A recent question about the resultant velocity of an airplane illustrates different ways to make a diagram showing the bearings of air velocity and wind velocity, and to work out angles without getting too dizzy.
(A new question of the week) Among many interesting recent questions we have one about vectors and equations in three dimensions. We’ll see four different ways to find the distance from a point to a line, proving two formulas and catching some of the errors one can make along the way. We’ll also see a …
(A new question of the week) The Math Doctors have different levels of knowledge in various fields; I myself tend to focus on topics through calculus, which I know best, and leave the higher-level questions to others who are more recently familiar with them. But sometimes, both here and in my tutoring at a community …
We’re looking at the Fibonacci sequence, and have seen connections to a number called phi (φ or \(\phi\)), commonly called the Golden Ratio. I want to look at some geometrical connections and other interesting facts about this number before we get back to the Fibonacci numbers themselves and some inductive proofs involving them.
(A new question of the week) I like problems that can be solved in multiple ways, which can train us in seeing the world from different perspectives. Late in November we dealt with a pair of such questions involving angles in star-like figures.
We’ve been looking at dissection puzzles, where we cut an object into pieces, and rearrange them. Here we’ll examine a mystery posed by two different puzzles, each of which seems to change the area by rearranging the pieces. The answer combines the marvelous Fibonacci numbers and [spoiler alert!] how easily we misjudge areas.
Last week we looked at a puzzle about cutting a square cake into equal pieces. Here we will be trying to cut a rectangle into two pieces and rearranging them to make a different rectangle. Three of the questions we’ll look at came within two weeks in 2001, but we’ll take them in a logical …
(A new question of the week) We usually see limits applied to functions in a calculus class. An interesting question from late October deals with a limit in a geometrical construction based on a function. We’ll be seeing how to discover a proof, then several alternative proofs, and finally what the answer means.
For the next couple weeks, we’ll look at a few “dissection problems”, which involve cutting a shape in various ways. Here, we look at what turns out to be a simple problem, though it seems at first that it would be complicated: dividing a cake into pieces with the same amount of cake and the …
(A new question of the week) Usually when we have a figure labeled with some lengths and angles, we can expect to find unknown angles using trigonometry. When we are expected to do this using geometry alone, we can expect that there is something special about the figure that makes it possible. But how to …