7puzzleblog.com | Home of the daily Maths Challenge Miguel Nicolelis Says the Brain is Not Computable, Bashes Kurzweil’s Singularity Miguel Nicolelis, a top neuroscientist at Duke University, says computers will never replicate the human brain and that the technological Singularity is “a bunch of hot air.” “The brain is not computable and no engineering can reproduce it,” says Nicolelis, author of several pioneering papers on brain-machine interfaces. The Singularity, of course, is that moment when a computer super-intelligence emerges and changes the world in ways beyond our comprehension. Among the idea’s promoters are futurist Ray Kurzweil, recently hired on at Google as a director of engineering, who has been predicting that not only will machine intelligence exceed our own, but people will be able to download their thoughts and memories into computers (see “Ray Kurzweil Plans to Create a Mind at Google—and Have It Serve You”). Nicolelis calls that idea sheer bunk. The debate over whether the brain is a kind of computer has been running for decades. But if he’s right, us ain’t machines, and never will be.
Path Puzzles.com Puzzle Page Each week we'll upload a brand new puzzle, taken from the extensive library of Mathematic Teaching Journals. You can view all of our journals if you become a member today, for as little as £25 a year! Membership gives you access to the entire library, dating all the way back to issue 1. That is a LOT of puzzles AND articles AND research AND MATHS! Puzzle 3 - Taken from MT199 Puzzle 2 - Taken from MT198 Puzzle 1 - Taken from MT195 me Roderick Kimball's Path Puzzles Photo Our challenges this week are Path Puzzles — original creations by Roderick Kimball, a recreational mathematician and puzzler also known for his juggling and music in the traveling troupe The Flying Karamazov Brothers (check out this review). “Path Puzzles provides original challenges that test your spatial and logical problem solving skills,” says the mathematical sculptor George Hart. “Sharpen your pencil and your mind!” Let’s give them a try. Here’s Mr. Path PuzzlesEach puzzle is a map with clues that will help you find your way across a grid. Now let’s add something new. Sometimes, a number will be adjacent to more than one row or column. We hope you have enjoyed this introduction to Path Puzzles. I enjoyed finding my way through Path Puzzles and asked Mr. Check out this short introduction to the Flying Karamazov Brothers (Roderick Kimball is “Pavel”). Solution Check back Wednesday, August 6 for solutions and commentary by Mr. Path PuzzlesTo see the full article, subscribe here.
Daily Hexa-Trex | Nucleus Learning | Nucleus Learning Unsolved Hexa Trex: Find the Factors | A Multiplication Based Logic Puzzle Resourceaholic: 5 Maths Gems #4 Well the summer holidays are well and truly over. Many teachers, particularly those who are relatively new to teaching, will spend this weekend making lists, planning lessons and experiencing that unsettling feeling of nervous excitement. If you have time to read this week's set of maths gems, I hope they provide a little light relief. 1. I feel that my knowledge of secondary school core mathematics is pretty sound but this week Ed Southall (@edsouthall) inadvertently pointed me in the direction of James Tanton's website (@jamestanton) and within minutes I was learning new things! If asked to sketch the graph of y = x2 + 4x + 5, I'd realise that it can't be factorised so I'd check the discriminant to confirm that this function has no real roots. This seems pretty obvious now. I also discovered that i is not the square root of minus one (watch this video to see why) and that the order of quadrants is based on the rising and setting of the sun! 2. 3. Harry's post also gave me a new idea.
Puzzles and Starters | cavmaths I love maths puzzles, I like solving them and I like setting them in lessons. I have written many posts about how I’ve solved them, so I thought I would put some time in and collate them into a single page for people to use as starters. Most puzzles have more than one solution, the solutions I’ve blogged are the ones I came up with. Here is a nice number puzzle that can be used for most year groups: A high school has a strange principal. There are one thousand lockers and one thousand students in the school. Here is a nice little puzzle based on the number 71 which would be suitable for higher GCSE students and those studying A Level: 71 is the smallest prime that can be expressed as x^2 + xy + 2y^2 where x and y are nonnegative integers, find x and y giving 71. Here is a nice triangle based puzzle from the maths challenge that could also be used for any year group: Triangle T has sides 6,5,5 and Triangle Q has sides 8,5,5 What is the ratio Area T:Area Q? And a similar one: 4 Pics 1 word
5 Maths Gems #38 Hello and welcome to my 38th gems post. This is where I share five teaching ideas I've seen on Twitter. As teachers start making plans and preparing resources for September, there's been a flurry of inspiring ideas on Twitter - I can barely keep up! 1. Tessellation It's quite rare that there's exciting news in the world of mathematics, but we've recently seen the discovery of a new type of tessellating pentagon. I like teaching tessellation - it follows nicely from polygon angles. I've never seen tessellation animations before so thanks to @MathsMastery for sharing these, I'll use them the next time I teach tessellation. 2. There's been lots of tweets and posts about displays this week. I also like this growth mindset display from English teacher Rebecca Foster (@TLPMrsF) which is similar to the mindset display that I first wrote about in Gems 3, but would fit on a smaller noticeboard. 3. 4. 5. Lesley Hall (@lhmaths) created a great set of exit tickets that can be found here.
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