Topple Drop has nice "Eye Candy"
There’s a new game out from the inventor of Arithmemouse, called Topple Drop. Like Arithmemouse, Topple Drop is full of beautiful colorful graphics – and not just for the game elements. The background scenery is also full of eye-catching, cheerful but surreal images – how many games have you seen where the sun has three eyes, and a big pair of headphones? Read the rest of this entry »
Some time ago, I posted a fractions puzzle involving flat bread. You can read about it here. Here’s the question – if I take a flat piece of bread, and give you half, then you give me back a quarter, then I give you back an eighth, and you give me back 1/16, and so on ad infinitum, how much of the original flat bread do I have?
[This is a back-issue of this site's newsletter]
Timez Attack I just heard some exciting news from the makers of Timez Attack : they’ve added a division game! Timez Attack is a great game, my son became his grade 3 class times table champion because of it. You can read more about Timez Attack Division here. Even better, they are due to release Addition and Subtraction games by Christmas! Stay tuned on the Math Games for Kids Blog, or follow me on twitter and I’ll make sure you’re the the first to know when these come out.
Normally, this newsletter is to announce new games on Dr Mike’s Math Games for Kids, but Timez Attack is such a great game, I couldn’t resist telling you now. Besides, you can get a $10 discount on Timez attack Division if you act before June 30. See my blog post to find out how.
Here’s a preview of some of the things coming up soon on Dr Mike’s Math Games for Kids.
Polyhedral Nets : I’m working on a program to help you create nets for any polyhedron you want. Well, almost – in the first version, the faces will have to be regular polygons. You’ll be able to design your own nets, print them out, and fold them up to make 3-D shapes. The program will show you what the shape should look like before you print. You’ll also be able to share them with your friends by email or via blogs, facebook, twitter, and so forth. When it’s ready, I’ll announce it in this newsletter, so stay tuned!
iPhone Mathteroids : You already know that I paid a programmer to make an iPhone version of Traffic Jam. Now, I’m paying him to bring Mathteroids to the iPhone – and iPad. On the topic of Traffic Jam for iPhone, if you’d like to write a review of it on your own blog, I have some promotional codes you can use to get “Traffic Jam by Dr Mike” for free. Hit reply, tell me the address of your blog, and ask me for a code. Do it now so you don’t forget!
There’s more great news from the team behind Timez Attack – they’ve added a Division game!
As I’ve blogged about in the past, Timez Attack is a fantastic way for kids to learn times table facts. It’s a real 3D computer game, immersing kids in a variety of simulated environments, where they battle monsters with a unique weapon : times tables skills! Timez Attack made my son the times table champion of his grade 3 class.
This post is wrong!! It’s been pointed out that adding salt to boiling water raises the boiling point. It doesn’t lower it. So something very strange was happening in the experiment below. Perhaps it was just a screwy thermometer??
Just for a change, here’s a post about Chemistry. Or Physics, some might argue. I say Chemistry.
My son had just finished some questions in a science workbook, and I had to mark it. Unfortunately, there was one question I didn’t know the answer to – does adding salt to water lower its boiling point?
[This is a back-issue of this site's newsletter]
Polyhedron Puzzle
My son was practicing for a nationwide math test recently. One of the practice questions showed a picture of a cube with two corners cut off. The question was “What is the total number of vertices, edges and faces on this figure?”
The obvious way to solve it is to count up the number of vertices (12), the number of edges (18) and the number of faces (8) and add them all together (12 + 18 + 8 = 38). That is, after all, what the question asked for. The problem is, it’s time-consuming to do so much counting – and it’s a timed exam.
Yesterday was my grandfather’s 105th birthday party. He actually turns 105 tomorrow, on the 23rd of May. Yesterday was also supposed to be the end of the world, according to a very small splinter group of Christians. Clearly, the guy who made that prediction was thoroughly convinced, and thoroughly wrong.
Why do people make predictions like that? Let’s see what the math says! But first, more about my grandfather’s birthday party…
What do median house prices tell me? Picture © Justin Smith / Wikimedia Commons, CC-By-SA-3.0
In terms of house prices, the city where I live avoided the worst of the Global Financial Crisis. There was a spurt in house prices that stopped in 2007, but after that, prices didn’t crash, they plateaued. Now, I rent a house, and I also own a house which I rent to someone else. One day, I’d like to sell the house I own, and buy one to live in. Naturally, I pay attention to newspaper headlines like “House Prices Plummet In May!”
The game Dinosaur Dodger – or rather, the paradox that inspired it, contains some important lessons for life.
The Math Of Voting
The House of Representatives in the United States Congress is responsible for creating laws that, if they get through the Senate and the President, become, well, law. the House has 435 members. The British House of Commons has 650 lawmakers. Even the Australian House of Representatives has 150 members.
Democratic countries deliberately choose to have their laws created by large groups of people. The idea is that special interest groups will not be able to have too much influence on the passage of laws, and so the government will truly be a government representative of the people.
Is it possible, then, that an entire democratic country could be run by as few as two individuals? Let’s see what the math says…
