Sir Isaac Newton

Sir Isaac Newton was an English physicist, and mathematician, which means he had an extensive knowledge of mathematics, and used this knowledge on a daily basis.  He is world-wide known as he made a breakthrough in the scientific revolution.  He was born December 25^th, 1642 and died in March 20^th, 1727. He was 84 years old when he passed away. He attend Trinity College, Cambridge (1667-1668)

Newton was a premature baby and born very tiny and weak. They didn’t expect him to survive with the lack of medical care they had during their time period. His father was a farmer. Newton never knew he father sadly, because his father died three months before his birth.  At age three his mother remarried, and left him with relative to live with her new husband. This soon of course caused him to have a sense of insecurity later on in life.

At age 12, his mother returned due from the death of her new spouse and came back with three new children. Newton was now attending school and had a great interest in chemistry; meanwhile his mother had other high hopes for him to be a farmer, so she pulled him out of school. Happily for the science and math department Newton failed hopelessly and found farming to be extremely boring.

He soon return back to schooling to finish the basics of education, and perhaps his well-educated uncle saw great potential in his nephew to convince his mother to have him enter a university. He waited tables and took care of wealthier student’s rooms. During his first three years of Cambridge was well worth and fascinated Newton with the more advanced science. In his spare time you would find him reading from the modern philosophers.

Sir Isaac Newton finished college, receive a bachelor’s degree, was nominated minor fellow of the Trinity College, and appointed major fellow of Trinity College and was granted Master’s Degree. His achievements in life were the following: Calculus, theory of universal gravitation, Newtonian mechanics, and visible spectrum of light.

Interesting facts:

·        He wrote more about religion and the bible than he ever did about astronomy, mathematics, or physics. He studied the Bible mainly to extract scientific information.

·        In 1704, Newton wrote a manuscript, which contained different scientific notes based on the Holy Bible. One of his most fascinating observations in the manuscript was a prediction that Earth will end in 2060!

·        Young Newton wasn’t very good in his studies. One day, he was beaten by a school bully in his class. Enraged, he challenged that boy in a fight and won. But, young Newton was still not satisfied with this, he wanted to teach him a lesson in the academic field as well and so he focused more on his studies. This was an important moment in Newton’s life as it set the foundation for his future academic success and historic discoveries.

·        He was knighted on April 16, 1705 by Queen Anne in Cambridge, which earned him the title ‘Sir’. He was honored knighthood not for his scientific achievements, but for his dedicated service for the Mint and for his political activities.

Christiaan Huygens

Christaan Huygens came from a Dutch family. He was in born in The Hague, Netherlands and his date of birth April 14, 1629. He was a prominent Dutch mathematician and natural philosopher. He is known particularly as an astronomer, physicist, probabilist and horologist. Huygens was a leading natural philosopher of his time. His father Constantin Huygens had studied natural philosophy and was a diplomat. Christiaan’s father thought that he was going to gain access to the top scientific circles of the time.  Christaan had studied at Leiden University. In 1651 he published an essay in which he showed the fallacy in a system of quadrature’s proposed by Grégoire de Saint-Vincent. In 1654 Christaan decided to put all his attention to improve the telescope. With his brother he devised a new and better way of grinding and polishing lenses. As a result of these improvements he was able during the following two years, 1655 and 1656, to resolve tons of questions; for example, the nature of Saturn's appendage. His observations required some exact means of measuring time, and he was led in 1656 to invent the pendulum clock, as described in his tract Horologium, 1658. The time pieces previously in use had been balance clocks. In the year 1657, Huygens wrote a small work on the calculus of probabilities founded on the correspondence of Pascal and Fermat. Then later in 1695 on July 8^th Christaan Huygens had died.

Math is Music

Math and music are usually organized into two separate categories, without obvious overlap.  It tends to be that people are good at math and science or art and music, as if the two elements could not be placed together logically.  In actuality, math and music are indeed related and we commonly use numbers and math to describe and teach music. Musical pieces are read much like you would read math symbols.  The symbols represent some bit of information about the piece.  Musical pieces are divided into sections called measures or bars.  Each measure embodies an equal amount of time.  Furthermore, each measure is divided into equal portions called beats.  These are all mathematical divisions of time.

Fractions are used in music to indicate lengths of notes.  In a musical piece, the time signature tells the musician information about the rhythm of the piece.  A time signature is generally written as two integers, one above the other.  The number on the bottom tells the musician which note in the piece gets a single beat (count).  The top number tells the musician how many of this note is in each measure.  Numbers can tell us a lot about musical pieces.

Geometry in the Real World

Most teenagers, while taking geometry, think about when they will ever use this. Trust me I have thought about it plenty myself, and, even if the career path I desire to travel doesn't require geometry, there are millions that it is a necessity to know this math course. Geometry is used in jobs that range from interior design to even being a gardener! It is even used in normal everyday life too.  Say you want to get new carpet in your house. What you are going to be using to figure out how much carpet is needed is the subject called geometry. Also imagine you want to get some new stainless steel appliances to add those final touches to your kitchen. To determine if the appliances will fit in the space available, you have to know cubic footage which is, you guessed it, geometry.  Just ponder about this for a second. Would you rather sit in your class and daydream, snooze off, and not pay attention only to grow up and not get your dream job because you don’t remember anything that was taught? Or do you pay attention, study, and do your homework for the time that you are in that math class and end up getting that occupation you are yearning for?  The choice is yours: work hard and succeed or slack off and possibly fail? 

Welcome

Hello! I am Bart A Miller, a Math and Physics teacher at South Sioux City High School.  This blog will consist of posts made by the students in my classes or by me.

All posts are student generated unless otherwise specified.  Students have been given free reign to voice their opinion and encouraged to discuss a math related topic.   Topics may include school policies or math requirements, testing, grading, or other hot button issues.

All items will be reviewed and edited by myself before being posted.

The views on this blog are student generated and do not represent the views of the South Sioux City Schools or any of its employees or representatives.

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