Thank you, Math!

Journal writing in mathematics education is often perceived as a boring activity in getting students to reflect on their own mathematical thinking. Perhaps an appealing way to assess students' mastery of mathematical concepts is to encourage them to write "mathematical letters" to a buddy in the form of "thanks goodness for anything numerical or mathematical."

Let's look at a sample of these math-lite correspondences.

Dear Numbers

© mashable.com 

Thank you for being such a buddy I can always count on. You don't change because of geography or history. A while ago, you gave me an idea to blog on "Singapore Math by Numbers." Without you, the world would come to a standstill. You numbers don't just rule the world; today, you've been semi-elevated to a god—with all your metrics and analytics.

Numerically yours

Dear Calculus book

Thank you for letting me use you as a weight or support. Your thickness scares the hell out of so many otherwise intelligent mortals, especially those who have had an unpleasant experience with their high school math teachers. Besides, I use you as an inexpensive cure to help my friends and loved ones, who are suffering from insomnia—your deltas and epsilons are sufficient to hypnotize the hardcore sufferers.

Infinitesimally yours


Dear 1001

© shashindrasri.blogspot.com

You're a mirror to my numerical soul. Indeed, you provided me with so many oddities and idiosyncrasies about the Palindromic Family. In fact, I've started writing the first few chapters of "The Joy (and Pain) of Palindromic Numbers."

Palindromically yours

Dear LOGIC

Thanks for being such a reliable companion in my dealing with irrational and illogical folks. Your cold, austere character has put off many egos, who would otherwise have trampled over the rest of us.

Logically yours

An i-protractor
© 1mobile.com

Dear Protractor

I hope you won't go the way of the abacus or slide rule, because I'm seeing lesser use of you these days. Anyway, I promise to keep you as a vintage math instrument for my grandchildren.

Dear Compasses & Unmarked Ruler

Thank you for frustrating and humbling thousands of our mathematical forefathers in their futile attempts to constructing a square with the same area of a circle. To revive your popularity, I'll be conducting an enrichment math lesson on The Lost Art of the Compass.

Christmas all year-round

Dear 25

Thanks for confiding with me some of your innermost secrets, which allowed me to write some parallelisms between the king of the public holidays and the queen of the sciences. Don't worry, I'll dedicate CHRISTmaths to you on its silver edition.

Joyfully yours

Join the CHRISTmaths fan page.

Dear Boring Math Teacher

You provide jobs to half a dozen tutors, as they try to teach the most disliked subject in school in a less parrot-like manner! And your boring test of artificial questions only serves as a filter to separate the nerd from the herd—the mathematical goats from the sheep.

© business.mcmaster.ca

Dear Probability

Thanks for mocking my intuition and flawed logic. The answers to your problems have humbled the mathematical brethren, as you tease them with your counter-intuitive results.

 © tower.com

Dear FRENCH

Thank you for making me pronounce the first part of the word "factorize" to sound like the four-letter word. To test my hypothesis, I tried that trick on my French female teacher many moons ago, and the class then couldn't control themselves but burst into laughter*. 

Fact-ally yours

* Try this trick on your French-speaking friends and fans who speak English as a second or third language.

Dear Math Editor

Thank you for introducing me to so many conceptual and linguistic faux pas—I couldn't have fabricated them without your poor grammar and punctuation, and shaky grasp of some difficult mathematical concepts. Some are jaw-achingly funny. My collection of your blunders is growing, and I couldn't wait to compile them in a book for green editors. If only I knew earlier that "poor writes" could open up the doors to many freelance assignments. 

© 123opticalillusions.com

Dear Dice

Thank you for feeling so good in my hand and for showing me so many different possible outcomes. You've taught me a lot about chance and probability, and you look pretty sitting on my book shelves. That's where you'll stay. Love, Leah.

Dear Sex

Thank you for revealing to me your intimate liaison with the most boringly taught and disliked subject in school. And for giving me enough materials to writing and getting "Mathematics And Sex" published.  Indeed, MATH is a four-letter word! 

© mathandchess.net

Dear Chess

Thank you for using me to beat those older and smarter chaps. Mentally satisfying to "humble" them! But I can't stand you when you used the same trick on me years later—when those young geeks refused to let me win or draw even one game.

Dear Calculators

Although you had atrophied my mental calculation abilities, however, you're a God-sent tool to working out those tedious and mindless computations. I'm totally dependent on you for my everyday numerical chores—from calculating the waiter's tip to finding the amount I owe to the credit card companies. On the negative side, you've upped my innumeracy index by a dozen points. On a positive note, I wished you'd upgrade yourself to becoming an instrument of desire, just like the iPad. 

Dear Amazon.com

A trick-and-tricky math book 

Thank you for showcasing our math titles on your site, but we hate that 55 percent you're charging us every time there is an order for our books. When we factor in the time we need to dispatch them, and the shipping freight, most of us are only operating at a negative profit! Plus, your payment in US dollars, and your reluctance to link with PayPal, makes authors living outside the US hesitant to promote their titles on Amazon.

Dear ZERO

© spaceadventures.com

Thanks for sharing with me how you're once marginalized by your fellow numerals, and how you're even ostracized by the Catholic Church for calling you the "infidel zero." Your forgiving spirit towards the Pope and his bishops, and your revelation to Newton and gang regarding some of your oddities and idiosyncrasies, had earned you a numerical place in the Mathematical Hall of Fame. However, your critics never cease to call you the "troublesome zero."

Dear NOTHING

Folks always mistake you for the numeral zero—both of you are like faux twins. Zero is nothing, and nothing is zero. In fact, you're anything but nothing—you're something! Philosophers and mystics curse or deify you, with their ever-convoluted arguments—they've almost elevated you to the status of an atheistic religion. 

There's almost an alphabet for your name: abyss, chasm, emptiness, hole, pit, void, nothingness, nada, naught, …, nil, nix, zilch.

books.google.com

Dear Empty Set

Thank you for causing so much confusion among school kids. Do you exist or not? Are you really a set? Are you like a club with no members? Or, a bag without items? You're like something with zero nothings.

© shop.cafepress.com 

Dear Imaginary Numbers

Once upon a time, they denied your existence, just like your rejected, dejected, and ejected cousins, the negative numbers. But today, like zero, you're having the last laugh; in fact, we often take you, guys, for granted, albeit you prefer to keep a low profile. I wished school teachers won't tell the kids that you're complex, when you're really simple to manage.

Dear May 1

This is the only date in the year, when working folks don't have to labor. A day of protests and political rallies, you remind the masses of Karl Marx's words that workers of the world must unite—that they have nothing to lose but their chains.

© eoagh.com

Dear Black Hole

It's beyond my reasoning ability to understand the math that predicted your existence. Thank God, He produces a few Hawkings among His creation every century or so to reveal your galactic existence and importance. 

 © abqjournal.com

Dear Sudoku

You give me hope that in my golden years my chances of dying from schizophrenia or dimentia are significantly reduced if I indulge myself to playing with you more often.

Dear Numerology

© geocaching.com 

From the simple idea of digital root, you manage to bluff tens of millions of numerically challenged folks into believing that they can predict their good and bad days, and that they can take control of their future from their birthdates. Indeed, a pseudo-equation of yours is: f(birthdate) = lucky/unlucky days 

Dear iPhone

Thank you for saving me the trouble of having to carry a scientific calculator around. Yes, by a mere 90-degree turn, you magically turn yourself from a four-function to a scientific calculator. I look forward to seeing you functioning as a graphing calculator in a-not-too-distant upgrade. Hope you can strike a deal with Texas or Casio, just like you did with HP.

Dear Statistics

Thank you for revealing to me all your curves and standard deviations. However, I'm still confused about your three musketeers: mean, mode, and median. Which mean do you mean? Now I understand why some folks call you "Sadistic Statistics" for torturing hundreds of thousands of students every day.

Dear 13

© sabotagetimes.com 

I know you didn't deserve that awful publicity surrounding your name, especially when those superstitious folks wickedly try to associate you with some black Friday. You're just an innocent-looking prime who had suffered so much—far worse than 666 and 4444.

Thank you for providing me with rich materials to write about, every time you fall on a Friday. We, recreational math enthusiasts, feel a bit like "numerical hypocrites," when we can't help but gossip about the numerical quirks of Friday 13.

Un-triskaidekaphobically yours

Dear Death

Thanks for being the great equalizer. You won't let the rich and the powerful, or the arrogant and the haughty, live beyond their undeservedly numbered days. Three scores and ten, or a billion odd heartbeats—that's your deadline to them, all!

It's now time to write and e-mail some math-lite letters to the rest of us to read and enjoy!

Mathematically yours

Reference
Dieterich, L. (2011). thx thx thx: thank goodness for everything. Kansas City, Missouri: Andrews McMeel Publishing, LLC. thxthxthx.com

© Yan Kow Cheong, July 24, 2012

52 Ways to Become a Zero Hero

Not too long ago, even the Catholic Church banned the use of zero, blaming it as some Godless number. Today, in some religious or philosophical quarters, zero is still associated with some abyss, hell, or nothingness. And in mathematical circles, it took a while for mathematicians and scientists to treat zero just like the other nine numerals – indeed, zero was the last one to gain its rightful citizenship in the number system.

Despite zero’s early struggle to be recognized before it was eventually immortalized, how could we, mathophiles and mathophobes, play our part in promoting the idea that zero is not nothing, but something?

Here are some yearlong activities you may promote and pursue to elevate Zero to a Hero. Who knows? You may turn out to be a zero celebrity!

52. Buy a lottery with the four digits 0000, thus increasing your chances of probably being the sole winner.

51. Solve some math problems with zero clothes (in the privacy of your home), and get to share your aha! moments with your mature students.

50. Be part of a “Zero Tolerance Week” – no complaining or swearing for 24/7.

49. Solve the zeros (or roots) of some quartics (polynomials of degree 4) at a fast-food outlet, or while you are lining up in a supermarket.

48. Write some graffiti about zero, which would likely be a talking-point among geeky pedestrians during lunchtime or at pubs.

47. Call a dozen people with a phone number containing five or more zeros, and unearth any possible correlation between choice of digits and superstition.

46. Work out how many seconds you have left to live in standard form, and make every second count, before your last heartbeat.

A DIY Shirt

45. Wear a T-shirt with the words, “Zero is my hero!” and jot down the facial expressions of onlookers.

44. Tweet or blog about a stereotype on zero: “The rich are dispensers of zeros!”

43. Depict the imagery of some imaginary zero god, drawing people to “zero worship” instead of “hero worship.”

42. Write a novelette entitled, “The Naked Zero” or “A Tale of Zeros.”

41. E-mail a proverb or aphorism about zero to 100 friends, such as “Nothing ventured nothing gained,” and summarize their common responses in a pie.

40. Review 10 books on or about zero, and compile them into an e-book, entitled The Savage Truth About Zero, to be downloaded free of charge.

39. Write an anti-virus program that afflicts PC users with dates ending with a zero.

38. Count down to everything, NASA-style – from praying to playing to paying.

37. Call anyone you meet in the street a zero – a Zero Ridicule Day.

36. Create an optical illusion or random-dot stereogram about the number zero.

35. Imagine a world sans zero and write about its potential benefits.

34. Be a zero-schizophrenic, by zeroing on anything with nil, nought, and naught.

33. Be an advocate of the Zero Defect Movement – zero accidents, zero casualties, and so on.

32. Sponsor obituaries of strangers with zero heartbeats, who left zero savings for the family.

31. Give or ghostwrite eulogies of people with zero heartbeats, who used to issue or give away checks with no fewer than five zeros.

30. Send a month of problems to the Mathematics Teacher with all answers zero.

29. Give away a million seconds of your time to charity every year (about 34 days of 8 hours) at zero costs.

28. Google “zero,” and compile a list of most-visited sites, which reveal some odd behaviors of the numerical troublemaker.

27. Borrow some books on “Nothing” or “Nothingness” and annotate them to lure readers to borrow one of them.

26. Write a features article on a football match that ended in a 0-0 bore-draw.

25. Imagine what would happen if there were a zero year: 1 BC, 0, 1 AD.

24. Meditate on nothingness, then compose some Zen-like inspiration messages.

23. Publish a book with all blank pages – a revised edition of The Nothing Book for the third decade of the new millennium, or create a cottage industry with zero-texts titles such as “What Men Know About Women,” What Men Know about Aliens,” and the like. 

22. Popularize a series of Christmas lectures, christened Zero-Lite, to an often-innumerate or mathophobic public.

21. Compose jaws-dropping limericks and haikus about the number zero.

20. Write and mail checks of zero dollars to 100 friends, then expect the unexpected from them.

Shot taken from a train's ad

19 Organize a Zero Festival to humanize the beauty and power of zero. 

18. Run a campaign to educate the public about corporations and retails outlets, which are out to lure the public into falling into the "zero syndrome” trap: zero interests, zero down payment, zero fats, ....

17. Plan a Math Carnival with Zero as the theme for the month.

16. Explain to an eight-year-old why a point has zero dimensions.

15. Persuade decision makers in your faculty to add a few zeros to the budget for “zero” research, such as on the Zero Option, to commemorate or recognize the contribution of zero to humankind.

14. Recount the aftermath (pain, casualties, atrocities) of the Cambodian people when Kherme Rouge changed the calendar back to Year Zero, as part of a Multicultural Math elective in a college quantitative literacy course.

13. Preach on the costly or deadly consequences of disobeying the eleventh commandment: Thou shalt not divide by zero!

12. Come up with ten creative ways to help a mathematically challenged public for often mistakenly taking the letter “O” for the numeral “0.”

11. Set up a Facebook page for fans of the “Zero Fiends.”

10. Advocate a zero-tolerance policy for drugs and debts among disadvantaged kids and hardcore gamblers in poor neighborhoods.

9. Conduct public talks to the young that they and their offspring wouldn’t be paranoid of millennium years: 2000, 3000, ….

8. Promote the idea of zero pets at food courts and shopping malls as a sign of good hygiene.

7. Be a Carbon Hero, by embracing a “carbon zero” lifestyle, by using public transport and ordering e-books.

6. List down no fewer than ten sociological or psychoanalytical uses of zero.

5. Set a 2020 goal of achieving near-zero innumeracy as an educational goal among elementary school students.

4. Start a Zero Digest zeroing on the mathematical, philosophical, and spiritual zero, and place advertisements as a way to reduce the price to $0.00.

3. Come up with a number of rebuses related to the number zero or expressions about zero.

2. Campaign for a zero-situational-ethics working environment.

1. Follow K C Yan on Twitter as @Zero_Math and share your “zero” tweets with the zero-math brethren.

© Yan Kow Cheong, November 17, 2010