[Edu-sig] project Euler

[kirby urner]

For those wishing to go yet deeper into the lesson plan below ("quick
challenge" is one form, but you could easily make this a much more
enriching experience), I've filed stuff on math-thinking-l, very low
traffic these days.

http://mail.geneseo.edu/pipermail/math-thinking-l/2009-February/date.html

I do get a lot of thumbs up feedback from "the professoriate" I'm glad
to report, e.g. John P. Dougherty, Computer Science, Haverford College
called it "an interesting approach" whereas Richard Hake, Emeritus
Professor of Physics, Indiana University thought my little essay on
constructivism was quite good, will be no doubt alerting physics
teachers to its blogged version:

http://coffeeshopsnet.blogspot.com/2009/02/about-constructivism.html

That paragraph about Gattegno is my connection to Tizard.Stanford.Edu,
a co-sponsor of my Pycon talk, which is up to 4 registrations.

Last year, the videography made all the difference.  If we're a small
group it'll be more like we're TV experts, having a pow wow.  I've
invited my CTO to do camera work, and she's game (per our meeting
before her Europe assignment), but it's like pulling teeth to line up
additional engineering companies as sponsors (just ask the CFO if you
don't believe me (smile)).  The stimulus package looks good for the
charters though, so maybe by the time OS Bridge rolls around in
June...

Kirby


>>> A quick challenge:
>>>
>>> Spheres packing around a nuclear sphere go 1, 12, 42, 92... 10*L*L +
>>> 2, where L is the layer number, except where L = 1 we have just the
>>> one ball (the shape is a cuboctahedron).  So how many balls total?
>>> Add up all the layers.  Yes, very easy to do in APL.
>>>
>>> In Python:
>>>
>>> def cubocta( layer ):
>>>    if layer == 1:  return 1
>>>    return 10 * layer ** 2 + 2
>>>
>>> def total_balls( layer ):
>>>    total = 0
>>>    for i in range(1, layer + 1):
>>>        total = total + cubocta( i )
>>>    return total
>>>
>>> But isn't there a closed form algebraic expression for total_balls
>>> that doesn't require cumulative adding?  Damn straight.  We'll get to
>>> it.
>>>
>>> Don't forget to watch the cartoons!  This isn't Bourbaki.