Humor... Californians on Immigration

Humor...

The latest telephone poll taken by the office of the Governor of California asked whether immigration a serious problem:

35% of respondents answered: Yes, it is a serious problem
65% of respondents answered: No es una problema serio

35% implies 35:100 or 35 out of every 100. Therefore, 35 out of every 100 Californians think immigration is a "serious problem."

MLK Used Words Like Finite and Infinite

Yesterday was Monday, 15 January 2007. Every January 15th
is Martin Luther King Jr. Day. I begin Spring semesters
with a MLK quote. This year the quote contained the
words "finite" and "infinite."

"We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope."

The finite/infinite quote resulted in the BAB
(Basic Arithmetic Bit) titled MLK Quote on MLK Day 2007

More Math, More Chemistry, More Social Studies?

It appears as though Tom Horne's initial response to Arizona's
P-20 council recommendation that high-school students should have
more math is not completely sync'd with his current position.
Initially, I read where Horne said requiring more math will
result in higher drop-out rates and he has presented data to
support his expert opinion. In later reporting, I read the
following: "State schools chief Tom Horne wants to expand
the AIMS test to include subjects such as American history,
chemistry and trigonometry." I'm not sure anybody has said
anything about "more math" implying trigonometry, but if Horne
is concerned about dropout rates--I'd be concerned about the
requiring chemistry along with trig.


Note: Arizona's Instrument to Measure Standards tests (AIMS)
is adding a biology component in 2008.


With respect to expanding AIMS content, the EastValleyTribune.com
quoted Horne saying the following: "There are a number of elementary
schools where they've stopped teaching science and history. That's
a catastrophe. This is the only solution. We've been trying to urge
(teachers) to teach science and history and the arts, but if we don't
test it ... they don't do it."

Babies Might Be Able To "Sense" Math

I was surfing the web and came across a news item about how six month old babies can "do math."

They started the show with two dolls. Before the show ended, a doll was removed and then the infant's vision was blocked with a screen. When the screen was taken away, either one doll was left, as expected, or two dolls, which would not be mathematically correct. The infants looked at the screen longer (8.04 seconds) when the number of dolls was two, which did not agree with the solution of 2 - 1 = 1.

Just like Bob Dylan's Mr. Jones... the babies know something is
happening, they just don't know what it is.

A Very, Very, Very Small Math Blog

Math is a "hot" topic as we enter into 2007. Numerous states, including my home state of Arizona, are looking at their educational systems to see how they can improve the math skills of K-12 students. Math has become a worthy blogging topic.

I wanted to call this blog the MathBabbler, but there was already a mathbabbler.blogspot.com website; therefore, this blog is named NanoMath. This blog doesn't have anything to do with nanotechnology; however, some of the math postings will be nanotech related.

I have a MathBabbler blog on one of my websites, but it's a "readonly" blog and nobody can make comments. I suspect many MathBabbler postings will also get posted to this NanoMath blog.

http://deru.com/~gdt/math/babbler