Jan 28, 2006

Here are some important ideas that we explored today:

• Necessary
• Sufficient
• Consistent
• Conclusive
• Uncertainty
• Definition
• Construction
• Convention
• Evidence
• Error
• Proof

We looked at the difference between Expected results (what was printed on the box of straws) and actual measurements, to explore the difference between COUNTING numbers and MEASURING numbers. We looked at the new calculator features of google to look at the CONVENTION of "order of operations" and the difference between numbers and numerals. We looked at the difference between NECESSARY and SUFFICIENT, and used the example of "pasta sauce" jars to show what happend to the "safety button."

We looked at several searching examples from Google.com including:

• What is the boiling point of radium?
• What is the mass of Pluto?
• How many moons does the planet Uranus have?

We also explored running a model that had some randomness in it, a Forest Fire model that you can find at:
http://www.shodor.org/interactivate/activities/fire1/index.html

Although we ran out of time, we could see how to test the model, and we got a very different answer, until we averaged the results from many runs of the model. As a special exercise, I challenge you to run the Fire!! model for different probabilities between 0 and 1 and run each one many times and look at the pattern of the averages. I think you will see a very strange pattern.