Rue Lagrange Paris, France 2013/03/12 On the flight to Paris, while I should have been sleeping, I was thinking about math. (Not entirely unusual apart from being some 30,000 feet above the Atlantic.) France is kind of a big deal for math history. One of the Paris’ oldest churches, St-Germain-des-Prés, entombs a portion of Descartes.0 … Continue reading Lagrange Four Squares
Austin, TX 2013/03/09 My esteemed colleague, Kelley, loves space, outer space in particular along with stars, NASA, telescopes0, and all space exploring accouterments. About a month ago, she was telling me about a special map, a pulsar map. A map like this was sent into outer space on the Voyager as a message to potential … Continue reading When 1 + 1 = 10
The Alamo San Antonio, TX 2013/03/06 Often the bane of elementary school students, long division tends to have a bad reputation. Hearing “I used to like math… until long division” is not uncommon. It is as if long division was out there on the playground, turning kids upside down and skating them down for lunch … Continue reading Long Division
Space Needle, Seattle WA 12/23/2011 Sitting in a coffee shop in 1959, Edward E. Carlson was imagining and sketching a tower of the future to stand tall above the 1962 World’s Fair in Seattle. After many iterations and the input of architect John Graham, the flying saucer-inspired shape we know (and, at least some of … Continue reading Angular Velocity
Austin, TX 2011/09/11 Ten years ago, I stood in shock, frozen in front of a TV in an apartment in Phoenix, watching as a building in New York City exploded and then crumpled to the ground. My mind and heart crumpled with it. In greater horror and confusion, I watched as a plane flew into … Continue reading Falling
Ecuador Guest chalker = Julie Friends of mine, Melissa, Orion, and Julie, traveled to Ecuador this summer. Melissa and her son, Orion, went south in June. In July, Julie was heading down to meet up with Melissa and Orion. She mentioned going to the Equator. First, rather dimly, I said something like, “The Equator runs … Continue reading Equatorial Distance
47th & 7th, NYC 5/29/2011 A few days before I left for New York, my friend Jason said, “You should put the formula for time dilation in Times Square.” Brilliant! I am not sure if we made it to Times Square proper, but there was bright light, noise, and people at the corner of W … Continue reading Time(s Square) Dilation
Madison Square Park, NYC5/28/2011 I was in NYC for a friend’s wedding. Big plans for the city: food, subway rides, Central Park, the Upper East Side, and chalk. On Saturday morning, I hopped a train to midtown and headed into Madison Square Park. The park had a large sculpture from Jaume Plensa. It stopped me … Continue reading Hexagons
Texarkana, AR & TX 7/8/2010 It has been more than a few months since I bore the heat of July to leave the distributive property across the state line. Laurie and I followed our noses down N State Line Avenue with Arkansas on our left and Texas on our right. For a moment I considered … Continue reading Distributive
St. Louis, MO 7/6/2010 Sometimes, people try to tell me the arch in St. Louis is a parabola. I am pretty sure it is not. A better model for the curve of the arch is the catenary – the path a hanging chain marks out. Granted, to get the Gateway to the West, you would … Continue reading Hyperbolic Cosine & The Arch
Footpath Math: Chalk it up to a math geek 