Sunday, March 1, 2015

Found a book

Today I found a book on Amazon that was on sale called the" Joy of X, the guided tour of math from one to infinity"by Steven Storgatz for $2.99. The description indicates the author goes through and shows real world applications of mathematics  connecting math to people's lives.  It says he explains why you need to turn your mattress on a regular basis or how Google searches the net.  I am going to read this and see if I can use some of the material in my math class.  I have students who ask me when are we going to use this and i don't have any answers for most of the math that I teach.  I would like to be able to say something like, you will use linear equations to help you decide the best price for your book that you are selling on Amazon, or we can determine the best speed on your snowmachine for fuel consumption.  This is actually one of my goals in math is to provide these examples my students can relate to because too many of the examples in the math book almost feel contrived.
Back to flipping your mattress to get maximum wear, I am willing to wager that most of my students do not know they are supposed to do that.  I know about it but the mattress I have is one with extra padding on one side and I can flip it over and over.  I can only rotate it.  My mother used to have us do it but I never understood why and I certainly didn't realize there was math associated with it.  I thought it was something my mother did because her mother did it. 

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