Every now and then you see something on the internet that leaves you dumbfounded.
Like this video of Magnetic Liquid Sculpture.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d44LW6KZ_iU
I honestly don’t even really understand what I’m looking at. But it’s amazing.
Packing things poses some surprisingly complicated mathematical problems. Like some of the nastiest problems in math, there isn’t necessarily a standard algorithm you can use to figure out how to pack things efficiently.
I tried to put five hard-boiled eggs in a cylindrical tupperware container.
But the top wouldn’t quite close.
Perturbed, I squeezed the eggs into the cylinder in a different manner. This took some doing, as they kept falling over.
But they fit! And amazingly, they didn’t even touch the bottom!
This is a cool video demonstrating a three dimensional gear-shaped cube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7j5jtVFmXI
I wonder what the possible applications of such a machine are.
This is cool video showing how to make fractal images with a video camera.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jj9pbs-jjis
By using the old point-the-camera-at-the-TV trick, and multiple displays, you can really get some beautiful fractal images! There’s some really great stuff beyond the Sierpinski-like triangle seen at the right.
I must say that I enjoyed the video more with the volume off, though.
Here is an original 15×15 crossword puzzle I constructed, called “A Touch of Math“.
A Touch of Math 2011 – Patrick Honner
I would rate this puzzle as easy, suitable for those without much puzzling experience.
As the title suggests, you don’t need any special mathematical knowledge to complete this puzzle. All of the long clues, and a few short ones, are math-related, but by no means is it entirely mathematical (constructing such a puzzle would be extremely difficult!).
Try it yourself, and feel free to use it with your students.