Yes, math is fun. In fact, it has always been fun, but sometimes when sitting in a fourth-grade classroom while everyone is playing on computers, it can be hard to even think that math is fun. While volunteering on a field trip for a fourth-grade class, after an exciting day of holding snakes and turtles, learning about longleaf pines, and hiking our local ecosystem, I was horrified to hear the teacher say, “If you are good on the bus, when we get back to the classroom you can play on computers. If you are not good, we will do math.” Math is a punishment and “playing on computers” is a reward? Tell me that is not so.
Issac Newton
First, people who like math are fun. Issac Newton was born on Christmas Day, three months after his father died. His mother remarried and it seems he did not like his stepfather, because, as he was a Christian, he wrote in his list of sins, “Threatening my mother and father to burn them and the house over them.” Newton went to school, but it was the school bully that inspired him to do well. He decided if he could not fight this bully, he could do math, which turned out really well for him. When the black plague disrupted his studies, he went home and invented calculus. He calculated trajectories and studied light. He learned that white light is made up of colors. He stuck pins in his eyes to see colors (don’t try this at home) and looked at the sun so long that he went blind and had to recover in darkness for a while.
The story of the apple? He wondered why apples do not fall up or sideways, don’t you? The specific tree actually blew down in a storm but regrew and can be seen today. It is also true that he said that he stood on the shoulders of giants, but he said that to Robert Hooke, who was a really short guy. I don’t think he meant it as a nice thing.
Archimedes
Archimedes had no shoulders to stand on. He figured out how to calculate the density of gold when he got into a bathtub and watched the water overflow. He got so excited he ran around town naked yelling, “Eureka.” No one thought that was odd for a math nerd. He invented the Archimedes screw, which is still used today in sewage plants. Go look that up on your computer for some fun. Better, see if you can build one. He also invented catapults and grappling cranes, just for fun.
It is also said that Archimedes set up mirrors on the beach to burn up enemy ships using the sun’s rays. You can actually do this at home to start fires, but I might get in trouble if I provide details. It is improbable that he actually did this, but hey, it is a really fun story.
Pythagoras
Pythagoras is the guy that invented all those problems about ladders leaning against walls. He and his wife started a hippie commune on the island of Samos. They were vegetarians who didn’t eat beans and didn’t wear clothes. They worshipped shapes and one-upped Columbus in understanding that the world was a sphere. Everything was great until one member, Hipassus, discovered that in a right triangle with sides of one unit, the hypothesis is the square root of two, which, try as they might, they could not calculate an exact answer for. Hipassus discovered irrational numbers, and the rational Pythagoreans didn’t like that, so they tied weights to his legs and threw him the sea.
Real life arithmetic for girls?
Yes, it is true, and you can actually buy this book from Amazon, while playing on your computers. “Real life arithmetic for girls” was written by Olive Morgan, in 1936. It has all the information girls need to survive. The book teaches girls how to calculate household expenses, determine food budgets, and restaurant bills. More importantly, it teaches girls how to make a pattern for “panties.” First measure your height, then calculate the length of the panties as seven sixteenths of height. The width is three and three quarters times the length. Try it. Perhaps the fact that the original publication of this book was before World War II might explain the gigantic size of these bloomers, but they would absolutely never fit under yoga pants.
Fun math problem
Now that you calculated the size of your panties, you can use your math skills to solve this problem: Three men rented a hotel room for $120. The room was really shabby, so the owner decided to give them back $20. The porter delivering the money thought that since $20 did not divide evenly by three, he should just keep $5, so he gave the three men $15. The men actually paid $105 and the porter got $5. That makes $110. Where is the other $10?
What is really fun?
For nerdy people like me, math is fun, and you can actually find all of this on a computer somewhere. I didn’t make any of this up. If you haven’t found the missing $10 yet, the men paid $105, the porter got $5, making $100 paid to the hotel. There is no missing $10. Not only is math fun, but nerdy math people are fun, and so are field trips where you get to hold snakes. Next time the teacher says you can do math if you are not good on the bus, go with the math.
