How does Matt Parker continue to churn out so much amazing Maths content? The man’s a Mathematical machine. One of the most recent offerings from the legend @standupmaths got me a wee bit excited. Yep, it’s weekly puzzles. You can just watch the videos, or solve them at home, or submit your answer and be entered into the league table of entrants... www.think - maths.co .uk/maths - puzzles Have you ever been lying in bed wondering “is there a pair of rational triangles (one isosceles and the other right - angled) with equal area and perimeter?! Well, consider your insomnia solved: Don’t waste any more time looking for other pairs. You’ll never find them... Here’s a paper proving why: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1809.09936.pdf donsteward.blogspot.com/ It was real sad to hear that the man behind the incredible Median blog, Don Steward, passed away this week. Don’s resources are fantastic - they’ve featured in the newsletter a few times over the years and based on the reaction from Maths Twitter folk there are activi ties from Median in classrooms all over the world. I never met him but every single story I’ve heard about Don was of a kind, inspirational guy who will be missed greatly. Grange Academy mathematics Department Newsletter Issue 5 1 5 11 / 5 /20 20 subscribers and counting ... Thought of the week No - One Ever Asked... SAD NEWS Welcome Insomnia is awful. But on the plus side – only three more sleeps till Christmas! Math s D ep a rtm en t N e wsl e tt e r Pag e 2 I think I had something about this in the newsletter, inspired by Matt Parker (yes, him again!) , a while back but saw an animated version of this on Twitter and thought it was worth sharing even if it’s a repeat! T hanks to @rainmaker1973 ... see the post her e: https://t.co/8KR0dSsANQ This chain contains every integer from 1 to 35...the sum of any pair of consecutive integers is a square number. It’s conjectured that you’ll be able to create a chain like this for all integers greater than 24. “You don’t need anyone’s permission to be a great mathematician.” ( Nira Chamberlain @ch_nira ) You guys submitted a few ways to solve the puzzle last week. Here’s a version that used logs! THIS WEEK’s PUZZLE : Fill in each of the eight small boxes in the figure above, from left to right, with consecutive integers so that the sum of the integers in the two central boxes is equal to the sum of three integers on the left as well as one - half of the sum of the three integers on the right. Let me know of any news/items/lesson ideas to share by Friday lunchtime. Chris NUMBER CHAIN QUOTEWORTHY Milk rota Weekly puzzle For Nex t Newsletter ... The next four folk on milk: 11 th May David 18 th May Lynne 25 th May Jamie 1 st June Ward Hello, everyone. T his was soooooo close to perfection, wasn’t it? Booo, 12. With everything that’s been going on with the world I didn’t write a congratulations to our Mathematiques Sans Frontieres teams. Grange had THREE entries in the top 10... well done to Dr Taylor’s 4M1 (7 th ), my 4M2 (4 th ) and Nadia’s 3M1 (3 rd ). It was nice a fter two years as Scottish champions to allow another school a wee go. Delighted that Lochaber High School picked up this year’s trophy. We’ll be back!! A wee while back Ed Southall ( @edsouthall ) and I chatted about our love of the song “That’s Mathematics” and roped in Ben Sparks ( @SparksMaths ) to see if the three of us could pull off a specta cular musical collaboration with some of our favourite Mathsy folk : Surely they wouldn’t be up for it...? If you haven’t seen the finished product yet , stop what you’re doing and go watch this: www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7WJkz0WURY Of course, the whole thing was a tribute to 92 - year - old Tom Lehrer. He’s the genius who wrote this glorious song (and many, many others)! Grange Academy mathematics Department Newsletter Issue 5 1 6 1 8 / 5 /20 20 subscribers and counting ... Thought of the week MSF 2020 “That ’ s Mathematics” Welcome If I had a penny for everyone who asked me to look after their dogs, I’d have a pound. Math s D ep a rtm en t N e wsl e tt e r Pag e 2 The post - exam SQA Maths exam reviews have been a regular feature of the newsletter over the years. Usually I rope in newsletter readers for guest contributions, but this year I just thought I’d do it myself. 2020 National 5 Maths: 2020 Higher Maths: 2020 Advanced Higher Maths: Last week’s solution to the puzzle Guney sent ! THIS WEEK’s PUZZLE : Two circles. Add their circumferences and you’ll get 10322 π Add their areas and you ’ ll get 13946281 π Can you work out the radius of each circle? Let me know of any news/items/lesson ideas to share by Friday lunchtime. Chris 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 2020 SQA EXAM REVIEW Milk rota Weekly puzzle For Next Newsletter ... The next four folk on milk: 18 th May Lynne 25 th May Jamie 1 st June Ward 8 th June Andrea I’ve done more video chats over the past two months than I have in my entire life prior to Coronavirus kicking in. One highlight was an online blether with Howie Hua ( @howie_hua )... Howie’s become a bit of a Twitter sensation thanks to his Maths memes and I liked these ones with a COVID19 flavour! Newsletter reader Adam Atkinson sent me a few of his favourite Maths puzzle, tasks, curiosities and conundrums. Have a look through this fantastic list (a few of the ones that grabbed my attention are below): https://bit.ly/2QIc5es *Find an arithmetic progression of three integers whose product is prime! *If a prime and a square have a difference of 100, which is the biggest? * Show that if you write down a prime number, then append its digits in revers e order, you get a multiple of 11. For example, 37 becomes 3773, which is 11 x 343. * A rectangle is “semi - integer” if at least one of its sides has integer length. If you construct a rectangle out of semi - integer rectangles, does the larger rectangle have to be semi - integer? Grange Academy mathematics Department Newsletter Issue 5 1 7 25 / 5 /20 20 subscribers and counting ... Welcome 11 Thanks, Adam. Math s D ep a rtm en t N e wsl e tt e r Pag e 2 20!7! = 207 6!21! 621 175!56! = 17556 55!176! 55176 1500!475! = 1500475 474!1501! 4741501 There are lots more of these... bonus points for any pupils who can find their own - they might even look for a nifty connection with the square root of ten as the numbers increase in size! Last week’s the circles had radius 2020 and 3141. That made me smile, at least. THIS WEEK’s PUZZLE : Jack is growing a beanstalk. And magic’s bean handy. By the end of the first day, it has increased its height by a factor of a half. By the end of the second day, it has increased its height by a third from its height that morning. By the end of the third day, it has increased its height by a quarter from its height that morning... The pattern continues. How many days will Jack’s beanstalk take to grow to 10 times its original height? [Why don’t you have an estimate first? Or before you start, speculate about whether the increase each day grows or shrinks? I know from using this puzzle before that kids (and adults) can be surprised by the answers] Let me know of any news/items/lesson ideas to share by Friday lunchtime. Chris Thought of the week Milk rota Weekly puzzle For Next Newsletter ... The next four folk on milk: 25 th May Jamie 1 st June Ward 8 th June Andrea 15 th June Nadia DAY 1 DAY 2 DAY 3 DAY 4 GOODING JUNIOR ( ) 3 A GUY WAS TAKEN TO HOSPITAL today after jumping on his nemesis from a tall building (he was pronounced dead on a rival). ACTOR ARITHMETIC Factorial fun Welcome to Issue 518, folks. Here’s a wee fact about 518 that’s kinda neat: 518 = 5 1 + 1 2 + 8 3 Want to take part in the first ever “ Scotland Rocks ” competition from Times Tables Rock Stars ?! We'll they’re running an online competition for all schools in Scotland from Monday 8th June 2020 to the Thursday 11th June 2020! All the details are here: https://ttrockstars.com/page/scotlandrocks2020 Simon Pampena ( @mathemaniac ) is the latest member of Maths royalty to indulge me by providing a wee photo with the Maths newsletter. Simon’s well worth following on Twitter. He’s also to be found on Numberphile videos ... ... and is one of the stars of our “That’s Mathematics” masterpiece! Grange Academy mathematics Department Newsletter Issue 5 1 8 1 / 6 /20 20 subscribers and counting ... Thought of the week SCOTLAND ROCKS 2020 PAMPENA POSES Milk rota Welcome If your net curtains aren't big enough for your window, then why not try your gross curtains? The next four folk on milk: 1 st June Ward 8 th June Andrea 15 th June Nadia 22 nd June Chris Math s D ep a rtm en t N e wsl e tt e r Pag e 2 Here’s a neat wee collection of tasks from Ayliean ( @Ayliean ) in the style of “Pick n Mix”. It’s typically creative and there’s a version for those struggling with Maths at home and those loving Maths just now! Version 1: https://t.co/Fr8T9WjMaY?amp=1 Version 2: https://t.co/3ODgMFNkZe?amp=1 It’s that time of year again - get my Summer Maths Relay downloaded for end - of - term wildness: Regardless of the original height of the plant, it’ll take 18 days to grow to 10 times that size. THIS WEEK’s PUZZLE : Let’s string the first few non - primes (1,4,6,8 etc) together. So we’ll end up with numbers like 1468910 if the final number we use is 10. Notice that th is new number we’ve formed isn’t prime. What’s the final non - prime number in our string if we manage to find the sm allest prime number generated this way? Let me know of any news/items/lesson ideas to share by Friday lunchtime. Chris Pick n Mix SUMMER MATHS RELAY Weekly puzzle For Next Newsletter ... Hi everyone... I should really have shared the 100% electronic version of my Summer Maths Relay last week. Thanks to Joe Craig and Michael Allan for adapting this in Google Form s / OneNote – what they’ve put together with my questions is much handier for using with classes remotely, it’s definitely less hassle for teachers to use (both in set - up and marking)...the only thing that’s missing is the chaos of students tanking it across the classroom to answer their puzzles... https://tinyurl.com/summer - relay - form When Sarah Carter ( @mathequalslove ) says she’s excited about a new resource you can be pretty confident it’s going to be excellent. The latest case in point is her “Transformatio ns Word Search” ... and don’t even think of switching off because of the phrase “word search”. Ditch all assumptions about this being another mindless end - of - term time - waster! This activity is carefully designed, worthwhile and with challenge for students learning about graph transformations. A s with all of Sarah’s stuff, it’s well presented and contains everything you’ll need to get started. But enough from me. Head over to the Mathequalslove blog to find out more from Sarah herself: https://bit.ly/3fbdZ1V Grange Academy mathematics Department Newsletter Issue 5 1 9 8 / 6 /20 20 subscribers and counting ... Thought of the week Milk rota Welcome The final three folk on milk: 8 th June Andrea 15 th June Nadia 22 nd June Chris I’ve just written a wee leaflet about falling down a staircase... It’s a step by step guide. TRANSFORMATIONS ACTIVITY Math s D ep a rtm en t N e wsl e tt e r Pag e 2 A set of 28 standard dominoes can be arranged into a sum like this : and into a sort of magic square: These come from Joseph S. Madachy ( Madachy’s Mathematical Recreations , 1966 ) and W.W. Rouse Ball ( Mathematical Recreations and Essays , 1919 ). I’ve got one final domino arrangement in the weekly puzzle! I turned 39 on Tuesday so I made sure the final non - prime you needed was 39... THIS WEEK’s PUZZLE : I can set up the following multiplication using four dominoes And 604 x 4 does indeed equal 2416 Your task is to use the entire standard set of 28 dominoes to create seven multiplications simultaneously (so you have to use every domino once) This puzzle did feature as one of my Corona Conundrums but the solution I provide in the video isn’t unique so I hope you’ll serve up an alternative one: https://youtu.be/Wsot8KWdx2o Let me know of any news/items/lesson ideas to share by Friday lunchtime. Chris Weekly puzzle For Next Newsletter ... DOMIN - Oh! x Welcome folks! Did you know it’s 353 years today since the first ever blood transfusion, administered by a Dr. Jean - Baptiste Denys ? In 2012 (yes, eight years ago) I had a fun chat on Twitter with Paul Salomon ( @lostinrecursion ) about blood donation and which blood types can donate to different blood types. We summarised some of that info a s ingle bloody diagram. The arrows on the IV tubes indicate the direction blood can be given. This cuboid seemed like it could become something Mathsy, so I filed it away but after almost a decade it’s yet to be drafted into a lesson. However, it recently got its time to shine in one of my Corona Conundru ms - the National Blood Transfusion Service loved it! www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYnK6MO2a0k&t=2s Some graphs that grabbed my attention recently! First, one that cropped up on the recent BBC2 Horizon episode “The Great British Intelligence Test” ( https://bbc.in/2YAfKQc ). This was interesting TV , not just to se e just how well Bobby Seagull uses his literally tiny brain and to watch Adam Hampshire’s latest batch of challenges - he was the one who devised those puzzles that tortured us on Family Brain Games last year Hannah Fry ( @FryRsquared ) was presenting and chatted about this graph showing how closely the trend of internet use (yellow) and stress/anxiety (blue) track each other when you compare it to the age of the user Then there was a typically insightful blog ( https://bit.ly/2L3kl5G ) from Dan Meyer ( @ddmeyer ) who used the American Time Use Survey as the source of some cracking graphs and the springboard for some even better discussi ons/activities! Here’s just one that received the Meyer makeover! Grange Academy mathematics Department Newsletter Issue 5 20 15 / 6 /20 20 subscribers and counting ... Thought of the week Welcome In Transylvania, it’s your Count that votes. GRAPH CHAT Math s D ep a rtm en t N e wsl e tt e r Pag e 2 Here’s Jacqui’s solution to the Domino puzzle! THIS WEEK’s PUZZLE : It’s hard to believe that a year ago the Smiths were on the telly with Dara O Briain! If you missed the Family Brain Games you can catch up on our episodes here: https://bit.ly/2yaNJ7f One of the challenges we fa ced, W ord L adder , involved changing an individual letter in consecutive words from top to bottom. I’ve created a Mathsy version (these can be designed to form a unique sequence or not!). Give them a go. Let me know of any news/items/lesson ideas to share by Friday lunchtime. Chris Weekly puzzle Milk rota For Next Newsletter ... The final couple of folk on milk: 15 th June Nadia 22 nd June Chris x x x x x x x Well, w e’ve made it to the end of an unforgettable school year ! COVID19 has been wreaking havoc on our world and teaching has been wildly transformed in recent months. While there’s still uncertainty about what school will look like after the summer, I’m sure we’l l do what we always do - rise up and respond to the challenge with enthusiasm, creativity, professionalism and a wee bit of geekiness! Take care over the summer, folks, and the newsletter will be back in August. It turns out the rules of logarithms are a skoosh: log( 1.5 + 3 ) = log( 1.5 ) + log( 3 ) log( 6 + 1.2 ) = log( 6 ) + log( 1. 2) log(1+2+3) = log(1) + log(2) + log(3) (but don’t show this to your Higher class...) Any idea what this graph might represent? It’s the distribution of finishing times by marathon runners. How could we have figured this out? Why do we such a rise and almost immediate drop after 3:00, 3:30, 4:00, 4:30 and 5:00?! Loads of brilliant discussion points here... What will your students make of this sequence of calculations and their answers? 10% of 10 20% of 20 30% of 30 40% of 40 etc... Grange Academy mathematics Department Newsletter Issue 5 2 1 22 / 6 /20 20 subscribers and counting ... Milk rota Thought of the week GRAPH CHAT Welcome The graph of all my past relationships has an ex axis and a why axis. The last person on milk: 22 nd June Chris LOG THIS UNDER “DUMB” PERCENTAGE PATTERN Math s D ep a rtm en t N e wsl e tt e r Pag e 2 The latest Maths legend to pose with my newsletter is none other than .... Ben Sparks ( @SparksMaths ). Ben might be well known for his Numberphile appearances (check out his podcast interview with Brady and the sumptuous animations in the “Beautiful Trigonometry” video) , Maths Inspiration performances or umpteen other Maths communication activities but to me he’ll always be the editing mastermind behind our “Th at’s Mathematics” antics! Ben recently shared his favourite visualisation of a geometric complex number question: https://geogebra.org/m/KUJj6dcM It’s based on this rather brutal question from the MEI FP2 textbook : Loads of you submitted answers to last week’s puzzle! It’s always fun getting to see your solutions ... so thanks for sending them in! THIS WEEK’s PUZZLE : Every smiley must occur exactly once in every row, column and outlined box. Let me know of any news/items/lesson ideas to share by Friday lunchtime. Chris Weekly puzzle For Next Newsletter ... BEN SPARKS It’s back. Everyone’s favourite weekly Maths newsletter... After a historic end to last year we ’ re hoping for a bit of norma lity and to helping kids settle into school life with compassion , security and Maths joy! Being interviewed on Craig Barton’s podcast was a real privilege. What an honour it was to be one of the first guests on the TES Scotland podcast. The next podcast adventure was my chat with the hosts of the “Unprofessional Development” and our blether was an absolute riot with loads of laughs ...and those of you who know me won’t be surprised to hear that I had a blast! The hosts Tudisco and Mealey seemed genuinely excited to “meet” me, even though recent guests on their show included real Maths stars like Ro bert Kaplinsky and the legendary actor Tony Danza (in fact, they introduce the interview with the words “well, we can’t have Tony Danza on every week...”). Hope you’ll have a wee listen and a chuckle while you do... https://unpro.podbean.com/e/ep - 29 - chris - smith/ CORONA CONUNDRUM ? So my Corona Conundrum project during lockdown became a real labour of love , churning out a new puzzle every couple of days. The response to these was phenomenal and kept me devising more and more. There were some cracking puzzles, some ridiculous intro videos, some incredible solutions. Hopefully they spread a bit of joy and Mathematical curiosity during a tough season. They’re all on YouTube. Please do use them. https://bit.ly/30MbsX0 It’s hard to know the kind of impact these puzzles had. This wee message assured me it was totally worth it: “ Lockdown has been hard going with 3 kids but your conundrums have given us a wee bit of fun (of course a bit of learning too). I’ve found my enjoyment in maths and numbers again. ” Grange Academy mathematics Department Newsletter Issue 5 2 2 11 / 8 /20 20 subscribers and counting ... Thought of the week Welcome “ Athletics is ruining adult literacy ”... Discus. CORONA CONUNDR A... POCAST INTERVIEW Math s D ep a rtm en t N e wsl e tt e r Pag e 2 I spent a couple of sunny summer days out in the garden enjoying some of the 108 puzzles Daniel Griller ( @puzzlecritic ) has shared in his book “Elastic Numbers”. The book kicks off gently with Bronze then Silver questions which you could d efinitely use in class before ramping up a bit in difficulty and novelty in the next Gold and final Diamond section. The name of the book could refer to the fact these puzzles could stretch you but it’s actually inspired by “Diamond 3” which is one of Dani el’s favourites! I’ve included tweaked versions of just three that I found fun for the weekly puzzle - thanks Daniel. Solutions to the final puzzle of the 2019 - 2020 session were n ’ t forthcoming so I put a wee reminder cha llenge on Twitter and it was Garrett Clarke ( @ GarrettRClarke ) who came to the rescu e first ... H is strategy was to convert the faces to num bers and solved that way. Nice work, Garrett : THIS WEEK’s PUZZLE : Daniel looks at his watch. It’s 10:45. To help pass the time, he decides to divide the number 1045 by the numbers 1,2,3,...,1044,1045 and writes down the remainder in each case. So when he divides 1045 by 11 he writes down 0 (it goes in exactly). When he divides 1045 by 12 he writes down 1 (it has a remainder of 1). When he divides 1045 by 13 he writes down 5 (it has a remainder of 1). What’s the biggest remainder he writes down? The corners of an equilateral triangle with perimeter 783 are cut off, leaving a regular hexagon. What’s the perimeter of this hexa gon? Anna writes down a number, A, which has two digits after the decimal point. She rounds A to one decimal place to form a new number, B. Then Anna rounds B to the nearest whole number to form a new number, C. If A+B+C= 1564.95, find the values of A, B and C. *** Let me know of any news/items/lesson ideas to share by Friday lunchtime. Chris Milk rota Weekly puzzle For Next Newsletter ... Elastic Numbers! The next four people on milk: 11 th August Aimee 17 th August David 24 th August Alysanne 31 st August Lynne Welcome to Issue 523... did you know that 523 is the smallest prime that is followed by 17 composite numbers ? 523 : Prime? ✅ 524: Prime? ❌ ( 2 2 x 131) 525: Prime? ❌ ( 3 x 5 2 x 7) 526: Prime? ❌ ( 2 x 263) 527: Prime? ❌ ( 17 x 31) 528: Prime? ❌ ( 2 4 x 3 x 11) 529: Prime? ❌ ( 2 3 2 ) 530: Prime? ❌ ( 2 x 5 x 53) 531: Prime? ❌ (3 2 x 59) 532: Prime? ❌ ( 2 2 x 7 x 19) 533: Prime? ❌ (13 x 41 ) 534: Prime? ❌ ( 2 x 3 x 89) 535: Prime? ❌ ( 5 x 107) 536: Prime? ❌ ( 2 3 x 67) 537: Prime? ❌ ( 3 x 179) 538: Prime? ❌ ( 2 x 269) 539: Prime? ❌ (7 2 x 11) 540: Prime? ❌ ( 2 2 x 3 3 x 5) 541: Prime? ✅ This was a year we’d never forget and in exceptional circumstances we’ve ended up with a unique exam - less, teacher - estimated set of results for the 2020 qualifications. It’s massive news and something that’s taken me a bit of time to wrap my head around! Time to move on and m ake the most of the current session. We’ve got this! To help kids and parents with the transition back to school after lockdown and the summer holidays, I was roped in to film wee bits for the Parent Club Scotland video series (and one or two media interviews). https://bit.ly/33SJYRk I was only mildly ann oyed that my line “Of course there will be things that are still the same: the value of will remain about 3.141592653589793...” didn’t make the final cut! Grange Academy mathematics Department Newsletter Issue 5 2 3 1 7 / 8 /20 20 subscribers and counting ... Milk rota Thought of the week Welcome The inventor of the cliffhanger has The next four people on milk: 17 th August David 24 th August Alysanne 31 st August Lynne 7 th September Jamie SQA EXAMS 2020 BACK TO SCHOOL Math s D ep a rtm en t N e wsl e tt e r Pag e 2 I really liked the wee Mathsy cartoons that Hannah Fry ( @FryRsquared ) has been creating with artist Geoffrey Dahl ( @geoffreydahl )...here’s a wee teaser, you can check out the rest on Hannah’s Instagram page: https://bit .ly/3djUyTi A wee heads up that Maths Week Scotland is 28 th September – 4th October! The fourth annual nationwide celebration of Mathematics will look different from previous years but it’ll still be packed with activities. Keep your eyes peeled here: www.mathsweek.scot/ Last wee k’s puzzles were all mysteriously linked to the issue number ( 522 ) THIS WEEK’s PUZZLE : Hardy and Ramanujan were walking through the grounds of Cambridge when they found £60 lying on the grass. Hardy said, “If I keep the money, I will have the same amount as you have, so I think we should do that.” Ramanujan said, “But if I keep the money, then the product of the two amounts we would then have would be 1729, which is a very interesting number!” How much money did they each have? Let me know of any news/items/lesson ideas to share by Friday lunchtime. Chris Maths Cartoons! MATHS WEEK SCOTLAND 2020 Weekly puzzle For Next Newsletter ... A wee bit of Mathematical modelling based on some bizarre brickwork. Aren’t these walls intriguing? This type of wall has some brilliant nicknames: serpentine wall , ribbon wall , wavy wall But my favourite is crinkle crankle . The best place to find these walls is in the county of Suffolk which boasts at least 50 examples, twice as many as in the whole of the rest of the country. These crinkle crankles might be really pretty (especially for anyone who has a penchant for trigonometric graphs!) but surely building walls like this is a wildly inefficient use of bricks?! Well, it’s not as crazy as you might think. The sinusoidal shape is surprisingly sturdy. Even when the wall is only one brick thick a crinkle crankle will resist pressure, for example from strong winds, where a straight single - brick wall would topple. Believe it or not, that means a wavy wall can actually save on brick s compared to its double - thickness - straight - wall counterpart. When calculating the length of a curve we use this well - known integral: ∫ √ 1 + ( 𝑑𝑦 𝑑𝑥 ) 2 𝑑𝑥 𝑏 𝑎 If we look at a wall that spans a stretch of 100m, we can model it with 𝑦 = wsin ( x ) where w is the wo bbliness (w=0 corresponds to the straight wall)! 𝑤𝑎𝑙𝑙 𝑙𝑒𝑛𝑔𝑡 ℎ = ∫ √ 1 + 𝑤 2 𝑐𝑜𝑠 2 𝑥 𝑑𝑥 100 0 If the wall is straight, w = 0 and the integral gives us a wall length over the 100m stretch of...100m (obviously). Remember, for stability we need this to be two layers thick so that’s effectively 200m of bricks. If we go for a crinkle crankle wall with, for example w = 1, the integral is tougher to evaluate but over the 100m stretch our wall is about 121.51m long. However, this can be a single brick wall so we only need 60.8% of the bricks! So, crinkle crankles look cool and use fewer bricks. Why aren’t more walls built like this? I’m guessing it’s a combination of the space that’s used up (2m wide in the w=1 case) and the fact these walls are trickier to const ruct... Grange Academy mathematics Department Newsletter Issue 5 2 4 24 / 8 /20 20 subscribers and counting ... Thought of the week Welcome Is the narrow bit of an hourglass just a waist of time? Math s D ep a rtm en t N e wsl e tt e r Pag e 2 Assuming the YouTube algorithm is working properly, in the last few days you ’ ll have been recommended a new batch of videos labelled “ MegaFavNumbers ” ... James Grime e xplains th e vision for th is project - simply pick your favourite number greater than a million , create a video expla ining why you love it , upload it with the phrase “ M gaFavNumbers ” i n the title and your video will be added to this illustriou s playlis t : https://bit.ly/3gg5GRD B e quick though - the deadline if you ’ d like to be included is 2 nd September ! ”Lochdonia Manor Escape Room” is aimed for P5 to S2 pupils but I’ll confess that this 39 - year - old enjoyed it too! The Scottish Mathematical Council helped with this one and you’ll find it on the Maths Week Scotland website: www.mathsweek.scot/assets/files/Escape - Room.pdf Probably Hardy had £13 and Ramanujan had £73. (Or as Dan Fox cunningly suggested, maybe Hardy is £133 into his overdraft, and Ramanujan £73 into his)! THIS WEEK’s PUZZLE : I’ve inscribed a yellow square inside one half of a circle and two green squares inside the other half. Order the blue, green, red and yellow areas, smallest to largest! Let me know of any news/items/lesson ideas to share by Friday lunchtime. Chris Milk rota #BACKTOSCHOOL ESCAPE ROOM Weekly puzzle For Next Newsletter ... #MEGAFAVNUMBERS The next four people on milk: 24 th August Alysanne 31 st August Lynne 7 th September Jamie 14 th September Ward