-
42 votes
-
Can YOU win rock, paper, scissors against Grey? 99.9999999% will fail.
40 votes -
How would you teach math differently to young kids if budget was not a concern?
It seems to me we teach kids math in a way that prioritizes mass teaching and resource management over the actual learning of mathematical concepts. We rely on paper and pencil, and maybe some...
It seems to me we teach kids math in a way that prioritizes mass teaching and resource management over the actual learning of mathematical concepts.
We rely on paper and pencil, and maybe some limited manipulatives like unit blocks, and there’s 1 teacher for every 15-30 kids or so.
What are some methods that might work better to establish a strong understanding of math if we were able to approach it differently?
Or what are some methods that have been proven to work in other settings and why are they able to be successful?
38 votes -
Are there politics in mathematics?
Curious if there are movements within the governance or research pertaining to the field that act to promote or suppress certain ideas? Was watching the “Infinity explained in 5 different levels”...
Curious if there are movements within the governance or research pertaining to the field that act to promote or suppress certain ideas? Was watching the “Infinity explained in 5 different levels” and thought… maybe there are trends for or against interpretations and/or abstractions that get a rise in people…
33 votes -
Why the world’s best mathematicians are hoarding chalk
27 votes -
God and the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics
26 votes -
COVID-19 kills renowned Princeton mathematician, 'Game Of Life' inventor John Conway in three days
26 votes -
What is a math department worth?
25 votes -
The inability to count correctly: Debunking the US National Institute of Standards and Technology's calculation of the cryptographic security level of Kyber-512
25 votes -
Teaching myself calculus at sixty-five
24 votes -
Seximal: a better way to count
24 votes -
Why do Biden's votes not follow Benford's Law? Debunking an election fraud claim
24 votes -
A mathematician has resolved the Sensitivity Conjecture, a nearly thirty-year-old problem in computer science
24 votes -
RIP: Kathleen Booth, the inventor of assembly language
23 votes -
Happy Tau/2 day everyone!
22 votes -
The Monty Hall problem
22 votes -
What statistic is absolutely mind-blowing?
Contrary to popular belief, if you're in a position where you need CPR from cardiac arrest, you only have a 5-10% chance of surviving after an attempted resuscitation.
22 votes -
Not every student needs Algebra 2. UC should be flexible on math requirement.
21 votes -
The Era of 1-bit LLMs: All Large Language Models are in 1.58 Bits
21 votes -
An aperiodic monotile exists!
21 votes -
How I'm able to take notes in mathematics lectures using LaTeX and Vim
20 votes -
Can you set a clock using a light sensor to detect sunrise and sunset?
While pondering an off-grid microcontroller project, I got to wondering: A light sensor can obviously detect day vs night. So it could be used as a very cheap way to set a device's clock - but how...
While pondering an off-grid microcontroller project, I got to wondering: A light sensor can obviously detect day vs night. So it could be used as a very cheap way to set a device's clock - but how accurately? To within an hour? A few minutes? How would you do it?
Questions that arose from this include:
- Should it detect dawn/dusk (light <-> dark transition), or noon/midnight (brighest/darkest time) ?
- How do dawn/dusk times relate to clock time? Does it depend on lat/long?
- If using dawn/dusk, what light level threshold to use?
- The same threshold for dawn & dusk, or different ones?
- Better to detect a darker threshold (start of dawn, end of dusk) or a lighter one?
- Some days will be lighter/darker than others, so how to manage averaging of times?
- How accurate could it be made?
My naïve first stab at this would be: Pick a light threshold. Record the dawn/dusk times according to that threshold. Average them, call that "noon", and gradually tweak the clock time over several days to bring it into line with the sensed/calculated "noon" - but a searching for graphs of sunrise/sunset times quickly showed that the midpoint of sunrise & sunset is not noon.
Googling threw up lots of results for sensor lights combining a clock and a photocell, but I couldn't find anything about using the photocell to set the clock. So does anyone know if this has been tried before? Is it a non-starter for some reason?
Edit:
Perhaps it's worth sharing the project I had in mind, which is a rain alarm so I can rush out and get the washing in from the line when it starts to rain. I was thinking how annoying it would be if I left it switched on and it rained in the middle of the night and the alarm woke me up. So I decided should automatically avoid triggering during the sleeping hours of night (say 10pm to 8am). My first thought was a photocell so it wouldn't trigger when it's dark. Then I remembered that it gets light at 3am at the moment, which wouldn't work. So it needs a clock. How to set the clock:
- Manually - Needs a user interface with buttons and a display. Seems overkill just for a clock.
- Serial port - Clunky to plug a laptop in just to set the clock.
- WiFi - Needs a username and password or WPS, and an ESP32 or similar - again seems overkill just to get the time.
- GPS - also overkill and expensive.
19 votes -
A math problem stumped experts for fifty years. This grad student from Maine solved it in days
19 votes -
Happy Universal Palindrome Day!
19 votes -
Is the era of the $100+ graphing calculator coming to an end?
19 votes -
It’s time to talk about ditching statistical significance
19 votes -
Any good Youtube channels on learning Data Structures and Algorithms, especially the math part?
Hello Tildes, I am currently taking DSA in college and struggling a lot with the math and algorithms. Recently had to solve Karatsuba questions and I don't even know what I wrote down on the...
Hello Tildes,
I am currently taking DSA in college and struggling a lot with the math and algorithms. Recently had to solve Karatsuba questions and I don't even know what I wrote down on the paper. I have been trying to look for videos on this and only really came away with a vague understanding.
What I've noticed is that I struggle with solving the math part of the questions.
For example: "Describe a divide and conquer algorithm to compute the square
of an n-digit integer in O(n log3 5) time, by reducing to the squaring of five [n/3]-digit
integers"I have zero clue how I am supposed to understand the latter half of the question. It makes no sense to me beyond I am supposed to be multiplying squared numbers. How do I even begin to turn this into an algorithm? What is the solution even supposed to look like?
Needless to say, I've struggled with math my entire life and I've been trying for years to be decent with it, and I have nothing to show for it.
So, do you have any recommendations that could simplify the math needed for DSA? Videos are preferred but I will textbook recommendations as well.
Thank you, and have a good day!
18 votes -
Even after thirty-one trillion digits, we’re still no closer to the end of pi
18 votes -
A sci-fi writer and an anonymous 4chan poster advance a mathematical permutation problem
18 votes -
How a Kalman filter works, in pictures
17 votes -
UK hobbyist discovers new unique shapes, stunning mathematicians
17 votes -
I need help with a story that involves math
I'm creating the concept for a story called The Little Differences. It's about an accountant that, one day, out of the blue, notices that a certain calculation is producing a slightly wrong...
I'm creating the concept for a story called The Little Differences. It's about an accountant that, one day, out of the blue, notices that a certain calculation is producing a slightly wrong result. Barely noticeable, nothing world-changing,
He runs it on the computer, tries different software, a physical calculator... everything gives a result that's a little off. When he checks on paper himself, he gets the correct result. But, to his surprise, everyone else tells him that he's the one that's off, and that the incorrect result is actually perfectly sound.
I need something that makes sense, mathematically. The weird result must be something that really is wrong, and not just something that programs sometimes get wrong (I don't want it to be explained at all... I mean, the reason why it is occurring must not be something easily reducible to some well-known malfunction). But it must also be minor enough for someone to miss, something that wouldn't really cause much trouble in the real world (is that possible? IDK).
Lastly: it must be something that I'm able to explain (on some level) to a non-math reader.
So, Tildes math wizzes, what you suggest? :D
17 votes -
42 can be written as the sum of three cubes, which was the last remaining unsolved case under 100
17 votes -
Venus is not Earth's closest neighbour
17 votes -
California needs real math education: an essay
16 votes -
California will discourage students who are gifted at math
16 votes -
Girls’ comparative advantage in reading can largely explain the gender gap in math-related fields
16 votes -
Knot theory: How the most useless branch of math could save your life
15 votes -
Obituary - Evelyn Boyd Granville, mathematician and programmer, space-flight trailblazer (1924—2023)
15 votes -
Digit Dilemma Plus - A mind bending puzzle game in only 1k of JavaScript
15 votes -
Mathematicians discover a more efficient way to multiply large numbers
15 votes -
Modern Arabic Mathematical Notation
15 votes -
The game of Set (and some variations)
14 votes -
Why the super rich are inevitable?
14 votes -
The more gender equality, the fewer women in STEM
14 votes -
Why do we still use COBOL?
14 votes -
Mathematician and game enthusiast Marcus du Sautoy discusses the iconic game of Risk
13 votes -
Steffen's polyhedron is a flexible concave polyhedron. Euler thought such a shape was impossible. I also show infinitesimally flexible polyhedrons and bistable polyhedrons.
13 votes -
Any good math textbook/book recommendations
I would like to get slightly more educated in mathematics again - I took some basic calculus and linear algebra classes while doing my degree, but most likely forgot what I learned for the most...
I would like to get slightly more educated in mathematics again - I took some basic calculus and linear algebra classes while doing my degree, but most likely forgot what I learned for the most part. Are there any good books that you guys would recommend for someone who wants to learn math again?
13 votes -
The unparalleled genius of John von Neumann
13 votes