One day in a week when you abstain from any mathematical activity—no preparing, no problem solving or posing, no marking—to give the left part of your brain a day off, while inviting the right part to take over.
Your mathematical sabbath could prove to be the most productive day of the week, as you let your logical mind recover and reenergize from a hectic week.
by Numerati August 17, 2023
The source that gives rise to art or contributes to a painting—unlike a dimensionless point with no length, area, or depth, a tiny dot still has an area.
A point may be likened to an idealized dot, which has been reduced to what mathematicians call an “infinitesimal.”
by Numerati November 25, 2023
A math calendar à la Singapour, which is designed in such a way that the answer to the problem on each day is the date on which the question appears, aims to develop in children a positive attitude towards the world’s most disliked school subject—when they are exposed to the beauty and joy of math rather than seeing it as a mere drill-and-kill subject.
The Singapore Mathematics Calendar—which takes three or four times longer to write than a typical assessment (or supplementary) math title, and costs a few folds more in publishing it—is a first in Singapore math publishing, as it offers students a creative and fun way to learning math, while honing their problem-solving skills.
by Numerati November 25, 2024
The use or misuse of AI to generate free algebra questions, most of which are quasi-plagiarized from social media platforms, where unknowns, variables, or parameters are represented by look-alike logos or trademarked symbols.
On querying ChatGPT to produce a sample of middle-school AI-gebra questions, Mr. Pinocchio was greeted with the following:
1. Solve these equations.
a) 𝕏 = 𝕏 + 1
b) 5 + 4x = 4(x – 2)
2. Find 𝕏 for which (𝕏 + 3)² = 𝕏² + 9.
3. Solve the following:
(i) 𝕏(2𝕏 + 3) = 2𝕏(𝕏 + 3)
(ii) (x + 2)² = x² + 4x + 3
1. Solve these equations.
a) 𝕏 = 𝕏 + 1
b) 5 + 4x = 4(x – 2)
2. Find 𝕏 for which (𝕏 + 3)² = 𝕏² + 9.
3. Solve the following:
(i) 𝕏(2𝕏 + 3) = 2𝕏(𝕏 + 3)
(ii) (x + 2)² = x² + 4x + 3
by Numerati August 04, 2023
When you can’t be a spectator vis-à-vis the world’s most disliked school subject, but you need to be a player to master it—reading or listening about math won’t make you fluent in the subject, but doing math will.
Like Christianity, math is a verb. Just like you can’t impact lives if you merely know about Jesus and His teachings, so reading pop math books without dirtying your hands is unlikely going to raise your quantitative literacy in meeting the technological challenges of the 21st century.
by Numerati December 06, 2024
When people apply to become permanent residents or citizens of another country, because they continually face job discrimination from both local and foreign employers, or from their own elitist government—the good jobs are given to those who were born or blessed with the “mathematical gene.”
Like millions of asylum seekers from developing countries and theocratic states, who fear discrimination for being gay or a woman in their country of origin, what are the chances that in a-not-too-distant future, math-anxious or mathematically challenged folks might also apply for mathematical asylum to live in some anti-multicultural or anti-woke societies?
by Numerati September 26, 2023
When economists observe that the fruit of choice among a large proportion of religious or superstitious folks is now the pineapple (which is offered as food to hungry ghosts or spiritual vagabonds, who have descended from hell to earth during the Hungry Ghost Festival or Seventh Month), thus making them hypothesize whether there is any correlation between the switch of fruit and Singapore’s newly elected President’s use of the pineapple symbol during his recent electoral campaign.
Would Tharmanomics last as long as the “fine” city’s ceremonial head of state remained in office, which could be a dozen years (if he’s re-elected after serving his first six-year term)?
by Numerati September 04, 2023