Wikipedia Mathematics Portal

Like most every other internet user, I often end up at Wikipedia.org for one reason or another.  Yet I never realized that Wikipedia offers Portals for various categories, like Mathematics:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Mathematics

In addition to functioning as a doorway to the vast amount of mathematics available in wikipedia, the portal also offers up selected articles from the archives, a collection of clickable fun facts, and a Picture of the Month.

Applications of Government Data

This is a nice resource from The Guardian that highlights some of the ways developers are making government data accessible to citizens.

http://goo.gl/00jmo

The projects include housing price analysis, roadway usage, government spending, and aggregation of community information.

The site wheredoesmymoneygo.org is especially interesting:  slide the bar to your yearly income, and see just how much of your salary is spent on education, health services, defense, and other categories.

Lots of applications to play around with, and plenty of food for thought!

Fundamental Examples

Here is another nice crowd-sourced resource from MathOverflow.net:  a list of fundamental examples in mathematics.

http://mathoverflow.net/questions/4994/fundamental-examples

From the premise that a single example can often shape an entire mathematical discipline, a list of such examples is generated.

The list includes examples like the harmonic series in Real and Complex Analysis; the Brachistochrone problem in Physics; the Gaussian integers in Algebra; the Platonic solids in Geometry; and the Seven Bridges of Konigsberg in Graph Theory.

This is a great resource that provides accessible entry points to a lot of advanced mathematics!

Desmos, the Free Online Graphing Calculator

particles on ellipsesDesmos is a powerful, versatile, and free online graphing calculator.

Desmos combines the typical functionality of a graphing calculator with dynamic representation capabilities.  The result is an intuitive and powerful tool for demonstrating and exploring mathematics.

Desmos is one of the best things to happen to math in years!  It has quickly become an essential part of my math classroom.

Check out the software itself at Desmos.com.

And you can see some of the ways I use Desmos in and out of the classroom here, including resources from my Introduction to Desmos workshops.

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox

Join other followers: