At this time of year, my thoughts often turn to…. …the sinusoid? The sinusoid is a fancy name for a mathematical relationship that is periodic – like the tides or length of day. Sinusoids are also useful in modeling alternating electrical current, light waves, and sound waves. Below is graph of function y=sin(x) I became [...]
Archive for the ‘Ethnomathematics’ Category
Calendrics
Posted in Applications, Ethnomathematics on January 29, 2010 | 5 Comments »
Language and Counting
Posted in Ethnomathematics on January 30, 2009 | 1 Comment »
There are two topics that I teach which allow me to discuss counting. When we cover the order of operations (or what I like to call the hierarchy of computation, since exponentiation is not an operation), I begin by saying that the most basic form of mathemtics is counting. By repeated counting, we arrive at [...]
