Mathematics: All Classes: Wednesday 3.22.06 Period 1

[dorky-broots.livejournal.com]

"Good morning! Please wait until I finish giving the assignments for today before going back to sleep.

Now, you are all in this class for a reason. For most of you the reason is probably "we have to in order to graduate." But there are reasons to study, math really. So, beginners? You guys are going to come up with three real world scenarios where you would use any kind of math and then write a problem for each one. I'll walk around and help you out with the problems.

Intermediate, you're going to read Flatland. Yes, it has twenty-two chapters. Each chapter is at most three pages long, so please don't panic ahead of time. After you read, you will find a question that did not get answered, for instance: "How does A. Square eat?". Then, you will come up with a creative answer to this question while tying in something from mathematics. So a possible answer for me would be: "A. Square needs to eat e times his total perimeter each day. He moves towards his food and absorbs into his perimeter.". I'm sure you guys can be more creative.

All right, have fun! Oh, and if you want your current grades, talk to me after class."

Comments

Re: Beginners

[anole-x.livejournal.com]

After some thought, Victor wrote down the following:

1) I'm at the store and I buy a bag of Cheetos for 2.49, a frozen pizza for 11.99, and a six-pack of soda for 1.99. Also, I have a 15% off coupon for the pizza. So, what is the total?

11.99
2.49
+1.99
16.47

16.47
x0.15
2.47

16.47
-2.47
14.00

So, My total would be $14 even.


2)I'm in the kitchen, making Jello, and I need to figure out how many servings my pan will make. The pan is a rectangle that is ten inches long, eight inches wide, and four inches tall. The recipie, for some reason, says that each serving is twenty cubic inches.

10 x 8 x 4 = 320 inches

320 divided by 20 equals 16 servings total.


3) I'm walking in a park, and come to a map of the area. I see on the map that there are two paths I can take to get to where I'm going. An official one goes east for thirty feet, then north for forty, and someone drew on another one that starts and ends in the same place, but cuts across diagonally, and doesn't have any distance markings. I don't have a lot of time, so how can I figure out which path is quicker?

Since it's a right triangle, I just use the Pythagorean Theorem.

30 x 30 = 90
40 x 40 = 160

90+160= c^2 because the mun can't make the squared sign
250=c^2
50=c

So the diagonal path is 50 feet, which is less that 30+40, or 70 feet. I should take the diagonal path.

Re: Beginners

[anole-x.livejournal.com]

*massive facepalm*

Let's just pretend that the coupon is for 15% off the entire order, shall we? Oh my gosh, I can't believe I missed that.

And why am I so upset? I took AP Calculus my senior year. And yet I'm suprised that two plus two, yes, still equals four. *facepalm again*

Re: Beginners

[threeweapons.livejournal.com]

*flap* Don't worry about it. I'm in Ap Calc BC and about half the class (self included) has trouble doing simple arithmetic. What are calculators for then?

Re: Beginners

[anole-x.livejournal.com]

But when a giant EMI blast fries all calculators, what then, huh? Those who can do simple arithmetic will be royalty!. ;)

BC, huh? I'm not sure which one I took. I think it was AB.

Re: Beginners

[kikidelivers.livejournal.com]

More evidence for my theory that calc ruins the ability to do arithmetic! I took AP Calc BC, too, and really enjoyed it, but we all said at the end of it, "I can't do basic math anymore." I used to be able to do long division in my head with no problem, but in calc, I would do 2 + 3 = 6. *headdesk*