Monthly Archives: February 2011

When to Call an Equation an Equation

Posted on February 15, 2011 by jrh794

An IBM advertisement in the March 2011 Atlantic starts “A computer has no problem solving the following equation, in a few hundredths of a second:” Then this hand-scrawled expression: This is not an equation and therefore cannot be “solved.”  It … Continue reading →

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I Did It Again

Posted on February 12, 2011 by jrh794

As you know if you have read this post, radical signs and I do not get along.  I am at the same point in the term and my students are again having trouble with simplifying .  The class didn’t go … Continue reading →

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Fibonacci Gambling

Posted on February 12, 2011 by jrh794

I call going  to Nevada “visiting my money.”  Years ago every time I went there I played blackjack.  One year I rode my bicycle down Nevada’s US 97 staying in small towns and gambling at the local casinos.   I was … Continue reading →

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A Year of Nights with Wondering – III

Posted on February 5, 2011 by jrh794

Solving Absolute Value Equalities and Inequalities We were working on solving absolute value equalities and inequalities.  A few days ago we went through the exercise I described in this post and now I was consistently and emphatically making connections to … Continue reading →

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Feedback From the Real World – The fate of the p-value

Posted on February 1, 2011 by jrh794

“Image you are flipping a coin a 1000 times. You get 537 heads. The probability of getting this result or “worse” using a fair coin is one percent.   But you didn’t get 537 or worse, you got exactly 537 heads. … Continue reading →

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