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Computing with decadic numbers

Posted on January 30, 2012

[This is the ninth, and, I think, final in a series of posts on the decadic numbers (previous posts: A curiosity, An invitation to a funny number system, What does "close to" mean?, The decadic metric, Infinite decadic numbers, More … Continue reading →

Posted in arithmetic, programming | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Differences of powers of consecutive integers

Posted on January 29, 2012

Patrick Vennebush of Math Jokes 4 Mathy Folks recently wrote about the following procedure that yields surprising results. Choose some positive integer . Now, starting with consecutive integers, raise each integer to the th power. Then take pairwise differences by … Continue reading →

Posted in arithmetic, pattern | Tagged , , , , | 16 Comments

u-tube

Posted on January 10, 2012

[This is the eighth in a series of posts on the decadic numbers (previous posts: A curiosity, An invitation to a funny number system, What does "close to" mean?, The decadic metric, Infinite decadic numbers, More fun with infinite decadic … Continue reading →

Posted in computation, convergence, infinity, iteration, modular arithmetic, number theory, programming | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

Herbert Wilf: 13 June 1931 – 7 January 2012

Posted on January 9, 2012

I was sad to learn that Herbert Wilf died yesterday. Long-time readers of this blog may remember him as one of the discoverers of the Calkin-Wilf tree, which I wrote about in a ten-part series of posts (1, 2, 3, … Continue reading →

Posted in people | Tagged | 1 Comment

A self-square number

Posted on January 4, 2012

[This is the seventh in a series of posts on the decadic numbers (previous posts: A curiosity, An invitation to a funny number system, What does "close to" mean?, The decadic metric, Infinite decadic numbers, More fun with infinite decadic … Continue reading →

Posted in arithmetic, infinity, iteration, modular arithmetic, proof | Tagged , , , | 12 Comments

Four-figure offer

Posted on December 1, 2011

This just arrived in my inbox: My name is Becky Raymond, I’m a Domain Brokerage Consultant working on behalf of the owner of traveled.com to sell this premium asset. While searching online I came across your domain mathlesstraveled.com; since both … Continue reading →

Posted in humor, meta | Tagged , , | 7 Comments

Sigmas and sums of squares

Posted on November 29, 2011

Commenter Rachel recently asked, How would you find the sum of ? See here for an explanation of sigma notation—in this case it denotes the sum Of course, for any particular value of we can just plug in values and … Continue reading →

Posted in algebra | Tagged , , , , | 6 Comments

Dimensions: go watch! now!

Posted on November 21, 2011

I finally got around to watching the Dimensions videos, which I mentioned once before. They are super cool and will be sure to blow your mind! They start by explaining some simple tools (stereographic projection) and intuition (with references to … Continue reading →

Posted in fractals, geometry, links, video | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

Old posts fixed

Posted on November 19, 2011

When I moved this blog from my own custom WordPress installation to wordpress.com last March, the formatting, , and images on a number of old posts got screwed up. I have finally finished going back through all my old posts … Continue reading →

Posted in meta

Book review: Viewpoints: Mathematical Perspective and Fractal Geometry in Art

Posted on November 18, 2011

This book is certainly quite different from the sort I usually read and review—but I am always interested in new and creative ways to teach mathematics! This is quite a fun book. It’s all about visual art and some of … Continue reading →

Posted in books, fractals, geometry, pattern, pictures, review | Tagged , , , , ,