in the spirit of your micromathematics?
Yes, [...]

Read Full Post »

This is how it should be done…

From FT:
Germans eye kindergarten for next engineers
By Richard Milne in Vienna
Published: June 16 2008 22:45 | Last updated: June 16 2008 22:45
Germany’s shortage of engineers has become so acute that some of its leading companies are turning to nursery schools to guarantee future supplies.
Industrial giants such as Siemens and Bosch are among hundreds of [...]

Read Full Post »

National Centre for Excellence in the Teaching of Mathematics

I write this during NCETM’s Annual Conference in London. For me, it is primarily an ethnographic experience. Almost no-one present at the conference appears to be a teacher from the “chalkface”; what is noticeable, however, is representation of charities, private sector and quangos. A partial list of organisations having delegates here:
Becta, Tribal Group, Saltridge [...]

Read Full Post »

Bibliometric

International Mathematical Union comprehensively trashes bibliometric and citation indices as means of evaluation of mathematical research. A letter from Laslo Lovasz, President of IMU:
Dear colleagues,
Today the IMU has released an important document, called “Citation Statistics”, which we want to bring to your attention.
IMU-Net 24 (July 2007) announced the creation of a committee on “Quantitative assessment [...]

Read Full Post »

Class wars in education: a counteroffence

From Mail Online:
Children should no longer be taught traditional subjects at school because they are “middle-class” creations, a Government adviser will claim today.
Professor John White, who contributed to a controversial shake-up of the secondary curriculum, believes lessons should instead cover a series of personal skills.
Pupils would no longer study history, geography and science but learn [...]

Read Full Post »