Zombie Maths 1: Rates

First, mathspigs, to do Zombie Maths we must

promise to follow the Zombie Code

and be ghoulish, scary and unnice in an undead way.

We must also observe

The 10 Universal Laws of Zombie, sort of.

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Velocity of a Zombie:

This is fun. To find the velocity of a Zombie mark out 10m on the floor. Ask students to imitate a Zombie and time them. This will involve deep and meaningful Zombie arguments about who is the best Zombie.

Mathspig was a Zombie while Mr Mathspig timed her. It took Zombiepig 16 seconds to zombie walk 10m. Here are the calculations:

A Zombie Arm can move much faster. Here are some calculations based on a guestimate using this link of Crawling Zombie.

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Velocity of Zombie Arm:

According to these calculations Zombie Arm is Faster than a speeding chicken, but not as fast as an angry Squirrel. See Animal Olympics link.

Watch for the zombie arm

… it will grab your ankle

and NEVER let go!!!

Zombie Maths 3: Graph

Zombie Cricket

How long will a Zombie take to make 1 run? 2 runs?

A cricket pitch is 20.12 m (22 yds) long. :

From graph: A Zombie takes 33sec to run 20m or 1 run

 A Zombie takes 66 sec to run 40m or 2 runs

Check:

y = 0.6t

20.12 = 0.6 t

t =  33.5 sec for 1 run or 67 sec for 2 runs!!!!!!

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Zombie Baseball:

How long would a Zombie take to run to 1st base? To do a home run?

The Distance between bases is 60 ft 6 inches ( 18.44 m). Distance for a home run is 242 ft ( 73.76 m)

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From the Graph:

 A Zombie takes 30 seconds to run to first base or 122 seconds to make a home run!!!

Check: This time look at the table above.

That’s 2 minutes people!!!!! He is safe as long as a Zombie is fielding.

12 minute Maths Guru

Meet Salman Khan. He has put free maths on-line.

This article on Salman appeared in The Sunday Times, UK, 12 JUN 2011.

Salman, 28, started putting tutes online for his 12-year-old niece, Nadia, and things grew. So far the Kahn Academy’s claim to fame are:

* Over 2,400 videos including hundreds and hundreds of 12-minute maths tutes

* Over 63,000,000 lessons delivered.

* Bill Gates kids use the site.

* A staff of 1 with funding from The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

* Tutes on Biology, Chemistry and Physics too.

You can look up the maths tutes by topic @ The Khan Academy.

Or search topics on Youtube eg. Introduction to Conics Khan

Why Does Mathspig like The Kahn Academy? Because it’s:

1. Free.

2. Quick

3. Clear

4. Low-key

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Salman gives digital chalk-and-talk tutes like a teacher. He hand draws the equations and graphs. He uses a calculator from time to time, but he tends not to use whizz bang spreadsheet graphs or perfectly presented textbook equations. It’s a bit wobbly and it’s all coming from Salman’s head.

And students like this approach. It makes maths look do-able.

Go, Salman.

Mathspig thinks you are just GORGEOUS!!!!!!!!!

 Australia’s Year 7 – 12 Maths Curriculum is already on-line and free, funded by McDonald’s. See What are maths teachers for, sir?

The tutes on Maths Online are produced by Aussie Maths teachers and they are very good. Mathspig, of course, imagined the quadratic function tutes might look something like this:

Wedding Dress Trains: What a drag!!!!

  Attention all mathspigs.

 There is a lot of maths in weddings including how are you going to pay for the damn thing.

 But Mathspig became interested in Kate’s Wedding Dress train.

 I mean how hard is it to drag a wedding train down the red carpet at the Royal Wedding.

Unfortunately, there was no data available for coefficent of friction of silk on wool carpet. 

Mathspig did her own experiment to come up with a drag coefficient (See details at the end of the post).

2011 Kate’s Wedding  Train = 2.7 m/8ft 10 in

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1986 Sarah Ferguson’s  Train =  5.2m / 17 ft

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1981 Diana’s Wedding  Train = 7.62 m / 25 ft

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1947 Princess Elizabeth Train = 4 m / 13ft 1 in

(Now Queen Elizabeth. Wedding Dress below)

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Dragging that bridal train down the Red Carpet!!!!

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As you can see (below) it takes some effort to drag those wedding dress trains.

If the train is TOO HEAVY it is hard work for the bride (See Diana below) walking up the steps.

IF it is TOO LIGHT it can blow up in the wind like a yacht sail and carry the bride off.

If it is TOO SLIPPERY then coming down the steps the train will just keep going and bundle up at the brides feet.

Some trains are wider than 1 m like Kate’s so the drag would be even higher. Some red carpets are narrow. Nevertheless, these calculations are a good approximation.
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Some Brides over do the train.

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.As an 8 year old boy weighs around 24 kg some long trains would equal dragging a short train down the aisle with the page boy sitting on it for a ride.

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According to OK magazine  the longest wedding dress train measured over 2488 m or 8,164 feet and was created by Lichel van den Ende. It was presented and measured in Zoetermeer, The Netherlands, on December 22, 2009.

UPDATE: 21 March 2012 ABCNEWS

According to the ABC News, Romania has set a new World Record for Wedding train length. The 1.85-mile ( 3 km) long ivory train was modeled by Ema Dumitrescu, who appeared in a hot air balloon floating over Bucharest. The Guinness Book of World Records officially named the train the longest one in the world. It required 15,420 feet of taffeta, 18 feet of lace and 147 feet of lining. 

NOTE for Science Students: Mathspig used 4 m square of silk shantung  folded into 1 m square and weighing 375 kg. She then dragged this square down her own carpet and recorded the drag on kitchen scales in gram. The drag per m square was 450 gm or 0.45 kg. The difference between static and kinetic friction was minimal because the brides walk is not smooth.

Then Mathspig used 2m square of silk folded to form 1m square. It weighed 180gm and had a drag per m of 200 gm. This seemed too light for a wedding train.