SamizdatMath

Howdy you all! You know, one of the things I love about people who don't know much about math is that they think that there's always one right answer to a math question. Well, there isn't: the reality is that most math questions (even seemingly simple ones like "how much is 2 + 2?") have answers like "well, it depends." In the case of "how much is 2 + 2, it depends on the base system you're working in: if it was base 3, then the answer would be 11 (1 group of 3 and 1 remainder), or it it was bas

First of all, let’s get one thing out of the way: Archimedes never used the Greek letter “pi” when he used it to calculate the area and circumference of a circle. No, never; so just by reading this blurb you've learned something new! The point of this activity is threefold: the first is to show that as you double the diameter of a circle, the area of that circle would quadruple. That’s a very important concept, because many of your students have only experienced relationships where if