July 3, 2008
If this is true, then every mathematician in the world should celebrate. I found the link here.
Because I’m a skeptic, I downloaded a copy of the article and I’ll probably spend days trying to understand the proof. I hope I learned enough mathematics to understand what he’s talking about.
June 18, 2008
I wanted to share something from ArcaMax Publishing. I receive daily trivia from ArcaMax, and this bit caught my eye:
A new study found that male monkeys will give up their juice rewards in order to ogle pictures of female monkey’s bottoms. The way the experiment was set up, the act is akin to paying for the images, the researchers say.
Aha! Another proof that humans are related to monkeys. Hehehe…
June 9, 2008
I never thought that I was already doing math while crocheting. This will be an interesting article.
New Math Tricks: Knitting and Crocheting
I learned crochet in sixth grade. I was determined to learn it even before classes started. I asked my mom to teach me, so I had no problems in class. I even created a project without referring to those books of crocheting.
Now, I can’t even remember the different patterns you can do with crochet. The last time I held a crochet needle was in high school. I just don’t have the time to go back to crochet. Maybe I should start again? I can surprise my colleagues with patterns that I saw in LiveScience. 
May 18, 2008
This post is a bit late, since it has been two weeks since I graduated with a degree of MS Applied Mathematics. I actually graduated June of last year, but I decided to attend the graduation rites last April in order to get the medallion. Might as well add something that I could attach to my sablay later on.
I was actually bored with the entire ceremony and spent my time digging my teeth on the speeches delivered. I was a bit annoyed with the speech of the best BS graduate and I was wondering if I was that childish when I delivered my response five years ago.
Lo and behold! As I was going over my papers, I stumbled upon that speech. It was in Filipino, prepared a few hours before the graduation itself. (And I remember editing it during the graduation ceremonies.) And as you can expect from a crammed work, it was full of errors in the subject-verb agreement, and there are times when I shift the subject from tayo (we) to ako (I). I didn’t even have an outline of the speech, and just included things spontaneously. You won’t find a ‘unifying theory’ (as my professor would say) in this work. Ohohoho…
And yeah, special mention to my organization (which is not based in the College of Science).
Anyway, here is my speech: (more…)
May 13, 2008
This bit of news certainly made my day. Weird behavior is not limited to humans, I guess.
Can you imagine if they had offsprings? What would it look like? Poor penguin…
May 6, 2008
Found this in the blog of a former student of mine (one of the few who got a grade of 1.0). You can probably tell why I was drawn to this poem, hehehe.
i fear that i will always be
a lonely number like root three
a three is all that’s good and right
why must my three keep out of sight
beneath the vicious square root sign
i wish instead i were a nine
for nine could thwart this evil trick
with just some quick arithmetic
i know i’ll never see the sun
as one-point-seven-three-two-one
such is my reality
a sad irrationality
when hark, ’cause what is this i see
another square root of a three
has quietly come waltzing by
together now we multiply
to form a number we prefer
rejoicing as an integer
we break free from our mortal bonds
and with the wave of magic wands
our square root signs become unglued
the love for me has been renewed
May 4, 2008
I forgot the source of this nice little story, so pardon me if I don’t cite the author. This is not mine and I am only posting this for entertainment purposes. If the author of this nice story happens to stumble upon this site, please leave a comment.
April 30, 2008
I’ve been enchanted by the story of the giant squid ever since I first watched the documentary when I was young. Haha, you can say that this is one of the reasons why I bought “Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea” by Jules Verne.
Imagine my surprise when I stumbled upon this article:
Colossal Squid Thawing; Hints at Even Bigger Beasts
I even found a video courtesy of National Geographic:
I still prefer seeing a live one. 
April 26, 2008
I chuckled when I stumbled upon this article. I’ve known this based on my five years of teaching. And I’m sure that my colleagues would agree.
Word Problems Fail Math Students
Honestly, I have no problems teaching the kids how to compute (except for a handful of students who were absent, physically or mentally). But I have noticed that the students are having problems in reducing word problems in mathematical form. And this is something that cannot really be taught: it is an acquired skill. The best I can do is to give them lots of examples to show them how it is done. But this isn’t the best method since you need lots of time for exercises. And some students nowadays will not bother trying to figure out the problem on their own. They will just post it somewhere and someone with plenty of time on their hands will do it for them. *sigh*
If you guys have any bright ideas on how to make students learn how to solve word problems, just leave a comment.
April 22, 2008
Sorry, I just can’t resist.
Today, we’ll analyze the validity of this statement (made by Person X):
Going against my opinion is not an insult. If it was, I would simply delete your comment since this is my blog.
In response, another person (Person Y) said this:
Since you did not delete my comments as I quote you “If it was” then it means “It was not”. You refer to the previous statement “Going against my opinion is not an insult”. Removing the two negatives, one from each, it then becomes “Going against my opinion is an insult”. Ochams razor? Logical? I even think it is Math. Oops. It may now compel you to delete my comments. Sorry again but delete me if you must.
