Month: June 2022

Making Sense of Imaginary Numbers

Several recent questions (including last week’s post) involved complex numbers, and made me realize we haven’t yet talked about them here. So let’s start a series on the topic, beginning with how we talk about them to students who are just meeting the idea for the first time, or are troubled by it.

Abraham Lincoln and the Rule of Three

For the last two weeks, we have examined new and old ways to think about proportions. This time, we’ll look at an old method called the Rule of Three (both “single” and “double”), and how you might have learned to solve these problems 200 years ago without algebra. Be prepared for a deep dive!