MAT 115: Mathematics for Liberal Arts

• Syllabus
• Assignments
• Office hours:
  • M 2-3
  • W 2-3, 4:50-5:30
  • TR 12:15-3
  If those won't work -- just email me! I'll find some other time.
• Your project and logo

• Daily Agendas:

  Chapter 1: Number systems and trees Day 01: Welcome! Day 02: What is six? Day 03: Primitive counting Day 04: Binary factorization Day 05: Yanghui's Triangle Day 06: Pascal's Triangle Day 07: Babylonians and Mayans Day 08: More Babylonians and Mayans Day 09: Fraudini Nim Day 10: Fibonacci numbers Day 11: Review for Exam Day 12: Exam 1

  Chapter 2: Geometry Day 13: Symmetry Day 14: yrtemmyS Day 15: Duality Day 16: More wallpaper Day 17: Fractals Day 18: More Fractals Day 19: Mobius Bands Day 20: Knots and Links Day 21: More Knots; Review Day 22: Exam 2 Day 23: Distinguishing knots Day 24: Tricolorable knots

  Chapter 3: Wild Stuff Day 25: Infinity Day 26: Bigger Infinity! Day 27: Pascal miracles.... Day 28: Ping-pong miracles Day 29: Logo Day! Day 30: Project Day!

• Lessons for life:
  1. Keep an open mind.
  2. Just do it. Jump in. Make mistakes and fail, but never give up.
  3. Often when we've done it once, we do it again. Follow up one good deed with another!
  4. Understand simple things deeply.
  5. Break a difficult problem into easier ones.
  6. Look for patterns and similarities.
  7. Explore the consequences of new ideas. Generalize.
  8. Examine issues from several points of view.
     Don't be a turkey -- be a dog! (this one may require a little explanation....)
• Links:
  • Dominique Ehrmann's "Time to Break Free", which inspired Mathemalchemy
  • L-System Fractals
  • In the End It All Adds Up to -1/12 -- the sum of all the natural numbers.....
  • Vi Hart
    • Vi Hart draws fractals
    • Vi Hart draws Fibonacci spirals
    • Vi Hart teaches us how to finger-dance in binary: here's the video.
    • More fantastic math videos from Vi Hart
    • Vi Hart's website
  • The Colorful History of Binary Arithmetic
  • The Khan Academy discusses the Monty Hall Problem: Advanced Monty Hall, and Generalization of Monty Hall
  • Keith Devlin pours cold water on a lot of the Fibonacci/Golden Ratio mania (while giving a great introduction to Fibonacci himself).
  • Hilbert's Hotel
  • Patterns in Nature
  • A history of math timeline
  • A good reference on Mayan mathematics, and a short one Mayan Math
  • Plato discussing the Platonic solids (search for "cube" to find the discussion)
  • Nice website with examples of Cantor, Koch, and other fractals
  • Anna Tyng.... Inhabiting Geometry
  • Fractal generation
  • Fractal quilts (and the fractal sums that took me to them!).
  • New Twist on Old Chemistry: Chemists have synthesized the first stable molecule twisted into the shape of the famous one-sided Mobius strip, proving a prediction made nearly 40 years ago.
  • Norsemathology wiki
  • Tom Lehrer sings math music (here are the lyrics).
  • An on-line game, another form of Nim. There are four rows, of 6/5/4/3 pearls. One chooses any number of pearls from a single row, and the last one to take a pearl is the loser.
  • Sunflowers and Fibonacci: An interesting group participation project for the Manchester Science Festival: growing sunflowers!
  • Imhotep: Doctor, Architect, High Priest, Scribe and Vizier to King Djoser of Egypt
  • Leonardo da Vinci's Polyhedra
  • Paper Folding - Models of the Platonic Solids, and Platonic solids in 2-D (paper template)
  • Graph paper (double-sided)

Notes:

• Feel free to email me with your questions.
• The Departmental Syllabus for all Mathematics courses is a part of the syllabus for this course. Additional information concerning Secondary Education Students is available on the Departmental Syllabus.
• Taking tests in my classes
• Suggestions for the NKU Math/CS student
• Free tutoring for any NKU student is available from the the learning assistance center, BEP 230: call 5475 before problems arise!
• Women in Transition (WIT) supports non-traditional female students, juggling school, work, and family. Call the Women's Center at 572-6497 for more information.