Steve

Oh No! Not Fractions! Part 2

This is part two in a series of posts on fraction arithmetic. The other posts can be found here:

Previously, in part one, I had a very quick look at the basic structure of a fraction and introduced a little bit of terminology. Now we’ll look at the idea of equivalent fractions, and fractions in lowest terms. Continue reading Oh No! Not Fractions! Part 2

The Strange Saga of the Unknown Birthday – The Mystery Revealed

In the previous post I re-worded this logic puzzle that’s doing the rounds online at the moment. My goal in doing so was to hopefully make it easier to understand. So here is the problem as I presented it: Continue reading The Strange Saga of the Unknown Birthday – The Mystery Revealed

The Strange Saga of the Unknown Birthday

It’s not often that a maths problem creates any sort of ruckus on the interwebs, but in the past day or so this little beauty has been causing a stir: Continue reading The Strange Saga of the Unknown Birthday

Oh no! Not Fractions!

This is part one in a series of posts on fraction arithmetic. The other posts can be found here:

Part Two

Fractions freak me out. Am I weird? Am I just too dumb to get it?

No.

Out of every student I’ve ever tutored, at any level of maths study and ability, probably the single most common issue is fraction arithmetic. So you can at least be safe in the knowledge that you are far from being alone in being freaked out by fractions. Continue reading Oh no! Not Fractions!

Identity Problems

Identity Matrix?! What on the good green Earth is an Identity Matrix?

The short answer is that it’s a square matrix with 1’s down the main diagonal and 0’s everywhere else. For example, a 3×3 identity matrix looks like this:

$\boldsymbol{\large{\begin{bmatrix}1 & 0 & 0\\0 & 1 & 0\\0 & 0 & 1\end{bmatrix}}}$

That’s not particularly useful to understanding what it’s all about though, so let’s have a closer look at it. Continue reading Identity Problems

Average Amount of Confusion

What’s the difference between Mean, Mode, and Median? Which one is the Average?

I think most of the confusion around this is more about the terminology rather than the mathematics involved.

The first source of confusion, I believe, arises out of the term ‘Average’. Continue reading Average Amount of Confusion

What is a line and what isn’t?

With all these different types of line equations, how do I actually tell if an equation is a line or not?

This is a really good question. Usually it’s linear relationships (line equations in other words) that are the first type of relationship that you learn about when studying algebra. If you haven’t seen many other types of equations then you probably have very little to compare them to, so it can be difficult to see what it is that makes a line equation a line equation. Continue reading What is a line and what isn’t?