Archive

Archive for October, 2009

On the relative size of things in the universe

Here is an amazing animation (flash) from the Genetic Science Learning Center at University of Utah (compare Powers of Ten). Thanks Dan Connolly!

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Why Johnnie can’t add

Quoting from the Town of Brookline’s newly chosen math textbook for sixth grade:

1 is to 1.67 as 6 is to 10

b/g = b/(b+g)     [this in a situation where b is nonzero]

Two figures that have the same shape are similar.

Figures that have the same size and shape are congruent.

Perimeter: The distance around a two-dimensional shape.

Percent [one word; used as a noun]

The exact value of pi is a decimal number whose digits never end or repeat.

Impact Mathematics, Glencoe McGraw-Hill, 2009

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Elements of Style

Just discovered Strunk’s “The Elements of Style” (1918) on Crockford’s web site.

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Blank post

This post was posted automatically by WordPress, then edited by Odontomachus so as to sow confusion as to what the comments were commenting on, what the post said before the edit or what it said after the edit.

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