Meet one of the mathematicians in the new "Hidden Figures" movie (talk about succinct answers!)14/1/2017 What was it that drew you to mathematics?
Numbers. What were your favorite challenges to work on? Solving the most difficult problems. What was it like to work with NASA engineers, particularly in these high-pressure situations? Exciting. I liked working with smart people. Did you ever have to go toe-to-toe with them over the numbers? After a while, they learned to respect my answers because they were always correct. What did you think about the movie? It was well-done. The three leading ladies did an excellent job portraying us. This is almost a year old but it's new to me. And the whole album is great! This week's Student of the Week is Nella L. (thanks for the photo Tiffany!!)
Not once. Not twice. Not three, four or five times but SIX times!! That is how many times I have taught Nella Math. Hard to believe? Here is the list: Foundations & PreCalculus 10 Foundations 11 PreCalculus 11 Foundations 12 PreCalculus 12 Calculus 12 What did I learn from teaching Nella so many times? Two things:
I believe that, in twenty years of teaching, I have never taught another student six times. I think the most times I ever had the same high school teacher was twice. I can't imagine having the same person SIX times. Poor Nella must be so sick of me and my goofy jokes, stories etc. Mind you, I am in no way sick of having her in my class. She is truly a fabulous math student: hard-working, responsible, friendly, and polite (thank goodnes! Imagine if she was a challenging student. Six times!!) I also know Nella as a fellow STUDENT. The two of us took (along with Philips N) a programming course at UBC last summer. What I learned from that experience is that Nella is waaaay smarter than me (I'm not ashamed to admit it). We would be working on some assignment and I'd be calling the instructor over (multiple times) to ask questions. After lots of struggle I'd get my program to work. I'd call out proudly to Nella "I finally got it! You just need to use a second loop", etc. And she would very softly and very kindly say back: "good for you. That's how I did it too". Turns out she had gotten it done (on her own) way before me. This happened multiple times. But this story points to one of the things I love most about Nella. She is a very humble person. She is not the sort of person to crow about her marks (and she ALWAYS gets good marks). I have seen her helping other students (including me!) on many occasions and she always does so with good humour and patience. She is KILLER good at the daily puzzles but (when someone yells louder than her, for example) she is happy to defer her right to the answer. In fact, when she was in grade 11 (taking PreCalc 12) she seldom called out answers at all (even though she often knew them) so as not to "upset the grade 12's". Hehehe. Needless to say, Nella, I will NEVER forget you. But it is not just due to the NUMBER of times that I have taught you but also because of the wonderful person that you are. I truly can not imagine what it will be like to NOT have you in my class next year. I am so excited to see what you end up studying and doing in the future. You have so much potential and I know that you will be very, very successful. And you will always be very special to me! All the best to you, Nella! Nearly a century ago, Robert Marchand was told by a coach that he should give up cycling because he would never achieve anything on a bike. He proved that prediction wrong again. In a skin-tight yellow and violet jersey, the 105-year-old Frenchman set a world record in the 105-plus age category — created especially for the tireless veteran — by riding 22.547 kilometers in one hour. "I'm now waiting for a rival," he said.
In 1793, the French switched to French Revolutionary Time, creating a decimal system of time. A day had 10 hours, 100 minutes per hour, and 100 seconds per minute. The system was elegant, doing away with the complex math required for time calculations under a 24 hour/60 minute/60 second system. But it also brought huge headaches.
French Revolutionary Time came alongside the French Republican Calendar, a further attempt to rationalize time. Months were divided into three 10-day weeks, and there were 12 months. The leftover days needed to add up to 365 or 366 for the year were tacked onto the end of the year as holidays. This was a bit inelegant (days and years being hard to divide cleanly by 10), but at least it was less confusing than trying to sort out what time "noon" was (it was 5 o'clock). |
P. WadgeI am your teacher. Obey me. Archives
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