Author Archives: Brent

About Brent

Associate Professor of Computer Science at Hendrix College. Functional programmer, mathematician, teacher, pianist, follower of Jesus.

Hypercube offsets

Posted on January 30, 2020 by Brent

In my previous posts, each drawing consisted of two offset copies of the previous drawing. For example, here are the drawings for and : You can see how the drawing contains an exact copy of the drawing, plus another copy … Continue reading →

Posted in pattern | Tagged binary, bits, cube, diagram, Hasse, hypercube, lattice, subsets | 2 Comments

Post without words #31

Posted on January 23, 2020 by Brent

Posted in posts without words | Tagged binary, bits, cube, diagram, Hasse, hypercube, lattice, subsets | 2 Comments

A few words about PWW #30

Posted on January 22, 2020 by Brent

A few things about the images in my previous post that you may or may not have noticed: As several commenters figured out, the th diagram (starting with ) is showing every possible subset a set of items. Two subsets … Continue reading →

Posted in posts without words | Tagged binary, bits, cube, diagram, Hasse, hypercube, lattice, subsets | 4 Comments

Post without words #30

Posted on January 20, 2020 by Brent

Posted in posts without words | Tagged binary, bits, cube, diagram, Hasse, hypercube, lattice, subsets | 5 Comments

The First Six Books of the Elements of Euclid, by Oliver Byrne (Taschen)

Posted on January 11, 2020 by Brent

Recently for my birthday I received a copy of Oliver Byrne’s 1847 edition of Euclid’s Elements (pictured at right), republished by Taschen Books in 2010. I’ve only just started reading it, but it’s beautiful and fascinating. Oliver Byrne was a … Continue reading →

Posted in books, geometry, pictures | Tagged beauty, Byrne, color, design, elements, Euclid, illustration | 3 Comments

do go no to

Posted on January 7, 2020 by Brent

dodo do go on do no harm do to others go do likewise go-go music go no further goto considered harmful no can do it’s a no go a big no-no say no to drugs what to do here or … Continue reading →

Posted in counting, humor | Tagged base, counting, English | Comments Off

Book review: Tales of Impossibility

Posted on January 1, 2020 by Brent

[Disclosure of Material Connection: Princeton Press kindly provided me with a free review copy of this book. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions expressed are my own.] Tales of Impossibility: The 2000-Year Quest to Solve … Continue reading →

Posted in books, review | Tagged algebra, antiquity, circle, constructible, construction, cube, geometry, impossibility, polygon, problems, square, tales, trisect | 4 Comments

A new counting system

Posted on December 30, 2019 by Brent

0 = t__ough 1 = t_rough 2 = th_ough 3 = through So, for example, trough through tough though though. English is so strange.

Posted in arithmetic, counting | Tagged binary, counting, English, humor | 1 Comment

A simple proof of the quadratic formula

Posted on December 23, 2019 by Brent

If you’re reading this blog you have probably memorized (or used to have memorized) the quadratic formula, which can be used to solve quadratic equations of the form But do you know how to derive the formula? Usually the derivation … Continue reading →

Posted in algebra, proof | Tagged average, formula, new, proof, quadratic | 3 Comments