Home Articles posted by Patrick Andrews (Page 11)

How to deal with Trigonometry (> 90 degrees)?

Trigonometry gets confusing at angles bigger than a right angle because you can’t draw a little triangle and say ‘opposite over hypotenuse’ or whatever.

Rather than adopt some kind of handle-turning approach (eg C.A.S.T.), that may get you the correct result but which doesn’t add to understanding, try thinking in terms of the graphs of the trig. functions eg Sin x. This allows you to use the symmetry in these plots to see why you get the answers (rather than just remembering some opaque formula).

 

 

What is the future of education? -Khan Academy

Sometimes, if you aren’t getting a new concept, it’s really useful to hear someone else’s version.

Here is a video about Khan Academy. This represents the future of education and is also a great place to get an additional perspective on a wide variety of interesting topics.

 

Are textbooks infallible?

In case you were in any doubt, the scientific literature is not error free. Text books are still frequently written which contain misconceptions (as distinct from poor explanations).

This site offers a pretty strident criticism of many such publications, together with a clearer interpretation of much of the underlying thinking.