help me choose a math topic lol

[MarkMyWordsXx]

i need to write a paper on math in every day life. this is the 3rd paper on this topic, for the first 2 i did the temperature scales and then math in baseball.

i need something to write about, throw some ideas at me. im not supposed to do music, but if you sugges that give me some things to talk about

[evan_phi]

why not music? too easy?


hmmm... maths and cars/motorcycles?
maths and racing events?


OOH!!!


POKER!!! excellent choice for probability related questions.

[MarkMyWordsXx]

poker it is. what should i say?

[Jeff Moote]

Originally Posted by MarkMyWordsXx

poker it is. what should i say?

There's not much to say - poker is simple probabilities, with the human aspect of betting being the interesting part of the game. Take away bets, and the need to read other players and you haven't got much of a game.

Why not write about the math behind music? There's a lot to get into, especially concerning temperament systems.

[Munjibunga]

L'Hopital's Rule comes in handy pretty often.

[oldrocker]

Poker is good. I / we once did a report of the probability of landing on "free parking" in monopoly from various properties with one roll of 2 dice.

[Deacon_Blues]

(Why is this not in the off-topic forum?)


Work is everyday life after your studies (hopefully). There are very few professions that don't require any math skills. But I'll give another example:

You are about to build something, a house, a fence, or whatever you want. When you go to the shop to get the building material (concrete, wood/timber, paint, nails etc), the salesman will look strangely at you if you don't have a clue about the amounts you need.

[CrazyArcher]

You may be interested in encoding and stuff... But that probably involves some computer science from the side... Just suggesting

[fishstix]

Got one for ya. Its music related but only kind of. Use mathematics to describe the difference between storage on an LP vs a CD. LPs store data more densly towards the center than the edge where as the CD has a continuous density. I just had some students in my Advanced Algebra with Trig class investigate this and they enjoyed it. Topics regarding arc length, areas of a sector, and changing angular velocity (ie angular acceleration) for compensation all come up here.
Another interesting one using a bit more in the Trig area is that of biorhythmic patterns. You can find tons of these out there with mathematical models that are very interesting. Everything from the performance of atheltes to mood swings to the growth of crops can be modeled with this concept. There's lots of cool things there.
If you're looking for something more or less involved let me know. If you're at the college level you could look into some encryption topics like RSA and their uses. The history behind them can be kind of interesting.
Have fun. You can model everything but emotion acurately with mathematics. Just choose something and then look for the math. It's there.