So good old Mathimoto has been going through some changes, and with these changes has come much busy-ness, but do not fret! The math continues, and indeed will improve...
For example, soon this blog will utilize the very useful technology of math markup languages. Which exactly, I'm not sure at the moment, but it will be done! And then you'll have nice little graphics here with all the equations and such.
But perhaps most dramatically, joining the crew will be segments by Mathimoto's good friend, a robot-man whose name escapes me at the moment (if he was a kill-bot I would be much scared by this development but fortunately he is not).
Now this blog was initially envisioned as a math blog above and beyond CS, but this is also a blog on the internet so it is natural that CS developments be of some concern. Yet do not fear, the math will not be enveloped, and to protect the math, Mathimoto's posts and his robot friend's will be kept separate. The math will go on!
Because Math rules!
Thursday, July 3, 2008
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Because Math rocks... and Raps
Now ever since Pythagoras, and indeed even before, math and music have been intimately linked. Yet in modern times we seem to have forgotten that. Well, here are some rappers bringing back the math... old school style.
What You Know About Math (Caution: the video has something like 20 seconds of dead air at the end, still awesome though) by TI-84
Math Rap 2007 by Billy Spivey
Show me a Sine by Franklin Gervacio
Math Rap 2008 by JD Freak Daddy
Calculatin' by Mr. Dobleman's Math Class, 2007 Deer Valley High School
Because Math is just that awesome, rap on!
What You Know About Math (Caution: the video has something like 20 seconds of dead air at the end, still awesome though) by TI-84
Math Rap 2007 by Billy Spivey
Show me a Sine by Franklin Gervacio
Math Rap 2008 by JD Freak Daddy
Calculatin' by Mr. Dobleman's Math Class, 2007 Deer Valley High School
Because Math is just that awesome, rap on!
Friday, June 6, 2008
Mathimoto's Real Complaint
My real complaint is I haven't been able to post more.
Alack, alack, alack. And the real victims are you good folk. But even Mathimoto needs a job, and rest assured once the job situation is stabilized, posts will come once more!!!
But in lack of that, let me give you a little play with number, related by the way, to some secret math speculation I'm doing.
If you want to find if a number is divisible by:
2, check if it's even. (Simple enough)
3, add all the digits and see if the sum is divisible by 3, if it is then the actual number is divisible by 3. (That's one of the cooler tricks)
4, if the last two digits are divisible by 4, then the whole thing is divisible by 4.
9, add the digits, and if the sum is divisible by 9, then the actual number is divisible by 9.
Do you see the suggestion here? Maybe there's a relation between numbers and their base 10-representation. Maybe... and maybe I'm getting close to it... maybe...
But what we do know for sure (to quote my good friend Kendrick), is that numbers are awesome.
NUMBERS RULE!!!!!!!!!
WOOOOO!!!!!!!!
Alack, alack, alack. And the real victims are you good folk. But even Mathimoto needs a job, and rest assured once the job situation is stabilized, posts will come once more!!!
But in lack of that, let me give you a little play with number, related by the way, to some secret math speculation I'm doing.
If you want to find if a number is divisible by:
2, check if it's even. (Simple enough)
3, add all the digits and see if the sum is divisible by 3, if it is then the actual number is divisible by 3. (That's one of the cooler tricks)
4, if the last two digits are divisible by 4, then the whole thing is divisible by 4.
9, add the digits, and if the sum is divisible by 9, then the actual number is divisible by 9.
Do you see the suggestion here? Maybe there's a relation between numbers and their base 10-representation. Maybe... and maybe I'm getting close to it... maybe...
But what we do know for sure (to quote my good friend Kendrick), is that numbers are awesome.
NUMBERS RULE!!!!!!!!!
WOOOOO!!!!!!!!
Sunday, June 1, 2008
Let me hear you say math... MATH!!!
A friend of mine once noted that it's a shame that math theory is becoming too complicated for normal people to play with.
But I don't think that it's a necessity, I think mathematicians just accept that this is the way the world must be, and thus refuse to take any effort to simplify mathematical theory.
And perhaps more importantly, new areas in math theory which might be more accessible to amateur innovation aren't being explored as vigorously as they should, largely because mathematicians are starting to forget what math is really about...
Playing with numbers.
Because numbers rock.
In that spirit, look at a list of squares
1
4
9
16
25
...
If you look at the differences between consecutive squares, you'll see a pattern and if you play with that pattern a little, you get...
n^2 = Sum from i=1 to n (2i - 1).
Think about it...
But I don't think that it's a necessity, I think mathematicians just accept that this is the way the world must be, and thus refuse to take any effort to simplify mathematical theory.
And perhaps more importantly, new areas in math theory which might be more accessible to amateur innovation aren't being explored as vigorously as they should, largely because mathematicians are starting to forget what math is really about...
Playing with numbers.
Because numbers rock.
In that spirit, look at a list of squares
1
4
9
16
25
...
If you look at the differences between consecutive squares, you'll see a pattern and if you play with that pattern a little, you get...
n^2 = Sum from i=1 to n (2i - 1).
Think about it...
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Primes, they aren't just for Transformers
It has to be said.
There is just something magical about primes.
I mean they are numbers that represent something basic. Multiplicatively, they can't be broken down and they end up becoming the special cases upon which every mathematical theory must be tried. And yet once you throw them into the world of math theory you get all sorts of weird math facts, that are just undeniably cool.
Like the fact that (p-1)! + 1 is divisible by p, if and only if, p is a prime.
Dude, like awesome.
And yet primes remain mysterious. It was only a few years ago people learned how to test if a number was prime within polynomial time (see here), people still can't prove that there are an infinite number of primes where p and p+2 are prime. And there's the fact that as you go to infinity, the number of primes approaches the function x/ln(x). Zuh?!
I say zuh not because prime numbers are hard to understand, although sometimes they are, but because their wonder and bounty are just mind-boggling.
So let it be understood then, primes are awesome.
And since primes are awesome, math is awesome.
Of course, this is but one of the proofs of math's awesomeness, which are as numerous as prime numbers themselves, and thus proven to be infinite.
There is just something magical about primes.
I mean they are numbers that represent something basic. Multiplicatively, they can't be broken down and they end up becoming the special cases upon which every mathematical theory must be tried. And yet once you throw them into the world of math theory you get all sorts of weird math facts, that are just undeniably cool.
Like the fact that (p-1)! + 1 is divisible by p, if and only if, p is a prime.
Dude, like awesome.
And yet primes remain mysterious. It was only a few years ago people learned how to test if a number was prime within polynomial time (see here), people still can't prove that there are an infinite number of primes where p and p+2 are prime. And there's the fact that as you go to infinity, the number of primes approaches the function x/ln(x). Zuh?!
I say zuh not because prime numbers are hard to understand, although sometimes they are, but because their wonder and bounty are just mind-boggling.
So let it be understood then, primes are awesome.
And since primes are awesome, math is awesome.
Of course, this is but one of the proofs of math's awesomeness, which are as numerous as prime numbers themselves, and thus proven to be infinite.
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
Tiding over the Tides
So again I must profess myself to be negligent in posting, but as a succor to all my math-starved public, I give you:
Vaguely math related youTube clips.
Because I'm lazy but still love my math.
Here's some funny math problems
Here's Ma and Pa Kettle tackling division
Here's Abbot and Costello showing how it's done right
And here are two songs with math in their titles. They're only about math about the same amount music is about math inherently (which is considerably) and perhaps they're about math in a metaphorical sense, but they're by cool bands so anyways:
The Never-Ending Math Equation by Modest Mouse
Black Math by The White Stripes
Ah, I regret that this is not as much Mathimoto as you deserve, but I must be going, stay strong, math-lovers, stay strong!
Vaguely math related youTube clips.
Because I'm lazy but still love my math.
Here's some funny math problems
Here's Ma and Pa Kettle tackling division
Here's Abbot and Costello showing how it's done right
And here are two songs with math in their titles. They're only about math about the same amount music is about math inherently (which is considerably) and perhaps they're about math in a metaphorical sense, but they're by cool bands so anyways:
The Never-Ending Math Equation by Modest Mouse
Black Math by The White Stripes
Ah, I regret that this is not as much Mathimoto as you deserve, but I must be going, stay strong, math-lovers, stay strong!
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Even Mathimoto Loves Quotes
Now man can subsist on Math alone, after all is not math the word of God?
(More or less)
But it does not harm things to check out the literate world, especially when it deals with Math. Now while I may have recommended you, my dear readers, to this site before, I'd like to make a second strong recommendation for the site, the site with the might of what's right:
Professor Matthias Beck's Mathematical Quotes Page!!!
And let me share with you a couple of the highlights:
"It is my experience that proofs involving matrices can be shortened by 50% if one throws the matrices out."
E. Artin (Geometric Algebra, p. 14)
"If things are nice there is probably a good reason why they are nice: and if you do not know at least one reason for this good fortune, then you still have work to do."
Richard Askey (Ramanujan and Important Formulas, p. 32, in Srinivasa Ramanujan (1887-1920), a Tribute, K.R. Nagarajan and T. Soundarajan, eds., Madurai Kamaraj University, 1987)
"Quapropter bono christiano, sive mathematici, sive quilibet impie divinantium, maxime dicentes vera, cavendi sunt, ne consortio daemoniorum animam deceptam, pacto quodam societatis irretiant."
("Thus the good christian should beware of mathematicians and all those who make false prophecies, however much they may in fact speak the truth; lest, being in league with the devil, they may deceive errant souls into making common cause.")
Augustinus (De genesis ad literam, Liber 2, Caput XVII, Nr. 37)
"If a 'religion' is defined to be a system of ideas that contains unprovable statements, then Gödel taught us that mathematics is not only a religion, it is the only religion that can prove itself to be one."
John Barrow
"Obvious is the most dangerous word in mathematics."
E. T. Bell
"Mathematics is a collection of cheap tricks and dirty jokes."
Lipman Bers
"We all agree that your theory is crazy, but is it crazy enough?"
Niels Bohr (1885-1962)
"5 out of 4 people have trouble with fractions."
Board in Danby, NY
"There are three kinds of people: those who can count and those who can't."
Bumpersticker on a car in Ithaca, NY
"The essense of mathematics resides in its freedom."
"To ask the right question is harder than to answer it."
G. Cantor
"Alice laughed: 'There's no use trying,' she said; 'one can't believe impossible things.' 'I daresay you haven't had much practice,' said the Queen. 'When I was younger, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.' "
"Where shall I begin" he asked. "Begin at the beginning", the king said, "and stop when you get to an end."
L. Carroll (Alice in Wonderland)
"I'm a mathematical optimist: I deal only with positive integers."
"The hardest thing being with a mathematician is that they always have problems."
Tendai Chitewere
"I saw, as one might see the transit of Venus, a quantity passing through infinity and changing its sign from plus to minus. I saw exactly how it happened... but it was after dinner and I let it go."
Winston Churchill (My early life, 1930)
"The mathematical phenomenon always develops out of simple arithmetic, so useful in everyday life, out of numbers, those weapons of the gods: the gods are there, behind the wall, at play with numbers."
Le Corbusier
"A mathematician is a blind man in a dark room looking for a black cat which isn't there."
Charles R. Darwin
"The grand thing is to be able to reason backwards."
Arthur Conan Doyle (A study in scarlet)
"Apu: In fact I can recite pi to 40000 places. The last digit is one!
Homer: Mmmm, pie."
"Homer: This time tomorrow, you'll be wearing high heels!
Ned: Nope, you will.
Homer: 'Fraid not.
Ned: 'Fraid so!
Homer: 'Fraid not.
Ned: 'Fraid so!
Homer: 'Fraid not infinity!
Ned: 'Fraid so infinity plus one!
Homer: D'oh!"
"Internet Guy: Your stock is at zero.
Bart: But I have 52 million shares! What's 52 million times zero?! And don't tell me it's zero!"
"(Homer has disappeared into a wall in the living room.)
Lisa: Well, where's my dad?
Frink: Well, it should be obvious to even the most dimwitted individual who holds an advanced degree in hyperbolic topology, n'gee, that Homer Simpson has stumbled into...[the lights go off] the third dimension.
Lisa: [flips the light switch back] Sorry.
Frink: [drawing on a blackboard] Here is an ordinary square....
Wiggum: Whoa, whoa--slow down, egghead!
Frink: ... but suppose we extend the square beyond the two dimensions of our universe, along the hypothetical z-axis, there.
Everyone: [gasps]
Frink: This forms a three-dimensional object known as a "cube," or a "Frinkahedron" in honor of its discoverer, n'hey, n'hey.
Homer's voice: Help me! Are you helping me, or are you going on and on?
Frink: Oh, right. And, of course, within, we find the doomed individual."
Matt Groening (Be sure to check out Andrew Nestler's Guide to Mathematics and Mathematicians on The Simpsons!)
(More or less)
But it does not harm things to check out the literate world, especially when it deals with Math. Now while I may have recommended you, my dear readers, to this site before, I'd like to make a second strong recommendation for the site, the site with the might of what's right:
Professor Matthias Beck's Mathematical Quotes Page!!!
And let me share with you a couple of the highlights:
"It is my experience that proofs involving matrices can be shortened by 50% if one throws the matrices out."
E. Artin (Geometric Algebra, p. 14)
"If things are nice there is probably a good reason why they are nice: and if you do not know at least one reason for this good fortune, then you still have work to do."
Richard Askey (Ramanujan and Important Formulas, p. 32, in Srinivasa Ramanujan (1887-1920), a Tribute, K.R. Nagarajan and T. Soundarajan, eds., Madurai Kamaraj University, 1987)
"Quapropter bono christiano, sive mathematici, sive quilibet impie divinantium, maxime dicentes vera, cavendi sunt, ne consortio daemoniorum animam deceptam, pacto quodam societatis irretiant."
("Thus the good christian should beware of mathematicians and all those who make false prophecies, however much they may in fact speak the truth; lest, being in league with the devil, they may deceive errant souls into making common cause.")
Augustinus (De genesis ad literam, Liber 2, Caput XVII, Nr. 37)
"If a 'religion' is defined to be a system of ideas that contains unprovable statements, then Gödel taught us that mathematics is not only a religion, it is the only religion that can prove itself to be one."
John Barrow
"Obvious is the most dangerous word in mathematics."
E. T. Bell
"Mathematics is a collection of cheap tricks and dirty jokes."
Lipman Bers
"We all agree that your theory is crazy, but is it crazy enough?"
Niels Bohr (1885-1962)
"5 out of 4 people have trouble with fractions."
Board in Danby, NY
"There are three kinds of people: those who can count and those who can't."
Bumpersticker on a car in Ithaca, NY
"The essense of mathematics resides in its freedom."
"To ask the right question is harder than to answer it."
G. Cantor
"Alice laughed: 'There's no use trying,' she said; 'one can't believe impossible things.' 'I daresay you haven't had much practice,' said the Queen. 'When I was younger, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.' "
"Where shall I begin" he asked. "Begin at the beginning", the king said, "and stop when you get to an end."
L. Carroll (Alice in Wonderland)
"I'm a mathematical optimist: I deal only with positive integers."
"The hardest thing being with a mathematician is that they always have problems."
Tendai Chitewere
"I saw, as one might see the transit of Venus, a quantity passing through infinity and changing its sign from plus to minus. I saw exactly how it happened... but it was after dinner and I let it go."
Winston Churchill (My early life, 1930)
"The mathematical phenomenon always develops out of simple arithmetic, so useful in everyday life, out of numbers, those weapons of the gods: the gods are there, behind the wall, at play with numbers."
Le Corbusier
"A mathematician is a blind man in a dark room looking for a black cat which isn't there."
Charles R. Darwin
"The grand thing is to be able to reason backwards."
Arthur Conan Doyle (A study in scarlet)
"Apu: In fact I can recite pi to 40000 places. The last digit is one!
Homer: Mmmm, pie."
"Homer: This time tomorrow, you'll be wearing high heels!
Ned: Nope, you will.
Homer: 'Fraid not.
Ned: 'Fraid so!
Homer: 'Fraid not.
Ned: 'Fraid so!
Homer: 'Fraid not infinity!
Ned: 'Fraid so infinity plus one!
Homer: D'oh!"
"Internet Guy: Your stock is at zero.
Bart: But I have 52 million shares! What's 52 million times zero?! And don't tell me it's zero!"
"(Homer has disappeared into a wall in the living room.)
Lisa: Well, where's my dad?
Frink: Well, it should be obvious to even the most dimwitted individual who holds an advanced degree in hyperbolic topology, n'gee, that Homer Simpson has stumbled into...[the lights go off] the third dimension.
Lisa: [flips the light switch back] Sorry.
Frink: [drawing on a blackboard] Here is an ordinary square....
Wiggum: Whoa, whoa--slow down, egghead!
Frink: ... but suppose we extend the square beyond the two dimensions of our universe, along the hypothetical z-axis, there.
Everyone: [gasps]
Frink: This forms a three-dimensional object known as a "cube," or a "Frinkahedron" in honor of its discoverer, n'hey, n'hey.
Homer's voice: Help me! Are you helping me, or are you going on and on?
Frink: Oh, right. And, of course, within, we find the doomed individual."
Matt Groening (Be sure to check out Andrew Nestler's Guide to Mathematics and Mathematicians on The Simpsons!)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)