Day 17: Heart of Mathematics

• Last time: cardinality measures the size of infinite sets. Everyone's welcome at Motel Infinity! These infinite sets contain no "last" member.

• Today:
  • Homework assignment #2 is due.

    Our upcoming visitor, Ivars Peterson, recently produced a piece in Science News about how Sunflowers twist in Fibonacci spirals! Check it out....

  • Reminder: Project Assignment 2 (due 10/4): let me know what your topic is, and some preliminary details about what your poster will cover.

  • Project idea: Zeno's Paradoxes

  • Which ping pong ball is left in the barrel? (the time steps are related to Zeno's paradoxes....)

  • Rational numbers are countable?

  • Let's look at the problems:
    • II.7
    • III.1

• Next time: Infinities!

Links:

• An Introduction to Infinity (You can't get there from here)
• What is a number?
• More on Zeno
• The guy who introduced me to Zeno, on the paradoxes (a little dry, however!)
• Zeno's Paradox of the Tortoise and Achilles