## Trigonometry as the Study of Circles

I recently read John Derbyshire’s book, Unknown Quantity: A Real and Imaginary History of Algebra (Plume 2007 edition). I recommend it overall, although the second half becomes increasingly inaccessible to the layperson. One bit that particular stuck in my head, because…

## The Prefix Dia-

A good teacher is always aware that there are things they can learn. One of the ways in which I encourage students to connect mathematics to other topics is by showing how words and morphemes used in mathematics are used…

## PEMDAS and negative numbers

By standard mathematical convention, $$-1^2=-1$$. At the same time, students are taught to refer to $$-1$$ as a negative number. A friend recently led me to realize that these two conventions are at logical odds with each other, as discussed…

## Well… is algebra necessary?

Except for the final grades, I’ve just wrapped up teaching six weeks of credit recovery for Freshman Algebra. It’s tough enough packing nine months’ of material into six weeks, but consider these are the students who didn’t do well enough…

## Trick question memes

From time to time, a mathematical question of some sort will make its rounds on Facebook and other social media platforms. For instance, the one making the rounds most recently in my portion of the blogosphere was: \[5 + 5…

## Introduction and purpose

As of this summer, the summer of 2012, I am qualified to teach mathematics at the high school level in the state of Michigan. I am expecting to be doing so full-time this fall. I am also qualified to teach English,…