500,000 Hog Hits

Mathspig is sooooooo excited

about reaching:

To celebrate 500,000 or 5×10⁵ hog hits

 and to continue showing mathspiggies everywhere

that maths is fun

and relevant to all

Mathspig presents

The MATHEMATICAL

CABINET OF

500,000

CURIOSITIES!!!

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If you took a sample of

500,000 US teens

how many DO YOU THINK fall

asleep at school

at least once a week?

You will find amazing US teen stas here:

28% report falling asleep once a week

 500,000 x 28/100

= 140,000

Snoring to the left of you. Snoring to the right of you. You are not alone.

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What volume of coke is there in 500,000 cans?

Coke can vol = 355 ml = 12 fl oz

500,000 x 355 = 177,500,000 ml

= 177, 500 l = 177.5 m³

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An average bath uses 150 litres water per bath.

How many bathtubs would 500,000 cans of coke fill?

177,500/150

= 1,183 baths in coke!!!

Hey mathpiggies, wanna bubble bath? You’d be tickled pink.

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In a crowd of 500,000 how many people

would have their birthday

on the same day as yours?

There are 365 days in the year so the probability of anyone having their birthday on the same day as you (ignoring leap years) is:

1 in 365 or 1/365.

 

In a crowd of 500,000 the number of people who have a birthday on the same day as you is most likely:

500,000 x 1/365 = 1,370

That’s a lot of birthday cake!!

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  How heavy is $500,000 dollars?

 

Australia:

Wt Aus $1 coin = 9.0 g

If the bank gave a bank robber $500,000 in $1 coins it would weigh:

500,000 x 9.0 = 4,500,000 g

= 4,500 kg = 4.5 tonne

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UK:

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Wt UK £1 coin = 9.5 g

500,000 x 9.5 = 4,750,000 g

= 4,750 kg = 4.75 tonne

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USA:

Wt US $1 coin = 8.1 g

500,000 x 8.1 = 4,050,000 g

= 4,050 kg = 4.05 tonne

You will find all you need to know about the size and weight of US coins and notes here.

$500,000 in $1 notes would only weigh

11 lb or 5 kg.

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So, um, bank robbers do the maths!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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How far would you walk in 500,000 steps?

We’ll assume you take a big step of 1m.

So 500,000 m = 500 km.

A comfortable walking rate is 5 km/hr.

How long would it take you to walk 500 km without a break?

500/5 = 100 hrs.

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The Bugatti Veyron Super Sport  hits a maximum speed of 267 mph (429 km/h).

How long would it take the Bugatti travelling at top speed – not including refueling time – to clock up 500,000 km?

500,000 /429  = 1165.5 hr

= 48.5 days

The speed of an average sized commercial passenger plane ≈ 500 mph 0r 800 kph or

≈ twice the speed of the Bugatti.

So it would take a passenger plane approx 24 days to travel 500,000 km.

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How long would it take you to count to 500,000?

Assuming you count at the rate of 1 per second the time it would take is 500,000 seconds.

500,000/ 60 = 8333 mins = 833/60 hrs

= 13.88 hrs or 13 hrs 53 mins

Come on! You could do that mathspiggies!!!!!

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 In a group of 500,000 US teens how many are serious cave dwellers or, to be more accurate, how many spend less than 3 hrs a week outdoors?

It is an amazing 30.1%.

500,000 x 30.1/100

= 150, 500 creatures of the gloom.

Come on you teen gloomagogs get outdoors. You need the sun. You need the Vitamin D.

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How many calories in 500,000 m&ms?

There are an amazing 400 million m&ms produced everyday in the US. One m&m weighs 0.7g.

And calories in 1 m&m =  3.4 cal

500,000 m&ms weigh:

500,000 x 0.7 = 350,000 g

= 350 kg

As 400 million or 8 x 500,000 m&ms are produced each day, that is 8 x350 kg or 2800 kg or 2.8 tonne.

Calories in 500,000 m&ms is:

500,000 x 3.4 = 1, 700, 000 Cal

As the average consumptionof chocolate in the US is 5.18 kg per year eating 500,000 m&ms would take:

350 kg/ 5.18 kg

= 67.6 years!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You better get going!!!!!

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Blink rates vary but the average blink rate in a laboratory setting for a human is 10 blinks per minute.

How long would it take for you to blink 500,000 times?

500,000/10 = 50,000 minutes

= 50,000/60 hrs = 833.3 hrs

= 833.3/24 = 34.7 days

= 34 days 17 hrs 17 mins

But don’t think it or you’ll go blink crazy!!!!

1 Fabulous Mathematical Chairs

Maths-is-Awesome Activity

Fabulous Mathematical Chairs

Skill: Arithmetic, geometry, measurement

Level: Junior, Middle School

Here are two brilliant ways of using maths to create something awesome. Firstly, using fantubes, you can build a chair.

You would have to work out how many fantubes  you need. Measure up a standard armchair and then divide the width and depth by the diameter of the fantube.

Or you could just count the number of fantubes in this picture. More info here. Then – this is the PR bit – invite the School Principal into Maths Class to sit on the chair. Will your principal have faith? Or chicken out?

Secondly you could make this folding cardboard chair.

More info here.

It would be fabulous if every student made a cardboard chair and then you went into the school yard for a lesson!!!

That would get attention.

To make it more fun, how about adding a cardboard teacher!!

2 Diamonds Are for Maths Class

Maths-is-Awesome Activity

Diamonds are for Maths Class

Skill: Geometry, scale, ratio, measurement

Level: Junior, Middle School

Here are some amaaaazing  cardboard creations by bartek elsner.

But the creation that is so beautifully geometric is this crow.

Start here ……………

Before we get to crow level we better start with something more symmetrical.  Here are some cardboard diamonds. You will find the template for the cardboard diamond below at Minieco.

3 Ellipsoid Collipsoid

Maths-is-Awesome Activity

Ellipsoid Collipsoid

Skill: Geometry, scale, ratio, conic sections, ellipses, parabolas, hyperbolas and more.

Level: Senior School

Senior maths students are busy, mathspiggies. But insipration energises.

Mathspig was amaaaaaazed by these cardboard models were made by Martin Schilling because he made them in 1901. This was long before computers made the job easier. More info here.This is what a car looked like in 1901.

If Martin Schilling could make these Conic Sections, so can any senior student. You will find Conic Section diagrams and equations here.

Could you do this mathspiggies?

Make a conic section in 3D?

4 Build Your Own Death Star

Maths-is-Awesome Activity

Build Your Own Death Star

Skill: Geometry, scale, ratio, measurement

Level: Junior & Middle School

It all begins with a dodecahedron. You can make your own dodecadren with pattern here.

How big can you make your dodecaderon?

But wait … there’s more

This is a Stellated Dodecahedron. Tricky. Tricky Tricky. You can find a template for this amazing Stellated dodecahedron here. Yes! You can build your own DEATH STAR. DA-da Da! (Creepy Music)

 

5 Wrangle an Orderly Tangle

Maths-is-Awesome Activity

Wrangle an Orderly Tangle

Skill: Geometry, scale, ratio, measurement

Level: Junior & Middle School

There are some wonderful projects at Mathscraft. But one students of any age will enjoy is creating an orderly tangle of triangles below. You can find a PDF template download for thise triangles @ the Mathscraft link above.

And this Orderly Tangle of 4 Triangles can be made on any scale from cute earrings to ORDERLY MONSTER TANGLE. Go wild mathspiggies.

6 Bring on the Bucky Balls

Maths-is-Awesome Activity

Bring on the Bucky Balls

Skills: Geometry, polygons, measurement  …. and creativity.

Levels: Junior School & Middle School

In this activity students will create their own, preferably life-sized cardboard igloo. Igloo structures can be complicated or simple and in this project students must design and then build an igloo using a standard hexagon. Here are some inspiring designs.

The first igloo was built using computer generated constructive geometry. It uses a basic – but distorted – hexagonal cardboard unit and was built by by the students of the Faculty of Architecture, University of Porto. You can see the construction method below. More info here.

The next cardboard igloo is based entirely on circles. It was designed by  students of ETH Zurich in Switzerland. More info here.

The following cardboard igloo based on triangles looks simple but has a very strong construction. More info here.

But the Granddaddy of the geometric or geodesic dome was Buckminster Fuller, who has been honoured by having a carbon-based nano-molecule named after him. They’re called Bucky Balls. If you look at the geodesic dome below you can see the HEXAGONAL PATTERN also visible int he Bucky Balls.

7 Cardboard Labyrinth

Maths-is-Awesome Activity

Cardboard Labyrinth

Skills: Graphing, modelling …. mostly generates inspiration

Levels: Any

Brazilian architect Carlos Teixeira created an incredible labyrinth made entirely from layered recycled cardboard for the 29th International Biennial in Sao Paulo.

More info here.

Labyrinths are mysterious. And mathspiggies, look at that lovely parabola. Making a labyrinth on this =scale may be beyond the resources of a maths class … but then again some imagination and some maths skills and voila:

In phase one of the project 240 students at Kingsford Primary School in Aberdeen used interconnecting materials to design and build a labyrinth inspired by the story of Icarus.

More info here.

8 What the World Needs Now is More Parabolas

Maths-is-Awesome Activity

What the World Needs Now is More Parabolas

Skills: Graph, scale, measurement …. balancing that last cardboard section.

Level: Middle & Senior School

If you cannot make it to MOMaths Maths Museum in NY for a Mad Maths Monday, then you can run a Mad Maths Monday in your own class.

Build your own giant parabola out of cardboard.

We’re being awesome

We’re thinking big.

Make it big enough to arch over the front door of the school.

 

9 Build Your Own Battleship

Maths-is-Awesome Activity

Build Your Own Battleship

Skills: geometry, measuring, angles, construction and engineering

Years: Middle School

You will find your inspiration here:

Different maths classes build their own cardboard boats. Call for volunteers  and then stage a race in a local pool.

Heaps of fun.

Good PR for maths. And some schools do it already.