Fun Facts

• What is the largest possible area of a rectangle if its perimeter is 20? Use a java applet to explore this question and others.
• If eight squares, each with a perimeter of four, are combined to form a rectangle with a length of four, what is the perimeter of the newly formed rectangle? Use a java applet to explore this question and other perimeter problems.
• The sum of the degrees in a rectangle will be the number of degrees in how many circles? Find the answer with this java applet.
• What happens when you connect the midpoints of a quadrilateral? See if you're right here.
• In order for a rocket to launch, it must pass through three stages. Each stage has a fifty percent chance of success. What are the rocket's chances for lift off? Discover the answer with this java applet.
• How many toothpicks would it take to create four adjacent squares? Use this java applet to find out.
• Can you create a kite using any given pair of diagonals? Try with our diagonals at this java applet.

Did You Know?

• Take the magic square:

  8	1	6
  3	5	7
  4	9	2

  whose rows, columns, and diagonals each sum to 15. Now consider each row to be a three digit number. Square each number and add them together. Now look at the row numbers backwards and do the same. What do you notice?
  (816)²+(357)²+(492)² = (618)²+(753)²+(294)²
  Now try the same with the columns!  Source
• The Pythagorean Theorem was known by the Babylonians more than 1000 years before Pythagoras.  Source
• The Babylonians used a base 60 system, which we continue to use for time today.  Source
• The first woman to receive a Ph.D. in mathematics was Winifred Edgerton at Columbia University in 1886.  Source
• "Life is good for only two things, discovering mathematics and teaching mathematics"--Siméon Poisson   Source
• The creators of calculus as we know it now were Gottfried Leibniz and Isaac Newton.  Source
• The word Algebra comes from the title of a book in the Arabic language.  Source
• The equal symbol was first used by Robert Recorde in 1557 in The Whetstone of Witte.  Source
• The first person to prove that pi is not a rational number was Johann Lambert.  
• The Egyptians had a decimal system using seven different symbols.
  • 1 is shown by a single stroke.
  • 10 is shown by a drawing of a hobble for cattle.
  • 100 is represented by a coil of rope.
  • 1,000 is a drawing of a lotus plant.
  • 10,000 is represented by a finger.
  • 100,000 by a tadpole or frog
  • 1,000,000 is the figure of a god with arms raised above his head.  Source