Did you hear about the mathematician who's afraid of negative numbers?
He'll stop at nothing to avoid them.

Good Job Opening

On the off chance a teacher is still subscribed to posts on my blog, Venice High is looking for math teachers. It was a great school to work at with a strong math department. It's where I taught when I left the Title I Part A PSP. Traci Nomachi  (tnomachi@lausd) needs internal LAUSD applicants.

Being a math teacher sucks

When the only response you get to, "I'm a math teacher," is, "Oh I was always so bad at math."

Come one! Come all!

Save APEX School

https://www.change.org/petitions/lausd-school-board-member-approve-the-apex-academy-high-school-petition-to-become-a-charter-school

Have a great thanksgiving break!

Assignment 13:
Pg. 175: 1-7 (all), 11-27 (odd).

Happy Last Day of School

I hope you all took something away from the PD today. I'd never used the program so sort of found it interesting. Have a great summer!!

Solution for "How Many Cubes?"

The answer is
Max = 20
Min =6

Hint 2 (of 2)

The cubes do not have to share sides. They can touch at corners or not at all. They can't float though.
I will post the partial answer at 8:45.

Hint 1 (of 2)

If you have the largest arrangement and you take blocks away from it one by one, it might help find the smallest arrangement.

How Many Cubes? (Math Forum Problem #17028)

Something interesting for before the summer hits :)


Here are the front view and side view of some cubes that I arranged.

Questions:

1. What is the largest number of cubes that I could have used to make this arrangement?
2. What is the smallest number of cubes that I could have used to make this arrangement? 

http://mathforum.org/pows/submission-flow.do?execution=e1s1

Summer Vacation

Have a great break. Hopefully teaching summer school (if you're going to) will be as easy as 3.14159265…

Religious Schools vs. Public Schools

As long as algebra is taught in school there will be prayer in school. -- Cokie Roberts

Post-Finals Advice

There are two rules for success: 1) Never tell everything you know.

Mathematical Certainty

Heisenberg may have been right.

Inside every large problem is a small problem struggling to get out.

Another (Optional!) PD...

A seminar on Time Travel will be held two weeks ago.

TED Talks - First iPad Textbook

Hi there. I thought that you might be interested in this:
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/mike_matas.html