Thursday, December 29, 2011
The Twelve Days of Christmath
I just had to share this, while it's still the season. It's just awesome. (Kate and I both enjoy the song. Especially the ninth verse. "A funny-looking S!")
I barely speak Math at all (or Maths--that's for Helen) but I love Vi's videos--they're just fun to watch, and I find her voice kind of soothing and mind-boggling at the same time.
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4 comments:
She's very good (my only criticism -- as someone trying to develop and encourage good math/s (!) teachers -- is that she "goes on a bit" about boring maths classes).
Two other things ...
(i) If you assume that on the third day, for example, the true love actually gives SIX things -- three french hens, two turtle doves and partridge in a pear tree -- to add to the THREE things given on the second day (two turtle doves and a partridge in a pear tree), and so on (since the song does not specify that ONLY three french hens were given on the third day), THEN, the number of gifts received is 1 + (1+2) + (1+2+3) + (1+2+3+4) + ... + (1+2+3+4+5+6+7+8+9+10+11+12) which turns out to be 364, which is one gift for every day of the year except Christmas Day (and any spare 29ths of February that happen to be floating around).
(ii) You should also try to chase up John Julius Norwich's "Twelve Days of Christmas" correspondence which is a rather amusing take on the whole story (a possibly illegal internet copy of the text is at http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~dsalt/jokes/12days.htm)
oh, I totally remember doing something similar when I was a kid. must bookmark this for later!
Helen - I'm late to the party but because of boring math classes, I thought I stunk at math. I was so surprised to find myself taking calculus in college, loving it, and making decent grades.
I think her comments encourage people that you just might be better at math than you realize. It may not be you; it just may be the class.
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