Thursday, May 9, 2013

Mathematical Beauty

This week has been especially beautiful, mathematically speaking.

n-body problems are interesting and challenging.  By using the laws of gravitation and a computer and some very clever symmetry, many beautiful (and in a perfect world, stable) orbits are possible!

This set of simulations is one of the most amazing and beautiful I have ever seen. Toggle the trajectories, particularly on the last two in the list.

http://www.maths.manchester.ac.uk/~jm/Choreographies/





Biofabric is a creative way to re-imagine network diagrams. What is particularly impressive is the short animation going from the old view to the new. See the blog detailing the process here.


before
after

Visualizing sports stats is a great way to engage students with the study of mathematics! Here are some of my favorites.  

http://statmilk.com/NFL/0/? and http://www.statmilk.com/NCAAF/0/? let you visualize just about anything you would want to know about the NFL and NCAA.





http://www.chartball.com/football/ offers a creative and interesting way to visualize football games. 



I hope you enjoy these and are able to work them into your classes.  I imagine that many interesting discussions can arise from having students explore statistics with the help of these websites. 

Tuesday, May 7, 2013

Math & Juggling Talks & Workshops

I had the pleasure of giving a talk about the mathematics of juggling at the University of Maryland for their annual Maryland Day celebration on 27 April 2013.

Here is a short news clip.



Math and Juggling (Recut) from Matt Meiselman on Vimeo.

And here is the promo JHU CTY Online did about my work and teaching philosophy:


I will be giving several other talks and workshops this year.  A tentative schedule is below.

Workshop, Demos & Appearances ==> Summer 2013

If you are interested in having me give a talk and/or workshop about mathematics, juggling, or both, please feel free to contact me via twitter: @mathteacher1729 or email: mathteacher1729@yahoo.com