Monthly Archives: June 2012

Blockly

Posted on June 28, 2012 by Brent

It seems that Google is developing a graphical programming language called Blockly, inspired by Scratch but web-based, with the ability to compile down to JavaScript, Dart, or Python (or raw XML, so you can process it further). I can’t say … Continue reading →

Posted in challenges, programming | Tagged , , , , | 7 Comments

Picture this

Posted on June 13, 2012 by Brent

Picture this! is a very cool interactive thingy, made by Jason Davies, intended to get students (or anyone, really) thinking about some interesting math. Go play around with it and see if you can answer any of the listed questions … Continue reading →

Posted in challenges, links, pattern, pictures | Tagged , , , | 6 Comments

How to explain the principle of inclusion-exclusion?

Posted on June 11, 2012 by Brent

I’ve been remiss in finishing my series of posts on a combinatorial proof. I still intend to, but I must confess that part of the reason I haven’t written for a while is that I’m sort of stuck. The next … Continue reading →

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

Wythoff’s game at Three-Cornered Things

Posted on June 10, 2012 by Brent

I’ve really been enjoying Zachary Abel’s series of posts on Wythoff’s game [Wythoff’s Game: Red or Blue?; A Golden Observation; The “Fibonacci”est String; Wythoff’s Formula], over on his blog Three-Cornered Things. The Fibonacci numbers show up in the strangest places! … Continue reading →

Posted in fibonacci, games, links | Tagged | 7 Comments

Fibonacci multiples, solution 1

Posted on June 9, 2012 by Brent

In a previous post, I challenged you to prove If evenly divides , then evenly divides , where denotes the th Fibonacci number (). Here’s one fairly elementary proof (though it certainly has a few twists!). Pick some arbitrary and … Continue reading →

Posted in fibonacci, modular arithmetic, number theory, pattern, pictures, proof, sequences | Tagged , , , | 5 Comments

Nature by Numbers

Posted on June 6, 2012 by Brent

This has been making the rounds of the math blogosphere (blathosphere?), but in case you haven’t seen it yet, check out Cristóbal Vila’s awesome short video, Nature by Numbers. Especially appropriate given that I have been writing about Fibonacci numbers … Continue reading →

Posted in fibonacci, golden ratio, links, video | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment