Elizabeth Lay, Claire Steffen and I had the opportunity to present a webinar through the Texas Historical Commission today. We discussed ways that museums can enhance visitor experiences with math, showed a variety of examples of math activities at museum locations and talked about our process in developing connected activities. Our Presentation Slides are here The Handout Sign up to
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This Geometric Transformation shows how the sum of the first 6 Odd Squares is the square of 6, or 36. Its the classic “proof without words”. Freese’s Transformation also shows this relationship, but his “squares” all have sides sqrt 1, sqrt 3, sqrt 5, and so on. Freese Corel File, Adobe Illustrator File, Jpg printable
Here’s a fun one! Inspired by a conversation with Chris Daniels of Public Math. He said roll paper around a cylinder and cut on an angle to get an ellipse and produce a sine wave. So we did! And you can too. Then you can make a roller from ellipses, reflect your sine curve and roll the elliptical roller along
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Here’s an excerpt of a twitter conversation. Day before yesterday Aida wrote to get access to some of our files and ideas. Yesterday she made this amazing version of Napiers Bones that is in the National Archeological Museum in Madrid. Today I’m inspired by her project and want to know more about this version and I want to see that
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These two Pythagorean Theorem Puzzles were a hit with Paola Garcia’s middle school students. Paola mentioned that some students who are not as facile with pen and paper exercises excelled with the wooden puzzles and that overall everyone enjoyed them. Laser cutting files are posted here. These do not have the solutions etched into the board
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At the Showcase you can meet Elizabeth Lay, MathHappens’ Program Manager who is developing an innovative new unit. MathHappens has obtained an original manuscript written by Texas surveyor Robert Creuzbauer that details a dual system of land measurement standards unique to Texas. The new unit will connect Texas History and Mathematics curricula addressing TEKS for both math and history.
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Click here to watch a short video featuring veteran MathHappens intern, now staff Josephine Sheng and another mystery box.
We are very excited to have a real Vara Chain! To relive the suspenseful opening of the box, check out these 1, 2, 3 riveting videos. Or just zoom in on the letter and read it : )
Math Happens… just about everywhere. This is a very old hoof gauge that we found on a trip to Sheridan, Wyoming. It looks like good luck and math mixed together. The arm of the hoof gauge moves up and down. The arrow points to the measure. A healthy angle for a horse hoof is approximately 54º. Many experienced farriers know
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Mike Bailey of the Brazoria County Historical Museum provided us this photo. He is using our model Gunner’s Quadrant with a cannon there at the Museum. We based our model on the one seen above in an article on Nicholas Tartaglia, the inventor of ballistics. https://www.famousscientists.org/niccolo-tartaglia/