1 / 7

Doug French The Mathematical Association

Mathematics: a Powerful Tool for Solving Problems. Doug French The Mathematical Association. MATHEMATICS is USEFUL and INTERESTING. MATHEMATICS is a POWERFUL TOOL for solving PROBLEMS. PROBLEMS provide the MOTIVATION for learning MATHEMATICS. A Problem with Percentages.

Download Presentation

Doug French The Mathematical Association

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript


  1. Mathematics: a Powerful Tool for Solving Problems Doug French The Mathematical Association

  2. MATHEMATICS is USEFUL and INTERESTING. MATHEMATICS is a POWERFUL TOOL for solving PROBLEMS. PROBLEMS provide the MOTIVATION for learning MATHEMATICS.

  3. A Problem with Percentages Two cups of coffee at £1.25 with a 10% discount. How much to pay? 10% of £2.50 = 25p Cost of two cups of coffee: £2.50 – 25p = £2.25 10% of £1.25 = 12.5p = 13p to the nearest penny Cost of one cup of coffee:£1.25 – 13p = £1.12 Cost of two cups of coffee: £2.50 – 26p = £2.24

  4. A Curious Property 7 × 9 = 63 and 8 × 8 = 64 1 × 3 = 3 2 × 4 = 8 3 × 5 = 15 4 × 6 = 24 5 × 7 = 35 6 × 8 = 48 7 × 9 = 63 8 × 10 = 80 9 × 11 = 99 2 × 2 = 4 3 × 3 = 9 4 × 4 = 16 5 × 5 = 25 6 × 6 = 36 7 × 7 = 49 8 × 8 = 64 9 × 9 = 81 10 × 10 = 100 20 × 22 = 440 and 21 × 21 = 441 n² – 1 = (n – 1)(n + 1)

  5. The Difference of Two Squares A pictorial proof

  6. The Difference of Squares of Two Consecutive Odd Numbers n 1 3 5 7 9 11 13 n² 1 9 25 49 81 121 169 (2n + 1)² – (2n– 1)² = 4n 2 = 8n Difference of squares of two consecutive odd numbers is a multiple of 8. Difference of squares of ANY two odd numbers is a multiple of 8.

  7. REMEMBERING is NOT ENOUGH. Need to know WHY as well as HOW. It is EASIER to REMEMBER when you UNDERSTAND and there is much LESS to REMEMBER.

More Related