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 : )
What is 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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Gunnery Quadrant for Cannons!
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/
MathHappens Conversation Cart at the Texas State History Museum
Quan Vuong and Samantha Trevino have been sharing some navigation innovations that allowed La Salle and other Explorers to cross to the new world with Bullock visitors on Tuesdays from 12 -3. Today they are talking about Mercator Maps, the distortion that occurs when you project to a flat surface and also how the ships navigators used the sighting of
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Survey Math and Methods at Pioneer Farms
Gunter chains, measurement tape, and an interactive scenario about unconventional survey methods.
Calculate like its 1878 at Pioneer Farms
Pioneer Farms is pioneering integrating math into their regular programming.
MathHappens Mailroom – What did we get?
I still need to track down “authorities” to verify, but this appears to be a real handwritten letter or speech written by a Robert Creuzbauer, a Texas surveyor about the VARA and Chain standards for measuring land. It gives a very clear description of the Vara standard and how it relates, or doesn’t relate to the Chains used elsewhere and
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