My latest contribution to the New York Times Learning Network is a Math Lesson designed around exploring loan repayment and risk assessment in the context of the European Debt Crisis.
In this lesson, students interact with some cool infographics, collect debt data, run the numbers on possible loan repayment schedules, and explore an elementary notion of “risk” in finance.
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/2011/11/30/test-yourself-math-nov-30-2011/
This problem is related to the increase in on-line education services being offered by established colleges and universities. How much money is there to be made in this business?
At the Bridges Math and Art Conference in Portugal I learned quite a bit about mathematics and weaving. One of the many simple and fun ideas I left with was using weaving to explore tilings of the plane.
With some graph paper to plan your tiling, some pre-cut construction paper to assemble them, and some patience to work through the process, you can produce some nice results. Here are some examples from a recent Math for America workshop I led on Math and Art. More images can be seen on my Facebook page.
This story in the New York Times describes how dynamic ticket pricing is helping some Broadway shows stay profitable despite an economic downturn and decreasing attendance.
Variable ticket pricing allows theaters to change prices for seats according to week-to-week or even day-to-day trends that represent fluctuations in supply-and-demand.
According to the article, the theater industry experimented with dynamic pricing during some touring company productions and collected enough data to build a pricing model that could predict weekly box-office demand. The success of the model allowed them to implement dynamic pricing on Broadway, where they can now adjust prices to optimize sales and profits.
Dynamic pricing has long been used in the airline industry, where ticket prices seem to fluctuate almost randomly as a function of time. And last year, even the San Francisco Giants experimented a bit with dynamic pricing for their baseball games!
An interesting, and innovative, way to optimize revenue!
You can always count on a Science Center for some spherical architecture.
