Regional Ratios

A regular hexagon and an equilateral triangle have the same perimeter.

Lincoln’s Top Hat

Did you know that there is a famous illusion associated with Lincoln’s “stove pipe” hat? The hat looks like it’s taller than it is wide, even when the height and width (including the brim) are the same. Let’s make a hat:

1. Cut a circle with a radius of 5 1/2 inches.
2. Cut a circle from the center of the first circle with a radius of 3 1/2 inches.

The smaller circle will form the tip of the hat, and what’s left of the larger circle will form the hat brim. If we had a rectangular sheet of paper of the right size, we could make the cylindrical part of the top hat.

Name That Shape

Mia drew a shape with exactly 4 sides.

It has 4 lines of symmetry.

The Take-Away Game

• Write 23 X’s on a piece of paper.
• On your turn you can erase or take away 1, 2, or 3 of the X’s.
• Turns alternate. You cannot skip your turn.
• The person who erases or takes away the last X wins.

X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X

I’m a Groundhog?

I’ve always felt a connection to Punxsutawney Phil because my birthday is on February 2nd, the same day folks watch to see if Punxsutawney Phil sees his shadow! One year, I noticed:

• Phil’s height = 51.2 cm
• Suzanne’s height = 5′ 4″
• Suzanne’s shadow length at Gobbler’s Knob = 76.2 cm

Bobsled Sums

Kelly was watching her favorite Winter Olympic event – the four-man bobsled. On each team a driver sits in front, followed by two teammates and the brakeman in the back.

The numbers 1 through 20 were assigned to the 20 athletes. The drivers wore numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5.

Before the race Kelly studied the teams. Drivers 2, 3, and 4 were riding with brakemen 18, 15, and 20 respectively in three of the sleds. In another sled were 6 and 12, and in the remaining sled were 10 and 17.

Suddenly Kelly realized that if you added up the four numbers on each team, all five sums were the same!

King Euler’s Blueprint

Ration Ratios

At a recent math conference, lunch was provided for the participants. To be sure that there was enough food for everyone, the kitchen staff made more lunches than there were people attending. In fact, the ratio of prepared lunches to people was 7:5.

Because they anticipated a large number of vegetarians at the conference, the staff made 2 vegetarian lunches for every 3 non-vegetarian lunches.

It turned out that the ratio of non-vegetarians to vegetarians at the conference was 3:4.

A Happy New Year Wish

Our son Specialist Lee Alejandre wished us a “Happy New Year!” from his Army post overseas using his iSight camera and iChat AV connection. It was 12:01 am, January 1, for us in Philadelphia, PA, but it was 2:01 pm for him in Seoul, South Korea!

My husband and I were talking about the time zones. I looked on the web and found that Philadelphia is about 203 degrees of longitude west of Seoul. Once we realized that there are 360 degrees of longitude and there are 24 hours in a day, we understood why there is a 14 hour difference in time.