Posts Tagged ‘Maths’
Halloween Math : Witches vs Zombies 1
October 16, 2022
There has been a real world Witches Vs Zombie Fight.
The witches of the Haunted House in Salem, Massachusetts, are at war with the Zombies of The Nightmare Factory nearby. A witch tripped a Zombie who was wearing a straight jacket!!!! And … read it for yourself in the Daily Mail, UK.
Links: Top Grossing Horror Movies
Blair Witch Project Budget here.
DART vs ASTEROID: Middle School Math
September 27, 2022DART is a test
of NASA’s planetary defence plans.
AND IF YOU GOOGLE ……..
DOUBLE ASTEROID REDIRECTION TEST
Guess what?
The DART(Double Asteroid Redirection Test) mission was launched on Nov. 23, 2021, atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from the Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.
It is the size of a small vending machine and it has been travelling through space for 10 months.
When Area Calcs mean Big Bucks
August 25, 2022
MIDDLE SCHOOL MATH: Mapping, Matrices and GAME DEVELOPMENT
August 7, 2022The aim of this post is to show middle school math students that MATRICES are used in the REAL WORLD of GAME DEVELOPMENT.
They don’t have to do the math.
To have some fun playing with a 2D to 2D transformations go to this MathIsFun post.
Crazy Guy uses Infrared Sensors on Xbox Kinect to create WoW! Synth-Pop VIDEO
August 7, 2022The aim of this post is to show middle school math students that MAPPING is used in the REAL WORLD of Synth-Pop Music Video Production.
IT Records on Facebook
Amazing and Terrifying Wildfire Maths . . . . . . . . . . . . . . METRIC UNITS
July 25, 2022
With wildfires burning across the US and Europe , Mathspig had to update this firefighter maths post for middle school classrooms.
Radiant Heat Stats WA Fire Dept FACEBOOK, Australian Bushfires 14 NOV 2019 MyFireWatch WA
Wildfires USA 2022 Map: NASA
METRIC UNITS
Background Story
On 5th August 1949 Wag Dodge was dropped by parachute with 14 other fire fighters into Mann Gulch, a steep-sided gully in a Montana pine forest. Fire fighters who parachute in to put out small blazes started by lightening are called Smoke Jumpers. As they worked their way down the sides of the gully the breeze was blowing away from them. But the wind soon shifted. This produced an updraft, which increases the speed of the fire front. The 15 Smoke Jumpers turned and started running for their lives uphill.
HOW FAST CAN YOU RUN?
METRIC UNITS
Time Trial:
Mark out a 10 m course. Make 3 time trials.
t1 =
t2 =
t3=
Average your time:
tav = (t1 + t2 + t3)/ 3 =
Your Speed S = 10/tav = ……… m/sec
HOW FAST IS A GRASS FIRE?
This will, of course, vary depending on the wind speed. A typical grass fire in Australia in a flat area can travel at 20kph (up to 30 kph) in a gentle breeze.
Fire Front Speed Grass Fire
Fire Front Speed = 20 kph = 20 x1000/(60 x 60)
= 20 x 0.27777777 = 20 x 0.28 m/sec
= 5.6 m/sec
CAN YOU OUT RUN A FIRE?
Average Running Speed Boy 13–14 yo = 3.0 m/sec
Average Running Speed Girl 13–14 yo = 2.4 m/sec
We’ll assume, boy or girl, that you are really motivated and can run away from the fire at top speed of 3.0 m/sec. Now calculate the distance you can run and the fire front moves in 10 secs intervals up to 1 minute.
This is not looking good. See more Firefighters Need Maths here.
We can do very accurate calculations using simultaneous equations. Wildfire Algebra: Detailed Worksheet using simultaneous equations and solutions here.
NOW YOU ARE RUNNING UP HILL. WHAT HAPPENS?
We’ll assume, due to being motivated by having a fire licking your heels, that you can run at your top speed up hill for a short time, at least. But here is the problem.
Heat rises and so there is a Chimney Effect pushing the fire uphill. The rule of thumb used by fire fighters is:
Each 10º increase in slope, the fire front speed doubles.
Now you can calculate the distance travelled by the fire front up a slope at a 30º angle.
Don’t forget you can use the WEB 2.0 Calculator here.
Even at your top running speed, which is unlikely up a slope, you can run 180 m in 1 minute. In that time the forefront has moved 2688 m or 2.7 km.
It depends how far away you are from the fire front, but it seems you cannot out run this fire front.
Again we can do very accurate calculations using simultaneous equations.
See Firefighters Need Maths here.
Wildfire Algebra: Worksheet and solutions here.
CAN YOU OUT RUN A WILD FIRE?
High winds can turn a bush or forrest fire into a WILD FIRE with wind speeds up to 110 kph and temperatures up to 2000 °C, which can and does melt glass and cars.
The fire front speed doubles with every 10º, so speeds for the fire front can reach 220 kph, 330kph and up to 550kph.
What happened to the Smoke Jumpers?
When the fire front changed direction Wag Dodge and 14 other Smoke Jumpers found themselves running for their lives up a steep slope. What did Wag do next?
ANS: Here’s the amazing thing. Wag realised he could not out run the fire at that point. So he stopped. Took off his back pack. Took out some MATCHES and lit a fire in the grassy patch in front of him. Just before the firewall hit he threw himself face down on the burnt patch. He survived. The other 14 firefighters did not.
Stranger Things Math 2: Now You are the Galton Ball
July 22, 2022Mathspig has become obsessed with the Galton Board since watching ELEVEN dropping discs into the peg board on STRANGER THINGS 4.
Now thanks to David Butler, University of Adelaide, you can turn your middle school class into Galton Balls. You can find 100 randomly generated instruction sheets for each human Galton Ball at David’s website. (Link above)
Ideally, you would have 3,000 students to do this activity. But the class exercise ends with something approximating a Normal Distribution or Bell Curve constructed from video tap casettes. And the NOrMal Distribution is spooky.
More on the Galton Board Math here.
Stranger Things Math: Eleven and the Galton Board
July 3, 2022
NOTE: Michael (above), who seems appropriately scary for this post, uses a commercial Galton Board. It has one flaw. Many balls feed into the grid at once and this will change the pathways taken because the balls bump into one another. The best results come from dropping in the balls one at a time. If you had the patience to drop in 3,000 balls one at a time.
Killer Easter Egg Math
March 30, 2022According to The Guinness Book of Records the largest chocolate Easter Egg went on display at Le Acciaierie Shopping Centre, in Cortenuova, Italy, on 2011.
Egg Weight = 7,200 kg = 15,873 lbs
Height = 10 m = 34 ft
Circumference = 19.6 m = 64 ft
The sugar content for easter eggs is: 55-65% by weight
So we will assume the sugar content of the giant egg was in the middle:
60%
The weight of sugar in the giant egg equals:
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