Universal?

There are symbols that transcend language and can be understood by all (or nearly all) people. Often road signs are designed this way, allowing travelers who do not speak the language of the country they are in to drive safely nonetheless.

Here are a couple of examples of symbols that seem to work well universally:




Such "universal," language-free symbols are also included on products, on assembly instructions or on tags of products that are sold in a variety of countries.

Today I had to wash an item I had not washed before. I looked at the tag, and it only had symbols on it. I had no idea what they meant. Thank goodness for Google and the internet! I was able to cross-reference the symbols and find out if the item was supposed to be washed hot or cold or what. I'm curious. Do you know what the symbols below mean? I am posting the answers in the comment section. No fair peeking until you've taken the "quiz."

Do people other than, say, dry cleaners or other professional launderers really understand these symbols? How did you do on the quiz?

According to the Quiz . . .

I am Blue/White
Take The Magic Dual Colour Test - Beta today!
Created with Rum and Monkey's Personality Test Generator.

I'm both orderly and rational. I value control, information, and order. I love structure and hierarchy, and will actively use whatever power or knowledge I have to maintain it. At best, I am lawful and insightful; at worst, I am bureaucratic and tyrannical.

Weekend Edition Puzzle

While listening to NPR's Weekend Edition yesterday, I heard the following puzzle, which was created by Scott Kim:

Name five two-digit numbers that are evenly spaced out — like 32, 34, 36, 38 and 40 — in which all 10 digits from 0 to 9 are used once each. What numbers are these?

My son came up with one answer, which I thought was the only one, but when I gave it as extra credit to my students today as they were taking their exam I saw two other correct answers as well. Can you solve solve this puzzle? Can you come up with more than one answer?

After December 17 I will put the answers I am aware of in the comments section. No fair peeking until you've come up with a solution of your own! If you come up with one I do not have listed, please comment and let me know!

PS I've also posted this on my "Fun Math" blog. If you are interested in more things of this type, you might want to check it out at:

http://heidifunmath.blogspot.com/

BY THE WAY, if you are reading this before noon on Thursday, December 17, you can still enter. Go to Weekend Edition at http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=121382258 for details.

Birthday Wishes and Quiz

It's just past midnight in my time zone, so I want to be the first to wish a happy birthday to my "twins" Nethe and Keith and Lawerence and Joan!! What a great day we were born on: two-cubed, three-cubed! Wherever you are and whatever you are doing, I hope it will be a wonderful day for you!

Here's a little math quiz for everyone else. Keith and I are going from being prime to being palindromic. It is the only time in our lives this will happen. How old are we? (I can't help it. I'm a math teacher. It goes with the territory!)

There's Gotta Be an Easier Way! (updated)

Click to enlarge:

PS: Happy Pi Day!

What special property does the following sentence have?

"I prefer pi."

To visit a site dedicated to Pi Day, click here.

Notice Anything??

I'm just REALLY hoping that the engineers who design the vehicles are much better at geometry than KIA's marketing staff that designs the advertising!

Are You a Detective?

Would you make a good detective? How much can you tell from this picture? Were the kids behaving well when they were asked to pose? Below are some questions with which to quiz yourself.

Questions:

1) Why is the boy in the front row crossing his arms like that?
2) Might that be a guilty smile on the face of the boy behind him?
3) What kind of crazy plant it that on the right?
4) Where was this picture taken?
5) How about age progression? If you didn't know me as a child, use my blog photo to try to determine which one I am in this picture.

Answers:

1) I'm pretty sure his arms were crossed in self-protection against tickling. That's my brother Tim, and he was known in childhood for how incredibly ticklish he was. There's a reason he was incredibly ticklish. I used to like to make "potions" and do experiments. One day I made "tickle powder." I told him what it was and sprinkled it on him, and he was outrageously ticklish from that time on. Can you say, "placebo effect?"

2) Putting 2 and 2 together, I'm guessing my cousin Danny back there was tickling Tim before the picture. Doesn't that smile look just a bit mischievous to you?

3) That's an avocado. Many years later, having forgotten this, I too grew an avocado - don't know why I did. Maybe it was a genetic pull. It's now become somewhat a part of family tradition.

4) Well, you'd have to be reading my posts AND the comments pretty closely AND click on the image to enlarge it to get this one (unless you're part of the family, of course). On October 8 I wrote about my grandmother's cookbooks, and a comment references where they were - on Grandma's shelves next to the fireplace. Well, if you enlarge the photo by clicking on it, you'll see cookbooks on the shelf. Pretty tough, but I figure there are some intrepid problem solvers out there! Hey, they would have figured it out on any of the crime-solving TV shows that are on these days!!

5) I'm in back in the red pantsuit with a big ol' watch on my arm. This is a picture of a group of grand kids. I'm the oldest grandchild on both sides of my family (which was really cool as a kid but not so cool now as I hit all those milestone birthdays first!! Thirty . . . uh . . . forty . . . uh . . . ).

PS Thanks for your comment on my October 8 post, Paula, which inspired this. I thought I'd put this up so it could be in more than just your mind's eye - and mine too! :-)

Preliminary Mind Games

I recently put this imagine on a post and asked what you thought it was.


Stay tuned for a related upcoming post.


For now you might want to check out another puzzle here.

(Others like this can be found at
http://fractaliathebook.blogspot.com/
in posts on or before September 14, 2006,
which is only a few posts down.)

Literati, ETC.

I've gotten into the habit of putting up pictures with my posts, but when I looked for an image of the board game we played tonight, Literati, I could not find one (and I was too lazy to grab the digital camera).

It's not surprising I could not find an image online. This game was created and produced by a group of students majoring in marketing at the local university. My husband found it years ago at a garage sale for one dollar. (Still, I thought there might be one on ebay - seems EVERYTHING is available online these days!)

It plays a lot like Balderdash (or the dictionary game), but I think it's far better. There are five categories, four require the creation of a definition (general, science, foreign and slang), and the fifth is a quote for which you need to guess the author.

I was really proud of some of my kids' definitions. My 10-year old came up with "rough draft" for the Italian word "prefisso," and my 13-year old defined "rhizome" as "the part of a plant cell that produces food."

It wasn't all seriousness, though, and we were laughing pretty hard by the end of the game. There were some pretty silly definitions too. It was also funny that my husband tried as hard as he could not to choose my definition for each word, but he almost always did choose it, which gave me points! :-)

We used to play this game with friends of ours, and we'd be nearly rolling on the floor laughing - more so as it got later!

I'm disappointed that Literati was not picked up and marketed by a game company. Currently I know someone who is throwing his hat in the ring as a game inventor; his name is A.J. McCaffrey. He's got great ideas and a great vision. His goal is to help people see more through creatively stretching their minds and in seeing more, perhaps being able to create more and in this way help the world to be a better place.

Promoting creative games is something we always want to do, so . . .

. . . more about him and his games in an upcoming post, but for now - on a related note - consider the following picture. What is it?

A Puzzle

Here is a puzzle for you. I will post answers in the comment section in two weeks.

The puzzle is to decipher the symbols on the image below (click to enlarge).


To get you going in the right direction, let me tell you this is a score card from a simple card game (Rook), which is based on bidding and the winner of the bid choosing the suit (color) that is trump and calling a partner.

A score card could simply consist of the players names with a running total of points below, but, my husband, like his father before him, has turned score keeping into an art form - recording every bit of minutiae possible.

Can you determine what all the extra symbols mean - the stars and o's and lines and letters and plusses and minuses and any other extraneous markings you see? They all have meaning and are not just doodles.

When we get back from Colorado in two weeks, I'll check the comments to see how you did!

Existence of God

Italian mathematician Guido Ubaldi (1671-1742)felt that the following was a proof for the existence of God, because "something has been created out of nothing."

0

= 0 + 0 + 0 + . . .

= (1 - 1) + (1 - 1) + (1 - 1) + . . .

= 1 - 1 + 1 - 1 + 1 - 1 + . . .

= 1 + (-1 + 1) + (-1 + 1) + (-1 + 1) + . . .

= 1 + 0 + 0 + 0 + . . . .

= 1

So we have begun with zero and built one out of it. As he said: "something has been created out of nothing."

Regardless of what you think of the conclusion he came to, is there a problem with the "proof" mathematically? If so, where is the problem?

Birthday Problem

Don't stop reading when you see the word math - because this is really cool and you'll miss it. (Besides, you can make MONEY on it if anyone is willing to take the bet!)

There is an interesting problem in math: How many people do you need to gather before you get to the point where there is a 50% chance that two people in the group share a birthday?

Make a quick guess before reading on.

It may surprise you to find out that if you have a group of only twenty-three people you have a slightly better than 50% probability that 2 of them share a birthday. If there are 30 or more people in the room the odds are overwhelmingly in your favor if you bet that two share a birthday. Most people have a hard time believing this, so you should be able to find someone to bet against you.

(The "twist" is that you can't specify the date. It's just any two people sharing A birthday. If you specify the date, the probability drops astronomically. So if you want to win the bet, don't say, "I bet 2 people in this room have a birthday on April 20." You will lose unless you know twins who are there with that birthdate!)

SO, what are the chances that I personally know MORE than two people that have today,the SPECIFIC date March 2, as their birthday?

While you ponder that, let me send out birthday greetings to the March 2 birthday people I know:

Mom
Uncle David
Michelle V.
Michelle V.'s mom
Kevin E.
Florence M.
Florence M.'s grandson
John F
My cousins' grandma on the other side

HAPPY BIRTHDAY to all of you!!!

And especially to Mom on a milestone!

Since it's not proper to share a woman's age, I won't say which. :-)

It must be that March 2 is a really good day to be born!

Can any of my readers beat my record of personally knowing 9 people with birthdays on the same day? You can't include celebrities or others outside your circle of friends and family - and no fair including multiple births.

Your Turn to Weigh in

No, don't worry, I'm not talking about a scale! (After birthday cake this weekend, I'm certainly not going anywhere near a scale!)

What I am talking about is hearing your ideas.

I was asked tonight if the following poem is a riddle and if so what the answer is.

Poetry can be interpreted different ways by different people. What do you think? Is this a riddle? If so, what do you think the answer might be? Is it not a riddle? If not, what do you think the meaning could be? (This is not a test, and I am not an English teacher. There is no wrong answer here, so don't stress, OK?)

The Bee is not afraid of me.
I know the Butterfly.
The pretty people in the Woods
Receive me cordially --

The Brooks laugh louder when I come --
The Breezes madder play;
Wherefore mine eye thy silver mists,
Wherefore, Oh Summer's Day?

(Emily Dickinson #111 c.1859)

(Context for question: My youngest niece will be reciting this poem Friday, March 2, and it would be nice for her to have some background on it if she is asked questions. Can you help her out? If you know me and are shy about commenting on a blog, feel free to email instead. Thanks in advance to all responders.)

Holiday Fun (Audio Quiz #2)

This holiday weekend it seems appropriate to post something light and fun, so here's Audio Quiz #2. This time each clip is from a movie. See if you can name the movie.

Movie 1

Movie 2

Movie 3

Movie 4

Movie 5

Movie 6

Movie 7

Movie 8

Movie 9

Movie 10

How did you do? Check "comments" section for answers.

(Click here to try Audio Quiz #1.)

Get Real!

My posting pace has certainly slowed in the face of my studies! I'm about to head to campus for my first mid-term in Real Analysis (affectionately known as "Real").

In a few hours I will know for sure whether or not I "get real!"

As I've studied, I've actually come to have a favorite line from my notes, that I'm sure you would love to know about. Here it is:

I've always used the fact that math is a language, often quite a foreign language, as a way to reassure my own students that I understand what they are going through and to encourage them in how to approach it. Here is proof positive that math is a (foreign) language. It's a good thing I LOVE languages!

Now it's YOUR turn to "get real!" Try to translate that line. Oh, come on, give it a try. I won't test you on it! Click on comments to see the translation into English.

Mathematical Koan

A koan is a story, dialog, question, or statement generally containing aspects that are inaccessible to rational understanding, yet that may be accessible to intuition. A famous koan is, "Two hands clap and there is a sound; what is the sound of one hand?"

After you've pondered that for a while, try this true/false math quiz koan:

Determine whether the following sentence is true or false:

"This sentence is false."

(If that isn't hurting your brain, you answered incorrectly.)

A

The title of this post is “A,” as in “Q&A,” so if you haven’t read “Q” yet, check it out.



This image isn’t a meteor or disguised space-craft or a catapulted rock. In fact, this boulder is not moving at all. This painting by René Magritte (1898-1967) is entitled La flèche de Zénon (Zeno’s Arrow).

Why “Zeno’s Arrow?” This is a boulder not an arrow.

Well, Zeno (490BC-425BC) is known for his paradoxes dealing with motion, two at least “proving” that motion is impossible.

1) DICHOTOMY PARADOX: In order to move a given distance an object must reach the halfway point, but before it travels from the starting point to the halfway point it must get halfway there, and before it reaches that point . . . (you see where this is going – nowhere!). If space can be infinitely divided, then an infinite number of time intervals must pass before an object moves any given distance, therefore it cannot move.

2) ARROW PARADOX: When an arrow is in a place just its own size, it’s at rest. At every moment of its flight, the arrow is in a place just its own size. Therefore at every moment of its flight, the arrow is at rest (i.e. not moving).

Although it seems gravity should pull the boulder into the ocean, according to these paradoxes the boulder is at rest and will remain so.

These paradoxes may sound silly (since you know that things actually do move), but try disproving them logically! If they don't work, why not?

Q

What is this?

- a boulder catapulted towards the ocean?
- a meteorite?
- the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs?
- an alien spacecraft in disguise?
- another planet with different graviation?
- a VERY heavy raincloud?
- something else?


Answer

Blast from the Past (Audio Quiz #1)

Guess the animated chacter:

1) Character #1

2) Character #2

3) Character #3



Guess the TV show from its theme song:

1) Show #1

2) Show #2

3) Show #3


Guess the TV show from a clip:

1) Show #1

2) Show #2

3) Show #3



(Answers will be listed in the comments section in a day or two :-)