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.
Appreciation Resources
TV Fractals
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.
Appreciation Challenge Resources
Crossword Puzzle: A Touch of Math
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.
Challenge NYT
Math Quiz: NYT Learning Network
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/2011/06/01/test-yourself-math-june-1-2011/
This problem is based on the dwindling availability of hospstal emergency rooms around the country.
Application Sports Statistics
Rating the Ballparks
In an attempt to rate the various Major League Baseball stadiums around the country, Nate Silver looked at the user ratings from online review site Yelp. Noting that every ballpark has at least several hundred user reviews, Silver compiled the data from Yelp’s 1 to 5 rating system to create an ordering of the stadiums. Once complete, the list creates a natural starting point to investigate questions like “Is ballpark satisfaction correlated with team performance?” and “How valuable is a retractable-roof stadium?”
Silver also provides the standard deviation for the ratings for each ballpark and explains the significance. Standard deviation is a measure of the dispersion of data, so a higher deviation means more extreme ratings.
A great, fun little project! What else can we rate using available user ratings?
Read the full article here.