Vi Hart's Math Doodling

I just came across a phenomenal math blog with lots of different fun components - from mathematical music to mathematical food, but my favorite is the mathematical doodling. This is a fun, high-energy, beautiful exploration of some math topics. I hope you like it. You can go there by clicking the following link: http://vihart.com/doodling/

Mind Reading Three

The Prediction @ Yahoo! Video

Squaring Trick

Amazing Moebius

This is a Moebius Strip in the creative work of M. C. Escher. A Moebius Strip has amazing properties. You can explore these by making your own Moebius Strip (without the ants!) quite easily. Take a strip of paper, give it a half-twist (turn one end over), and then tape the ends together. The result should look like the following:


Some things you might want to try are to put a dot in the center and trace a line along the "length" of the loop until you come back to where you started. Is this the same thing that would happen with a regular loop of paper? Now that you have a line along the center all the way around, grab a pair of scissors and cut along that line. Is this what would have happened with a regular loop of paper?

Much art, including sculpture by Max Bill and engravings by M.C. Escher have been based on the Moebius Stip and its properties. Stories have also been written, incluing "A Subway Named Moebius" by A.J. Deutch and "The No-sided Professor" by Martin Gardner.



And then there are the people who REALLY know how to have fun with a Moebius Strip, such as the creators of this video!

(Music by Didier Soyuz. Animation by Johnny Rem.)

Notice how the character goes around and around but is on top one time and bottom the other . . .

MatheMAGIC

Click HERE to see a show by MatheMAGICIAN Arthur Benjamin.

Mandelbrot Zoom

This looks like a piece of art but is a mathematical graph. Just have fun with it, though - watching the colors. Math can be beautiful!

Truth or Dare!

Math isn't just numbers and shapes. It's logic too. The riddle in the video clip below from the movie Labyrinth is modeled after puzzles by logician Raymond Smullyan (whose books I highly recommend!!). Would you have figured out the right door to go through? Below the clip is a riddle for you to figure out. Good luck!




You are on a new reality TV show, you are the last survivor. You have dropped by parachute on a very bizarre island in the middle of the Pacific. There are two types of people living on this island, Northerners, who ALWAYS tell the truth, and Southerners who ALWAYS lie. You will win one million dollars if you can figure out the identity (Northerner or Southerner) of each of three people that you are presented with. If you cannot figure it out, you don't get the money, the program doesn't air, and you're left on the island for life.

The first of the three natives says something, but you don't hear it. The second of the natives says, "The first guy said he was a Southerner." The third native says, "Don't believe the second guy; he's lying. What the first guy said was the truth."

Who's who?

Math by Abbot & Costello

7 x 13 = 28
Right?!

Lou Costello of the comedy team Abbot and Costello can prove this three different ways.
Would you be able to explain to him why he's wrong?!
If not I guess you'll just have to accept that he is right!

Impossible Triangle & MCE

This object is known the Penrose Triangle or Penrose Tribar, after Sir Roger Penrose, the mathematical physicist (and recreational mathematician who created it. Dutch artist M. C. Escher was interested in mathematics and used this impossible mathematical shape twice over to create his lithograph "Waterfall" in 1961. Can you see where and how it is used? After figuring that out, you might want to check out the wild video on YouTube posted below Escher's work.