This week's Student of the Week is Fernanda VH!! (send a photo over FVH! I'll post it here for posterity).
I first heard about Fernanda from other teachers. Surprise... we really DO talk about you (sometimes) in the staff room. I kept hearing about this amazing / wonderful / lovely / etc student named Fernanda. "The Mexican One" they would often add. Hehehe. Ms Sidhu, especially, would always tell me "you'll love Fernanda". And you know how much I respect Ms Sidhu!!! So it was not a shocker when (once she ended up in my class in PreCalculus 10) I actually DID (very quickly) come to think nothing but great things about Fernanda. Such a warm personality! So responsible and hard-working! And an amazing sense of humour to top it all off! We have had lots of good chats (and laughs) about so many topics: Mexico, Secret Daddy, Fernanda's boyfriend, even Math sometimes! Fernanda is such an easy person to talk to. She always seems interested in what you have to say and she is full of interesting facts and well-thought-out opinions. So proud of you, Fernanda, for everything you have overcome and everything you have (already) accomplished in your young life. REALLY wishing you would stick around next year but I guess this "GRAD" thing means you might want to go elsewhere (UBC!! Congrats!) next year. So much respect and love for you FVH! All the best and stay in touch! Congratulations Stash and Chaucer (tied for first place in grade 11) and Yasmin and Narihiro (top 25% in Canada). Picture of Rintaro still to come. In the mean time, here is a picture of Chaucer and I dancing.
A pair of mathematicians from Australia and France have devised a new way to multiply numbers together, while solving an algorithmic puzzle that has perplexed some of the greatest math minds for almost half a century. For most of us, the way we multiply relatively small numbers is by remembering our times tables – an incredibly handy aid first pioneered by the Babylonians some 4,000 years ago. But what if the numbers get bigger? Well, if the figures get unwieldy – and assuming we don't have a calculator or computer, of course – most of us would then turn to long multiplication: another useful trick we learn in school, and a trusty technique for multiplying basically any two numbers together. There's just one problem with long multiplication. It's slow. Jason Padgett sees maths everywhere. Even something as ordinary as brushing his teeth is governed by mathematics – he turns the tap on and dips his toothbrush into the water 16 times.
“I don’t know why I like perfect squares,” he says. “It’s not just a perfect square, it’s two to the power of four or four squared but I just like perfect squares…I automatically do that stuff with everything.” Padgett is so obsessed with maths and understands such complex concepts, he's been called a genius. He certainly has a rare talent for drawing repeating geometric patterns – known as fractals – by hand. But the former futon salesman from Alaska hasn’t always had a way with numbers. Just under 17 years ago he was living a very different life in Tacoma, Washington. |
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