Posts Tagged ‘Math in Real Life’

As I’ve said here before, I’m fascinated by how artists put math to work. Part of this interest stems from my own experience as the daughter of an engineer who majored in art; and part from hearing my son say something to the effect of “why do I need to take math – I’m going to be an artist/animator/cartoonist/you get the idea.”

Lights, cameras, math geeks! The typical A-lister is a parfait of perfection: golden hair, blinding white Veneers, and a multitude of creative talents. But there's a secret math geek lurking beneath the polished surface of each of these celebrities.

Our youngest daughter recently came home facing the decision of whether for the next school year she should go into ‘honors’ math class or the regular math class. We haven’t really faced this before, as the right decision for each of our two older children was straightforward, although different for each. I have seen the angst it has has caused in other families. The stress was particularly acute in those cases where placement was decided by a single test result.

Every day now driving home and listening to the news, I try, like everyone else I imagine, to wrap my head around the kinds of numbers they’re throwing around. The scale of the numbers is incomprehensible. How meaningful is the difference between a billion and a trillion...