Happy St. Patrick's Day 2015!

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(C)Copyright 2015, C. Burke.

The comic is incorrect. It derives with respect to Snakes. There should be no respect to Snakes!

Don't you love funny math comics? I do.

Have A Happy Pi Day! (Just Don't Set It to Music)

As you are obviously aware, if you read this blog or troll any other mathematically-inclined site, today is The Pi Day of Our Lives!

Don't worry, now! I'm not about to invoke a similar sounding song title by One Direction (although I did consider it) because I've used that song before. That's why I settled for Row, Row, Row Your Boat" yesterday. I made a little comment in that comic that I want to expand upon.

Did you know: you could take the digits 0-9 and map them to musical notes and by extension fill pages of music sheets with the first few hundred digits/notes of pi?

Did you know: if you did this, you could be sued for copyright infringement?

Because you wouldn't have been the first one to have the idea. Someone else did, and he recorded it, copyrighted it, and has defended that copyright against anyone who tried it later. Now, I realize that copyright is an important thing and that compositions need to be protected and all that ... But come on now!!!

This wasn't an original work created from the artist's soul. It's a series of numbers.

So while the law will tell you that he copyrighted a musical composition, your mind wants to scream "He copyrighted pi?"

Which is the reason I explicitly stated yesterday that the copyright applied only to the image and not to the numbers therein.

But what a thought that'd be!

Pi Day 2015 (A Day Early)

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(C)Copyright 2015, C. Burke.

You would be correct to celebrate at 9:26:54, but like with the Millennium, you'll miss all the fun.

Back in the old days, when Dad would tell stories about him and his buddy Archimedes, we used 3.14 as an approximation to pi, or sometimes 22/7 is slightly closer. For more accuracy, we had to use 3.1416 -- not 3.1415. For this reason, I included that parenthetical (8). Rounding is important is mathematics! And in science!

Not so much in Marketing. Did you buy a shirt? I didn't. I'd save it for tomorrow and then it'd be "old" whenever I wore it again. Awkward! As if being a math geek wasn't bad enough!

Speaking of tomorrow: I'm trying to keep to a pseudo-regular schedule, and Friday posts are more well-received than Saturday posts. Just saying. And marketing, too, I guess.

Happy Friday the 13th! and enjoy the best Pi Day of Your Life ... so far.

Don't you love funny math comics? I do.

Thoughts About Inscribed Angles and Arcs

In the past year and a half or so, I've been assigned to team teach with several different math teachers. I've been assigned to different schools in Brooklyn, with different pacing calendars. Because of this, I have happened to be in Geometry classes with three other teachers as they covered the various topics relating to circles: diameters, radii, chords, tangent, secants, arcs and angles. This past week, something occurred to me as I watched and assisted in another lesson.

When presenting the initial definition of inscribed angles and stating the relationship between the inscribed angle, the central angle and the intercepted arc, I generally see the same initial image.

This is a fine place to start, with a dart-shaped object inside the circle, somewhat similar in form to the insignia of Star Fleet. (Well, that's why I like it.) But teachers have to make sure that they address possible misconceptions.

• Note that angle AOB is formed by two radii, which by definition are congruent. Angle ACB is formed by two chords? Is chord AC congruent to BC? They look that like or at least look close enough that the student might believe that the teacher meant to draw them that way. In truth, they might be congruent, but they don't have to be.
  
  
• Does the vertex of the inscribed angle have to be somewhere "behind" the center of the circle? The problem with the dart-like figure is that the center of the circle is situated between the two chords. This doesn't have to be true. Inscribed angles can have their vertex anywhere on the circle, with the exception of inside the intercepted arc being considered. If can be to the side so that the chords intersect the radii. It might be closer to the intercepted arc than the center of the circle. Points like this should be shown, although, admittedly, some points would be difficult to illustrate.
  
  
  
  
  
• Another point rarely made: after covering that the central angle equals the intercepted arc and that the inscribed angle is half the size of the intercepted arc, the next logical step doesn't get taken. Compare multiple inscribed angles intercepting the same arc. What is their relationship? Why?
  
  
  
  
  
  

Finally, there's a Special Case, which doesn't have to be presented as such -- at least, not the first time they see it. I see the special case just given that if an inscribed angle intercepts a semicircle, usually marked off by a diameter, then the inscribed angle is ________. STOP! Don't tell them. Ask them to figure it out using the rule for inscribed angles. Remind them, if necessary, that a diameter is also a straight angle with the center of the circle as its vertex. What is the measure of a straight angle?

What kind of angle does it have to be? Will it always be that for every inscribed angle intercepting a semicircle? Why or why not? What kind of triangle is inscribed in the circle? What do we know about the other two angles (taken together)?

With a little more variation in the foundation of the material, students will be better prepared for more complicated problems with "busier" images with criss-crossing chords or inscribed triangles and quadrilaterals.

Funny Math Comics

This post is nothing but a blatant attempt to capitalize on the search terms "Funny Math Comics".

I'm doing this because when I searched Google images, I had to scroll very far to find three of my images. Out of those three, two were hosted on other sites (not mine) and the third was actually a comic about Shakespeare.

Worse than that was the Yahoo search for "Funny Math Comics" which again yielded three results, and none of them were on my page.

Maybe I should talk to some of the folks whose work appeared a lot. Or maybe I need to add "Funny" and "math" as comment tags.

Don't know.

(x, why?) Mini: Fun With Tetrominoes, 2

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(C)Copyright 2015, C. Burke.

Maybe they should ask J-Z.

Fun fact: the J and Z subway lines travel together from lower Manhattan out over the Williamsburg Bridge through northern Brooklyn and into Queens. They don't travel anywhere near the Nets play basketball.

For more on Tetrominoes, click here.

1 - 2 - 3 - 4

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(C)Copyright 2015, C. Burke.

8 - 9 - 10 - 11 -- I couldn't fit these in the comic ...

This was originally going to be a "mini" comic, but then I realize that I hadn't used these guys a lot lately.
Unfortunately, that meant the comic was going to be much bigger because these guys are wider than a font.

Off On a Tangent

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(C)Copyright 2015, C. Burke.

Some teachers really go off on tangents.

This is another one that's been sitting in the joke idea box for longer than I can remember, but I never get around to doing. (Or maybe I just don't check that joke idea box often enough ... and there are several places where I write these things down, unfortunately.)

(x, why?) Mini: YOLO

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(C)Copyright 2015, C. Burke.

True story: First time I saw YOLO, I thought it stood for YOu LOse.

Then again, if you only live once, you WILL lose eventually.

Warning: Explicit

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(C)Copyright 2015, C. Burke.

Something about recursion makes me want to shout explicit things!

Heart and Eyes

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(C)Copyright 2015, C. Burke.

While a blue heart is kind of bad, blue blood is pretty good.

This comic is not meant to insult those with green or brown eyes by their exclusion.
However, anyone with a brown heart should seek medical attention immediately.

(x, why?) Mini: Septagon

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(C)Copyright 2015, C. Burke.

I think the only reason Septagon, as in September, isn't used is because then we'd have to use Sexagon for six-sided.

This leads to misunderstandings with Sexy Primes, of course.
Sadly, there are no Septy Primes