Saturday, December 5, 2009

NOW THIS IS MATH I UNDERSTAND


"One of the most famous stumbling blocks and hated part of math classes is that known as "story problems" [a.k.a word problems]. But that's where the real action is and should be better promoted and encouraged in math education.

"But one of my favorite parts of this literary side of math might be called "Poetry Math". Here the problem is presented in the form of a poem. Below are some of my personal favorites. I hope you enjoy solving them, or at least just reading them.

What's What?

 Take five times which plus half of what,
 And make the square of what you've got.
 Divide by one-and-thirty square,
 To get just four -- that's right, it's there.
 Now two more points I must impress:
 Both which and what are fractionless,
 And what less which is not a lot:
 Just two or three.  So now, what's what?

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