A slight change to the format today: You got your art in my mathematician! This sculpture created for Bletchley Park really is a sight to behold.
You're reading: Columns
Structures of Warped Surfaces by Eduardo F. Catalano
Hyperbolic paraboloids created from straight lines, like you used to draw in your maths exercise book.
Unexpected GCSE Success at Your Local School
There were jubilant scenes yesterday (Thursday) with the long wait finally over for students across Your Town who received their GCSE results. Students at Your Local School are basking in glory after achieving set of eye-catching results.
Boys bucked the national trend, performing better than girls by 5 per cent.
Top performer at Your Local School was teenager Top Pupil (16), who acheived a clean-sweep of A* grades, including Maths and English. She said “It’s hard to describe the feeling really. It’s fantastic.”
Now Top, who hopes to become a vet, will go to Your Local College to study for A Levels. She also plays the clarinet, and has recently been on tour with the Country Youth Orchestra.
At Your Local School, a stunning 92 per cent of students picked up five or more A* to C marks, hot on the heels of last week’s 96 per cent A-level pass rate.
These results are among the best in the country.
Head teacher Robert Teacher, due to retire after today’s results and 18 years in charge, was buoyed by the students’ success, saying: “I’m very pleased. The pressure on them now is far greater than it ever used to be since they are under pressure all the time, but these are the best results we’ve ever had.”
The national A*-C pass rate rose for the 23rd year in a row, figures show.
Related stories:
‘Record numbers’ of A* grades across County
Toddler gets A* in GCSE Maths
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Tessellation Tree greeting card by Nikki Cross Applesauce
Prime number counting chart by electricboogaloo
Waldorf Math Gnomes by MamaWestWind
Second-Rate Minds
For writing practice, Samuel Hansen and I are collaborating on a new blog, Second-Rate Minds. We take the name from a quote from the beginning of A Mathematician’s Apology by G.H. Hardy (1940):
There is no scorn more profound, or on the whole more justifiable, than that of the men who make for the men who explain. Exposition, criticism, appreciation, is work for second-rate minds.
We plan to alternately write short pieces on and around mathematics and edit each others writing. I wrote the first post, “Moving on a strange diagonal“, a write-up of my 2010 Maths Jam Conference talk about a puzzle and my thoughts on its use in education. Expect future posts at roughly two a month. If you want to keep up with future posts there is an RSS feed and a Twitter account.