Measurement

To teach math well, “your argument has to be beautiful”

Paul Lockhart is a math teacher. Most likely, he’s the math teacher you wish your math teacher was. Instead of math being taught as the dry, encyclopedic collection of exotic symbols and equations that is so often is today, he would rather it served as a beautiful language by which we describe the world around us.

He wrote something to this effect years ago, called “Lockhart’s Lament.” In it, he says: 

… if I had to  design  a mechanism for the express purpose of destroying a child’s natural curiosity and love of pattern-making, I couldn’t possibly do as good a job as is currently being done— I simply  wouldn’t have the imagination  to  come up  with  the kind  of senseless, soulcrushing ideas that constitute contemporary mathematics education.

You should read the whole thing.

He has an upcoming book called Measurement, one that he hopes will show people more of the beauty of math, and induce less phobia. Math is a truly beautiful language, and one that we could all serve to speak more fluently. I’ll be keeping my eyes out for this one.

Bonus: For more awesome mathemagic numerawesomeness, everyone should really be watching Vi Hart’s YouTube channel. Do it.

Source: youtube.com

Measuring the Universe

Measuring things that we can touch, feel and see up close is easy. No matter the exact method, we mostly just use big rulers down here on Earth.

But how do we measure the universe? How do we tally distances on a scale of time and space so immense that our brain can quite literally not reconcile them? 

Here’s a fantastic animation by the Royal Observatory to answer that question.

(by Royal Observatory Greenwich, tip o’ the glass to thekidshouldseethis)

Source: vimeo.com