The facade of the Hall of State at Dallas Fair Park is awash in small blue tiles. As such, it provides an excellent opportunity for a fun element of almost any math walk: A Really Big Number. In this case, how many tiles are there on the facade? To get a handle on this, we […]
Perhaps your stroll around Dallas Fair Park brings you to the Esplanade, a stately reflecting pool between Centennial Hall and the Automotive Building. The designers of the Esplanade for the 1936 World’s Fair had a difficulty, however: one end of the Esplanade is five to ten feet higher than the other, and of course water […]
It’s hard to escape noticing the Texas Star Ferris Wheel towering over the landscape at the Dallas Fair park: After all, it’s the largest Ferris wheel in the United States. As you’re watching it turn, there are lots of things you might wonder about, but if you’re like me, one of the first that comes […]
On 2017 April 19, in collaboration with talkSTEM, I designed and led a math tour of the campus of Southern Methodist University. The set of posts just completed prior to this one describe all of the different places we stopped and mathematical ideas and phenomena we observed and discussed. We hope that these glimpses of […]
As you’re taking a stroll down Bishop Boulevard on the campus of Southern Methodist University, stop a moment to enjoy the stately trees that line the avenue. There are many different aspects of trees that one can look at from a mathematical persepctive, but we’re going to take a look at how the tree branches, […]
Nestled in a courtyard of the Divinity School at Southern Methodist University, you will find the Habito Labyrinth. Labyrinths are actually in themselves a subject of study and interest to professional mathematicians, but before we get into that, let’s first ask whether a labyrinth is a maze. That’s of course a matter of terminology, but […]
Another three quickies, this time about the iconic sculpture “Wave” by Santiago Calatrava. (1) Is this sculpture curved or straight? (2) Is it symmetric? (3) How did Calatrava get each one of the copper beams to stay at the particular angle it sits at? Again, it’s best to give participants time to chew on these […]
During the math tour I gave on the campus of Southern Methodist University, I was given the challenge of estimating the seating capacity of the Ford Stadium, never having seen it before and without any prior information about the stadium. To recap the techniques that I used, I first broke down the seating sections into […]
Here are three quick questions concerning the Hillcrest Amphitheater in the Lyle School of Engineering on the campus of Southern Methodist University. First, if you laid a plank of wood on top of the seats, and another plank on top of the steps, and a third on top of the hand rails, which would have […]
Here’s a picture of one of the spouts of the Cooper Centennial Fountain in the Turner Quad on SMU campus. Do you notice anything of interest about the way the water falls? One thing that many people notice is that the water flows in toward the center on either side of the stream. Why would […]