From the YouTube description:
Erica Flapan (Pomona College) explains why it is important to determine whether a molecule has mirror image symmetry, and discusses the differences between a geometric, chemical, and topological approach to understanding mirror image symmetry.
Source: http://www.xkcd.com/1242/
From the dual categories of “Someone Had To Figure This Out” and “Applied Mathematics At Work,” FiveThirtyEight.com has used a little algebra to answer one of our generation’s most vexing questions:
What’s the proper rate of descent during the “a little bit softer now” portion of the song “Shout?”
Here’s the link to the article: http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/shout-isley-brothers/
And, in case you haven’t been to a wedding reception recently, here’s the song:
A wonderful application of binary arithmetic is the extra sense of accomplishment I enjoy after completing my daily regiment of 1000 push-ups and 1000 sit-ups.
The title of this post, “To prove that two things are equal, show that the difference is zero,” is surprisingly handy in the secondary mathematics curriculum. For example, it is the basis for the proof of the Mean Value Theorem, one of the most important theorems in calculus that serves as the basis for curve sketching and the uniqueness of antiderivatives (up to a constant).
And I have a great story that goes along with this principle, from 30 years ago.
I forget the exact question out of Apostol’s calculus, but there was some equation that I had to prove on my weekly homework assignment that, for the life of me, I just couldn’t get. And for no good reason, I had a flash of insight: subtract the left- and right-hand sides. While it was very difficult to turn the left side into the right side, it turned out that, for this particular problem, was very easy to show that the difference was zero. (Again, I wish I could remember exactly which question this was so that I could show this technique and this particular example to my own students.)
So I finished my homework, and I went outside to a local basketball court and worked on my jump shot.
Later that week, I went to class, and there was a great buzz in the air. It took ten seconds to realize that everyone was up in arms about how to do this particular problem. Despite the intervening 30 years, I remember the scene as clear as a bell. I can still hear one of my classmates ask me, “Quintanilla, did you get that one?”
I said with great pride, “Yeah, I got it.” And I showed them my work.
And, either before then or since then, I’ve never heard the intensity of the cussing that followed.
Truth be told, probably the only reason that I remember this story from my adolescence is that I usually was the one who had to ask for help on the hardest homework problems in that Honors Calculus class. This may have been the one time in that entire two-year calculus sequence that I actually figured out a homework problem that had stumped everybody else.
I really enjoyed this article from Math With Bad Drawings: http://mathwithbaddrawings.com/2015/02/24/why-do-we-pay-mathematicians/
I’m taking a one-day break from my usual posts on mathematics and mathematics education to note a symbolic milestone: meangreenmath.com has had more than 50,000 total page views since its inception in June 2013. Many thanks to the followers of this blog, and I hope that you’ll continue to find this blog to be a useful resource to you.
Some other (probably useless) statistics: this blog has been viewed by readers from 167 different countries. Top viewership: the United States, India, the Philippines, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, Brazil, the European Union, United Arab Emirates, Germany, Taiwan, and Pakistan.
Twelve most viewed posts or series (written by me):
Twelve most viewed posts (guest presenters):
Top twelve search engine terms that landed people on my blog:
Twelve other search engine terms that caught my attention:
If I’m still here at that time, I’ll make a summary post like this again when this blog has over 100,000 page views.
Mean Green Math 