Human Calculator Skills

I decided to research about Shakuntala Devi. One story that I found in multiple places was about her childhood. Her father was a circus performer and when she was only 3 he discovered her abilities for math. He recruited her to help with his card tricks. I was curious as to how her math skills helped with card tricks so I decided to look into that further. On this website  I discovered that she also had a photographic memory. She memorized the order of the cards in the deck, then was able to guess a card. Also as part of her father's circus, she performed math problems in her head quickly. This was the beginning of her lifelong fame and performances as the "human calculator". 

One other interesting tidbit that I learned was how much Devi saw math in her everyday life. This is expected of a mathematician, but I thought it was interesting to the extent that she saw math in our world. Besides seeing math in flowers and hearing it in birds chirping, she saw it on license plates. This website talks about how she would see a number on a license plate, then play with it. For example, when she saw the number 720 she came up with this: 1 x 2 x 3 x 4 x 5 x 6 equals 720. 

Beauty and Geometry

I think that it is amazing that Tom Zhang had enough patience to solve this problem. He keeps repeating that if you are focused and work hard enough for long enough that you can solve any problem. He keeps repeating that his quiet peaceful personality is what allowed him to work for so long. I think that it takes a certain person to be able to be this focused on math. The person must love math, and must love doing math just to do math. The person must be somebody that is happy to work alone for years. I agree that a person like this is born, not made.

This article made me think that math can be not only a school subject, but a lifestyle. Tom Zhang spent hours a day doing math, and even when he wasn't doing math, he was doing math. He would think about math while doing other things, and when taking a break from his math by taking a walk, he often got new ideas. The peace he found in doing math transferred into his everyday life, and he seemed like a very clam man in the interview.

I think that the main message to take away from this is to find something that you love and emerse yourself in it and to not give up.

Fractions in the Fast Lane (except it's just fractions)

Every student has to do homework at some point, and every student at some point just wants to be done with their homework. But unlike what I imagine other students do, when I am in a rush to be done with my homework, I actually end up doing extra work. I want to know how much homework I have left, and how long it will take me, so I use math to figure that out. I count the number of pages in my history textbook that I have to read, and add the fractions of the pages. .25 + .5 + 4 pages = 4.75 pages more to read. I figure out how many math problems I have to do, then how many parts there are in each question, and then I can figure out how the fraction of the homework that I have done, and what fraction more I have to do. I also look at how many subjects I have homework to do for a night, and then assuming that I have the same amount of homework in each subject, I figure out what percentage done I am with my total homework.

In addition to fractions, I figure out at what rate I am doing my homework for a certain subject, or I know my typical rate from past assignments, and so then I can figure out about how much homework to expect. For example: if I am reading a page every 2 minutes, and I have 4.5 more pages to read, I can figure out that I'll be working for about nine more minutes (assuming I don't get distracted again doing math to figure out what fraction of my homework I still have to do).

Really, doing this math is a hindrance to my homework, and I end up doing extra math trying to figure out how much math homework I still have to do, but it helps keep my mental math skills sharp.

9%

A grade is a slope, or the rise over run. It basically measures how steep a canyon, road, or handicap ramp is. This relates to right triangles and tangents. Finding the tangent can find the grade of the slope. Trains have less gradeability (the ability to ascend grades) than cars. On railroads, a steep grade can be a problem. Even a 1% grade could cause the train to be able to pull half of what it could pull on a zero grade surface. So, for grades steeper than 7%, a rack railway is typically used. This helps keep the train on the tracks. When I say a 1% or 7% grade, its just the ratio of the grade multiplied by 100 into a percent. For example: a 0% grade is flat, and a 100% grade is straight up. A 1% grade has a slope of 1/100.

Why are We So Illiterate in Mathematics?

I think that there are two main reasons that Americans aren't that good with math:

The first is because in general we haven't been taught to love math. In elementary school, we have one teacher for every subject, and in my experience, the teachers weren't very enthusiastic about math. They were more interested in writing and creativity. Their disinterest in math rubbed off on us, and made a lot of us dislike math. In addition to that, the textbooks we were working in tended to only teach us the very basics, and not have any problems that required us to think hard. To me, something is more fun if I actually have to use my brain to do it. I think that if there were more teachers that were enthusiastic about math, like at the Academy, American kids would be taught to love math, and by extension, become better at it. 

My other idea is that technology allows us to become more lazy. We no longer have to think to find the answer to 12 times 11, we can just punch it into our calculator. In addition to using technology as tools, we have access to information instantaneously, which could make it very easy to cheat. And if you cheat, you're not really learning. A common stereotype is that Americans are lazy, and I think that if we have access to these tools, we will use them. We will begin to think less and less and understand less and less math.

In response to Ms. Mariner's blog post:

 I think that this blog is about how somebody's perspective on something can change. In this example, you didn't appreciate the roses and thought that they would die, but after trying to trim them you discovered that you could tend for a plant without it dying. Your perspective on peaches also changed. You went from hating them to loving them. This can be applied to almost any situation in life, including math. If you let yourself try something new you may find a new passion and really discover that you love it. Your whole perspective can change. 

I have actually experienced this with math. I hated math in elementary school because it was so boring, but during 7th grade, my perspective changed because I started having fun. Now, while I don't love math, I also don't hate it.