If you fancy making some simulations of lots of interacting software agents, this is a great place to start playing about with large numbers of ‘turtles’.
StarLogo even includes a graphical programming interface.
Category: Explain It!
What shape is the orbit of the moon around the Sun?
The answer is a surprise.
Teaching online still requires excellent teachers
Online teaching, when done just to cut costs, seems to have limited success.
Here is another New York Times article about the US’s attempts to educate their nation economically.
Central limit theorem
The central limit theorem is pretty cool and is outlined here.
So
toss a coin 100 times
count 1 for each head and 0 for each tail
add these numbers up ->sum
now repeat all of the above say 200 times
the 200 sum values will be distributed normally
eg
Sum/ Number of occurrences
2 /…3
10 /…..5
15 /……..8
23 /…………12
32 /……………………23
41 /……………………………..35
52 /…………………………………………….50
65 /………………………..29
73 /……………15
75 /……….10
82 /….4
93 /….4
95 /.1
100 /.1
Maths anxiety?
Binomial theorem
Can this get any more fun…?
Here is some stuff about the binomial theorem.
The exponential function
This is a good place to grasp exponentiation and marvel at Euler’s formula.
Differential equations
What happens when the rate of change of x depends on the value of x itself?
Discover some answers here.
Numberplay: do they weigh the same?
Even if you have to set up a (free) New York Times account to get access to this example, I think this is an interesting enough reason to do so.
SQA exam notes
SQA – NQ – Past Papers and Marking Instructions. It’s worth taking a particular look at the rules which examiners have to follow.
