Welcome to the inaugural entry of the newest series on this blog: The Mathematical Beauty Series. While many posts on this blog have been taking highlight of various topics in mathematics that I take time to appreciate, I don’t think I’ve done a post that really takes a deep dive on a specific topic akinContinue reading “Mathematical Beauty Series: The Binomial Theorem”
Author Archives: Kyle Chen
A Repeating Decimal Dilemma
The subject of repeating decimals has fascinated me since I was introduced to them in fourth grade. I may have mentioned before that my parents always sought out math enrichment activities for me, and during my fourth grade year, I enrolled in the Russian School of Mathematics. During one of our classes, we discussed theContinue reading “A Repeating Decimal Dilemma”
Weird Number Tricks
So the thing with math is that sometimes it feels like magic with how it all works. The kick is that once you understand it and spring it on someone in a way that’s easy to understand, you can amaze people with how cool math really is. Number tricks are some of the easiest featsContinue reading “Weird Number Tricks”
Number Perfection
I’ve been waiting to make this one for a while now. My birthday is particularly special to me. I know that more and more people don’t treat their birthdays as seriously as others (one of my closest friends from college generally disregards his), I for one have always enjoyed mine, and it all has toContinue reading “Number Perfection”
Square numbers are also crazy
Math is full of craziness. Square numbers are no different. For those who might not remember, a square number is merely a whole number that is the product of two integers. 0 is the smallest square number (0 x 0), but the ones after it are 1, 4, 9, 16, 25, 36, 49, 64, 81,Continue reading “Square numbers are also crazy”
Memories of Pi
Boy do I love this holiday. A good day to celebrate inner nerdiness and enjoy some good pies. On the subject of the title image, that picture was indeed taken on Pi Day, 2012 to be precise. I had just joined my university’s math club which met every Wednesday afternoon, and we had pizza forContinue reading “Memories of Pi”
The tales of Mathnet
So back from my sixth grade days, my math teacher from time to time would show these old episodes of this program called Mathnet, a segment of a show called Square One Television. Keep in mind that this show was from the late 80s to early 90s while I was watching this in the mid-2000s.Continue reading “The tales of Mathnet”
Binary’s Unexpected Uses
You might’ve seen this joke before, perhaps written on a t-shirt or in a joke book: How is it that there’s ten types when it seems like there are only two types? Well… that’s because of how binary works. No, I’m serious. What is binary, exactly? In the first part of my Numbers and LanguagesContinue reading “Binary’s Unexpected Uses”
Numbers and Language, Part 2
Now to get to some hairy stuff: numbers in Eastern Asian languages. As mentioned before, my first language is actually Mandarin, and my first word happened to be “five” in Mandarin. My mom was reading some book to me if I remember correctly, and she was counting, “one, two, three, four…” and I happened toContinue reading “Numbers and Language, Part 2”
Numbers and Language, Part 1
I figured I’d write this one to deviate a bit from some more math-intensive blogs to start off the new year and instead talk about something that’s a little more light on math. I’ve always had an interest in learning languages, as Mandarin was my first language, English being my second and the one IContinue reading “Numbers and Language, Part 1”
Math Toolbox 