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Liquid Chessboard
Chessboard under regular (day) light. I used the computer controlled (CNC) Shopbot machine at the Techshop to drill out 64 square pockets in the shape of a chessboard. One of my students (Kathryn)...
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Getting Data into R
One of my students is taking an advanced statistics course–mostly online–and it introduced her to the statistical package R. I’ve been meaning to learn how to use R for a while, so I had her show me...
View ArticleLooking Behind the Statistics
For my statistics students, as we approach the end of the course, to think about the power of statistics and how using them, even with the best intentions, can go wrong....
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How to make a Boxplot in R
Guest post by Grace Appell. What is a Boxplot? A box plot is a graph that helps you to analyze a set of data. It used to show the spread of the data. In it you use five data points: the minimum, the...
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Math Flowcharts
Flowchart in progress. Showing topics being covered in basic statistical graphing. The topics they are working on at the moment are highlighted in yellow. The worksheets attached to each topic are...
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Basic R (using Covid data)
Once you start R you’ll need to figure out which directory you’re working in: > getwd() On a Windows machine your default working directory might be something like: [1] "C:/Users/username" On OSX...
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Radioactive Half Lives
Since we most commonly talk about radioactive decay in terms of half lives, we can write the equation for the amount of a radioisotope (A) as a function of time (t) as: where: To reverse this...
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Linearizing an Exponential Function: Radioactive Decay
Using this data for the decay of a radioisotope, find its half life. t (s)A (g)010010056.6570687620032.1002344130018.1870518840010.304250495005.8380862876003.307688562 We can start with the equation...
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What is Real? A Math Seminar (Prelude to Imaginary Numbers)
We had a really nice, thoughtful seminar discussion in Algebra II, with the simple question: What is real? I did this as a lead into the topic of imaginary numbers (). The distinction between tangible...
View ArticleCalculating π
A very good explanation of how Newton applied calculus to come up with a much more efficient method of calculating pi (π). It starts with a nice illustration of the relationship between π and the area...
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From Simple Equations to Complex Behavior
Another excellent video from Veritasium. Starts with the logistic equation and through a series of very clear examples gets to the relationship between growth rate (r) and equilibrium population. He...
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The Center of a Triangle
Laser-cut triangles showing the incenter, centroid, and circumcenter of an obtuse (slightly) triangle. There are a few different ways of looking for the center of a triangle. My geometry students did...
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