BARD MATH CIRCLE

Kingston Math Circle for November, 2013

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Bard Math Circle
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At this month’s math circle in the Kingston Library, we focused on the SET game above all our other wonderful puzzles and games. For those new to the game, there was the beginner’s table, and for those adept at finding those 3 card triples, we had the advanced table. Can you find any sets in these photos?

 

Most students made a cardiod curve. It’s amazing how many straight line segments can give the illusion of a curved line. There is some deeper mathematics underneath what looks like string art: given a family of straight lines like we drew in this activity, the envelope of the family of lines is a curve that is tangent to each of the lines. In this case, the envelope of the lines is a cardiod curve.

To investigate further, what is the envelope of another family of lines? On the orange sheet, we see another envelope of a family of line segments.

You can download this month’s problem set on our documents page.

See you at the next Bard Math Circle!

Japheth Wood

I’m Japheth Wood (he/him), the Bard Math CAMP co-director, and a math professor at Bard College. CAMP (which is an acronym for Creative and Analytical Math Program) is a very special week of the year for our young math community. It's inspiring to see our students return year after year. This is our 11th summer of CAMP! We're back once again on the idyllic Bard College campus in Annandale-on-Hudson, and thankful to the CAMP students, parents, and staff, for making this mathemagical week happen. Notably, we've (finally) had our first CAMP reunion this past June, an event that I know will grow to be an integral part of what we do.

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Frances Stern

My name is Frances Stern (she/her/hers)! I’ve been teaching math at CAMP since the first year, making sure our math theme has a connection to art and computer. It’s fun to show students math that they don’t see in school. I've retired from daily teaching but continue to teach for the New York Math Circle & students who are seeking more math in their lives. My hobbies include learning to draw, paint, & juggle, reading, walking & folk dancing. I’ve written 2 books for teachers and parents called “Adding Math, Subtracting Tension” (for different age-ranges of children). They pay as much attention to how to keep out of a fight (what many parents told me is a problem) as they do to math.

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