Monday, November 29, 2010

The Joy of Stats

Hans Rosling is Professor of Global Health at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm. For a BBC TV programme "The Joy of Stats" he has created a wonderful dynamic graphic analysis showing the evolution of health and wealth in diiferent parts of the world over the last 200 years. A YouTube video clip is available here.

Thursday, November 11, 2010

Comic books to help you learn mathematics

"Effective teaching of math has two parts. One is imparting the particulars of symbol twiddling. The other is explaining how to use the symbol twiddling to solve a problem" writes Kenneth Chang in his recent review in the New York Times of three comic books that aim to make maths understandable to those who fear it.

The one he likes best is HOT X: ALGEBRA EXPOSED! by Danica McKellar, who is also an actress appearing in the TV show "The Wonder Years". She has two other maths comic books out, “Math Doesn’t Suck” and “Kiss My Math,” and, according to Chang, strikes the right note in being entertaining but also accurate in terms of the maths content.