Tools and techniques

What is a seemingly simple math tool or technique that has proven enormously useful to you? We asked around the office to get our employees' opinions:

source: commons.wikimedia.org

Tori: Her initial disdain for the Unit Circle has evolved into love. She remembers learning about it in 10th grade Pre-Calculus, and wondering why she would ever need it. Today, Tori is so glad for her teacher's regular unit circle quizzes- she's referenced her (completely memorized) mental unit circle countless times in university math classes.

Adam: As the Center of Math's top business guy, Adam has to say Microsoft Excel. He also brought up a second math trick: the tipping trick to determine 20% of your bill. If your total comes to $34.50, move the decimal over one place to get $3.45 (which is 10%) and multiply that by 2 to get $6.90, a precise 20% tip.

Have any other tools, tricks, or techniques to make math easier? Let us know what you think in the comments.

Math Class Reminiscing

We're wrapping up at the 2015 Joint Mathematics Meetings today! Thanks to everyone who visited our booth. To keep everyone thinking, we have a discussion post.

A stone tablet with Babylonian cuneiform. Source: wikipedia.org

If you could go back and re-take any math course, either because you liked it or think you would understand it much better now, which course would you take and why?

As a current college student, I still have plenty of opportunities to take math courses. However, if I could retake one that I've already completed it would be History of Mathematics. It was such an interesting class! I especially liked learning to count in all of the different number systems (for example: Mayan, Babylonian, and Ancient Chinese) and the bits of background that don't come up in regular math classes. Did you know the Pythagoreans were a cult?

Please let us know your thoughts in the comments!

-Tori

Puzzles and Games

Mathematicians are known to love puzzles. What is your favorite (physical or digital) puzzle game? Here at the Center, we asked around the office to get responses from our employees.

Dave: Solving proofs is a puzzle game, but he’ll play classic Sudoku puzzles in the newspaper if he’s really bored.

Adam: He plays ColorKu, a color-organizing game similar to Sudoku.

Tori:  Her favorite puzzles are Tangrams; she even downloaded a simple Tangram app on her phone. She also played 2048 for hours and hours last year.

Zach: He plays a game called “Buzz” with his friends. According to Zach:

"Basically, everyone sits in a circle and begins counting from 1 upward. The first person says "1", second person says "2" etc. However, whenever the digit 7 or a number that is a multiple of 7 comes up [this means 7, 14, 17, 21, etc.], that person is supposed to say "buzz" and the order in the circle reverses. If someone doesn't say buzz, or the order doesn't reverse, the game restarts. The goal of the game is to get as far as you can. We've never gotten past 70."

Let us know your favorite puzzle games in the comments!

Image credit: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/66/Jigsaw_puzzle_01_by_Scouten.jpg