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I will be running an “In the Classroom” workshop at the 2012 Celebration of Teaching and Learning.  The conference is organized by New York and New Jersey public television stations, and hosts over 10,000 educators from around the world.

My workshop, “That’s a Good Question!” will focus on inspiring and structuring writing in math class.  It will run on Saturday from 2:30 -3:45 pm.

http://thirteencelebration.org/blog/bios/presented-by-math-for-america-5/2979/

I am honored to be presenting at this conference, and proud to be doing so as a representative of Math for America.

Enjoy the Celebration!

This is an amazing application of geodesics and vector functions:  finding the shortest underwater path.

http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2012/underwater-swarms-robots-0308.html

Robotic crafts that sweep the ocean depths in order to map the sea floor, root out pollution, or search for sunken treasure frequently need to answer the question “What is the best way to get from point A to point B?”

Finding the best path could mean many different things:  shortest in distance, shortest in time, shortest in energy used.  And it can be a tough problem even under the best of circumstances, much less when strong and variable ocean currents  are concerned!

But this team of mathematicians, engineers, and ocean scientists at MIT have done it.  Not only have they come up with a good algorithm for finding optimal paths for single crafts, but their methods also solve the problem for formations of crafts!

Another astonishing application of mathematics.

Welcome 2012!  It will be hard to measure up to the numerous numerical nuances of 2011, but the number 2012 does possess some interesting properties.

The prime factorization of 2012 is noteworthy:

Not only does 2012 have only two distinct prime factors, but the prime factor 503 is rather large.  In fact, 2012 is an unusual number, in that its largest prime factor is greater than its square root.

Also, since 2012 has exactly three prime factors, it is considered triprime (or 3-semiprime).

We might not enjoy as many special numerical days this year (like palindrome days or permutation days), but I do look forward to writing 2012 for the next 365 days!

This is an interesting article about some of the psycho-economical factors involved in gift-giving.

http://goo.gl/YJUQz

Starting with the premise “the best gift is something that someone wants, but would feel guilty buying themselves“, the author explores some interesting ideas, including the pain of paying.

Studies suggest that when consumption is directly connected to payment, the result is a decreased feeling of satisfaction in the mind of the consumer.  Regardless of the satisfaction one might feel consuming a product or service, the act of paying reduces that satisfaction.  Marketers go to great lengths to reduce this pain of paying; the success of credit cards is one example of this principle at work.

The author concludes that gift cards really are the best kinds of gifts:  not only can a person get whatever they want,  the card itself frees the user of the pain of paying, which itself may be the best gift of all.

This reminds me a bit of the curious psycho-economic results associated with pricing models I read about earlier this year.