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Education & Academic

Tetrahedra Packing

Back in 325 BC, Aristotle talked about which polyhedra can fill space, and noted that regular tetrahedra could fill space. Around 1470 AD, Regiomontanus showed that Aristotle was wrong. He also found the spot where a statue on a pedestal appears the largest, as shown in the Demonstration “The Statue of Regiomontanus”. In 1896, Minkowski tried to solve the problem of how well tetrahedra could pack. He failed. But he did introduce many valuable tools to math, such as “The Minkowski Sum of Two Triangles”. In 1900, Hilbert tried the problem of tetrahedra packing and included it as a part of problem 18 in his list of unsolved problems. Hilbert is also famous for the Hilbert curve and “The Hilbert Hotel”.
Ed Pegg Jr, Scientific Information Editor, Scientific Information Group
Education & Academic

A Call to STEM Teachers: What’s Your Plan for Back to School?

It's back-to-school time in the U.S., and we're starting our trips to meet with educators ranging from the high school to post-graduate level. Many schools will be hearing about Mathematica for the first time, while others have requested specialized training to expand Mathematica usage in their work and in the classroom. Several schools are taking advantage of a program created in response to a recent domestic focus on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education called the STEM Education Initiative.
Tasha Dunaway, Sales Initiatives Supervisor, Commercial Sales
Best of Blog

25 Best Hangman Words

A simple question from a six-year-old about hangman turned into another analysis obsession that made me play 15 million games of hangman recently. Back in 2007, I wrote a game of hangman for a human guesser on the train journey from Oxford to London. I spent the time on the London Underground thinking about optimal strategies for playing it, and wrote the version for the computer doing the guessing on the return journey. It successfully guessed my test words and I was satisfied, so I submitted both to the Wolfram Demonstrations Project. Now, three years later, my daughter is old enough to play, but the Demonstration annoys her, as it can always guess her words. She asked the obvious question that never occurred to me at the time: "What are the hardest words I can choose, so that I can beat it?"
Jon McLoone, Director, Technical Communication & Strategy
Products

Nine Cool Points on the Complex Plane

Pick some points at random. What can be said about them? What curves go through them? What polygons and polynomials can be made from them? Deep mathematics lurks behind these questions, but the answers can be explored just by moving points around within some Wolfram Demonstrations. Simply by moving points you can see deep mathematics in action. For example, "Five Points Determine a Conic Section" (Ed Pegg Jr and Paul Abbott) uses a matrix determinant on five points to produce an equation going through all five points.
Ed Pegg Jr, Scientific Information Editor, Scientific Information Group
Computation & Analysis

Is the Weather Biased?

My mother has a theory: "The nicest weather is when you are at work, and then it rains on the weekend." Hearing this from her once again, I think it is time to expose her theory to the facts and prove her wrong. We'll start by setting up some tools to help retrieve and categorize the data in terms of the type of day. In the United Kingdom, the weekend is Saturday and Sunday.
Jon McLoone, Director, Technical Communication & Strategy
Products

Seven Fun Things You Didn’t Know You Could Do with the Wolfram Demonstrations Project

You already know that Mathematica can do anything technical---modeling, simulation, development, documentation, and so on. But it's also a great tool for relaxing. When you need to take a break from your engineering project or math homework, you don't have to shut down Mathematica. Clear your head with one of these fun activities created by Mathematica users for the Wolfram Demonstrations Project.
Marty McKee, Copywriter, Marketing Communications
Announcements & Events

Check Out Mathematica at SIGGRAPH 2010

SIGGRAPH is one of the most prestigious conferences around for computer graphics professionals. SIGGRAPH 2010 is in Los Angeles, California on July 25–29. We will be there, and if you will be, we hope you'll come visit us. Mathematica has a long history at SIGGRAPH, starting with the Version 1.0 display at the Apple Computer booth in 1988. At past SIGGRAPH conferences, we've showcased many things, including Mathematica features and graphics capabilities. Here’s a short video we played in the background at SIGGRAPH 2009:
Wolfram Blog Team
Education & Academic

Math Coaches and Mathematica

When I attended this year's National Council of Teachers of Mathematics conference in San Diego, I met many "math coaches". All teachers are coaches of their classrooms, but I'm referring to teachers whose titles are "coach". These coaches spend time with at-risk or struggling students, trying to help the students gain further success in their education. Coaches spend time working one on one or in small groups with these students to help them achieve a higher level of knowledge. They are looking for interactive ways to get students excited about all of their homework as well as to prepare them for standardized tests—especially in math—in new ways, relevant to the students and the topics. However, very few of these math coaches have computer programming backgrounds. Quite often, their main technology tool has been the basic calculator. These coaches were interested in a tool that would not cost them hours of time to learn. Insert Mathematica!
Andy Dorsett, Senior Academic Account Manager, Academic Sales
Computation & Analysis

Developing the Kronos Retail Labor Index with Mathematica

In recent years, predicting the health of the U.S. economy has become more complicated than ever. Economists are constantly on the lookout for new ways to predict the economy's future path, but discovering significant new economic indicators has become more difficult. The Kronos Retail Labor Index is an exciting new leading economic indicator of the overall health of the U.S. economy. Dr. Robert Yerex, chief economist at Kronos, used Mathematica exclusively in its development and monthly production.
Deepa Nair, Technical Marketing Writer, Technical Communications & Strategy Group
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