1.31.2011

Let's write a Fibonacci poem!


Here is a new challenge, one that brings together Maths, poetry, food and learning about each other- we hope you find it appetizing!
But, first, a few words about Fibonacci and his numbers.
Fibonacci (c. 1170 – c. 1250) was an Italian Mathematician , considered by some "the most talented western mathematician of the Middle Ages". He is best known for spreading the nowadays Arabic numeral system in Europe and and for the number sequence named after him.
The first two numbers in his sequence are 0 and 1, then each number is the sum of the previous two: 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89...that is

There are many interesting things about these numbers, but maybe the most intriguing is they appear very often in nature: the petals of flowers, the arrangement of leaves on a stem or branches on a tree, the bees or rabbits population numbers, the fruitlets of a pineapple, the flowering of artichoke, an uncurling fern and the arrangement of pine cones and more, as you can see in the video.


We have already seen that Math and poetry are sometimes connected and one way of doing that is writing poems that have a Mathematical form, such as Fibonacci poems: the first two lines have 1 word, then 2 words, 3, 5, 8 etc.
Let us try to write a Fibonacci poem for each team, a bilingual poem (in English and our mother tongue) about bread (and what it means to us). It will help us learn more about our cultures and- why not?- about numbers and words!

Photo source and more information on the Fibonacci sequence here.

1.26.2011

A mathematical painting: a possible solution from Matera

A possible solution from Desirèe

bogdanov

Answer from Amsterdam to the Mathematical Painting.

Answer Mathematical Painting

Here our answer to the mathematical painting. We didn't give an answer to the painter and the name since that answer was already given.
This subject of removing brackets was by coincidence our last subject in our schoolbook!

1.25.2011

Riddle from Amsterdam

Here is a spicy riddle from Bugra from Amsterdam:


A tortoise is walking home to his well deserved piece of lettuce after his long working day. The distance to its home is 10 km. Since tortoises aren't usually in a hurry, he decided to take a five-minute break after walking half of the distance. The tortoise repeats this: each time it has walked half the remaining distance it takes a five minute break before continuing.


Will this tortoise ever get home? Explain your answer!


1.24.2011

A mathematical... painting!- a solution

Thank you for the nice riddle! Here is a solution from Ana (Bucharest).

1.19.2011

A mathematical.... painting!


We propose an artistic-mathematical challenge.

In this painting, realized in the late 1800s, a lesson of math is represented.

The teacher asked his students to do this operation in their minds:



I'll tell you that the answer is 2, now you need to find:
1 which property of these numbers could have been used to solve this hard calculation in your head
2 if this is the only series of 5 consecutive terms that has this property
3 the name and the artist of the painting and to which real character it's referred

Have fun!
I invite you to propose other artistic-mathematical games!


The Greek team found an interesting parallel to the beautiful paining.
Here is a photo from the Zosimaia Academy in the town of Yannina in Greece showing a trigonometry class. Note that there is a girl among the boys, too. We are guessing the photo is early 20th century.


Here is a nice Maths lesson we found, the boy looks a bit overwhelmed, does he not?
Photo © Victoria and Albert Museum, London

1.14.2011

We have a winner

After two rounds of voting, one by the students and one by the teachers, we finally have our winner!

It's Manal from Amsterdam.

Here is her winning logo!

1.07.2011

Stepping through a recipe card!



You see Ismail going through a recipe card.
Would it (theoretically) be possible to let the whole class 2vt (12 students) step through this card? If so, how would you do that?

1.06.2011

A Romanian tale: Five Loaves of Bread by Ion Creanga

This is a nice tale with a lot of Maths in it. Oana found it and wrote about it. We hope you like it!

Five Loaves of Bread


And here is the Mathematical "solution", sent by Mihnea.

Five Loaves

1.03.2011

Logo contest - the winners!






















Here are the six winning logos from every country. The teachers are now going to vote between these six logos to decide the overall winner.
Congratulations to these six winners!