MathsClass

The Perfect Tree 2 Feb 2013

How could estimation or measurement stopped the problem the Griswold's had with their Christmas tree?

A story for Trigonometry 2 Feb 2013

A story that I use with my Year 10s each year about using Trigonometry "in the field". I used to work in telecommunications, and used trigonometry to calculate the height of trees.

The Story of 1 2 Feb 2013

The story of the number 1 is the story of Western civilisation. Terry Jones, of Monty Python fame, goes on a humour-filled journey to discover just what an amazing tale lies behind the simplest number we have. Using Pythonesque computer graphics, 1 is brought to life in all its various guises.

Car Racing (Linear Relationships) 2 Feb 2013

A maths lesson activity with a toy car.The video shows the results when the car is pulled back 5 cm, 15cm and 25 cm. In Part Two of the video, the results are shown when the car is pulled back 10 cm, 20 cm and 30 cm.My thought is that the teacher would show the first three results and make a table of the data. Then, make predictions for 10 cm, 20 cm and 30 cm.See mathsclass.net blog.

Flaw in the Enigma Code - Numberphile 2 Feb 2013

The flaw which allowed the Allies to break the Nazi Enigma code.

158,962,555,217,826,360,000 - Numberphile 2 Feb 2013

The Nazi's Enigma Machine - and the mathematics behind it - was a crucial part of World War II.

Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Half 31 Jan 2013 · via woojm

A simple game where you find thirteen ways to show one half.

Hypatia explores the locus of the ellipse to explain planetary orbits 28 Jan 2013 · via Nordin Zuber

5 minute extract from the film "Agora" - an imagined biography of Hypatia of Alexandria. Suggests Hypatia may have worked out the elliptical orbit of the planets around the sun (possible given her commentaries on Apollonius and work on astronomy - but history records this was done by Kepler 1300 years later). This YouTube version has subtitles burnt in - but other versions have poor sound.

Carl Sagan describes Kepler’s discoveries of elliptical orbits 28 Jan 2013 · via Nordin Zuber

5 minute extract from Carl Sagan's "Cosmos" series. Explanation of Kepler's Laws of Planetary Motion - with good mathematical description of ellipses.