This is unbelievable: artist Simon Beck creates large-scale works of art by walking intricate paths in the snow. Check out the photos at his Facebook page:
http://www.facebook.com/snowart8848
Creating these works obviously requires great detail in planning and often days to execute. I don’t know how mathematical Simon Beck is, but his art is clearly mathematical in nature.
This really puts my snow art to shame. I’ll definitely aim higher next time!
In my Leap Day contribution to the New York Times Learning Network, “10 Activities for Learning About Leap Year and Other Calendar Oddities,” I calculated the odds of a person having a Leap Day birthday.
Assuming each day of the year is an equally likely birthday, and noting that there is one Leap Day every four calendar years, I calculated the probability to be
P (Leap Day Birthday) =
or around 0.7%.
So how many people with Leap Year birthdays do you know?
My latest contribution to the New York Times Learning Network is a collection of teaching and learning ideas that use the New York Times to explore leap year and other calendar oddities.
The activities include day-of-the-week calculations, alternate calendar conventions, days and years on other planets, and reflections on the value of one extra day.
In short, there are plenty of ways to make the most of this quadrennial event!
Through Math for America, I am part of an on-going collaboration with the New York Times Learning Network. My latest contribution, a Test Yourself quiz-question, can be found here:
https://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/27/test-yourself-math-feb-27-2012/
This problem is based on the unlikely emergence of basketball star Jeremy Lin. How unlikely was his inaugural 7-game winning streak?
