help me on project?

Question

i have 4 options for my maths project tell me which one should be made
*concept of probability by examples
*study of solids-cube,cuboid,cone,cylinder,hemisphere,sphere,frustum
*history of mathematics
*pi<3.14>

Answer 1

I think you should choose pi or history of math. Others require more effort and models on your part. For the last two, you can gain your info on the net and writre down important stuff with minimum effort. Here are some websites you could use:

http://www.math.com/tables/constants/pi.htm
The above site is for cool info on pi.

This one is for history of math:
http://www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/history/HistTopics/History_overview.html

Here are some famous historical problems:
http://mathforum.org/isaac/mathhist.html

Answer 2

Go for Pi :) The others may put people to sleep, but a nice essay on Pi is always enough to get my blood flowing! You could talk about some of Pi's thousands of uses, and even sing the Pi song!

Answer 3

The concept Of Probability Is fairly easy to do and you can make examples. You can point out things like the probability of winning the lottery is less than the probability of getting hit by lightning. Or the probability to win the lottery with numbers like 11111111, your birth date, or any other number is the same. You can also explore Mendel's laws on genetics which is just probability in action (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/mendelian_genetics).

The study of solids is much harder. Most solids are only 3D, but the tesseract is 4D. If you take a line )1D) and rotate it about itself then you can form a square (2D). If you take that square and rotate it again you can form a cube (3D), if you can rotate that cube into a higher dimension then you will get a tesseract (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesseract). Explaining that would be more exciting then explaining about cubes, pyrmaids and spheres. Or you could explain what the higher dimensions are through the classic example of Flatland (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flatland and http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/gutbook/lookup?num=201). That could lead you to an explaintion of higher dimensions. Enstien’s theory of Relativity requires at least 11 dimensions and the current quantium model of the universe requires 30 dimensions or more.

The history of mathmatics is boring. What is better would be to trace the study of phyiscs (and its math). You would start with simple drop experiments, then you can go into Galelio’s studies and the inovation that he made by studying gravity on an inclined plane. A good story isn’t any good without conflict and the Christian Church had a lot of conflict with Galelio. For his proof that everything didn’t revolve around the earth he was sentenced to over 300 years in his tower (Pope John Paul II recenlty pardoned him). This sentence was bad for Galelio, but a god send for his work on gravity, since he had all the time in the world to do it. Then you can go on to Galelio’s successor Newton. Newton not only invented the conventional physics that we know today, but to handle the math he invented calculus. The common formulas of distance, velocity and acceleration are only true at certain points in the calculations (if you continue to accelerate then your velocity will be increasing at the rate of acceleration as will your distance). As the earth revolves around the sun or the moon revolves around the Earth the bodies aren’t moving at the same speed at any point in their orbit, except where they are directly opposed in their orbital path. As the earth rotates around the sun, it actually falls into the sun’s gravity well. As it gets closer and closer then then its speed increases and increases, until it reaches zero at the point closest to the sun. The momentum carries the earth around to the rest of its orbit. The orbital speed due to momentum is at it’s highest point when the earth is closest to the sun. As the earth moves away from the sun the sun’s gravity keeps dragging on the earth slowing it down. When the earth reaches the farthest point away from the sun then the earth’s velocity is zero. However, again momentum carries it around past that point where it starts to fall into the sun again, and the cycle (orbit) repeats. To calculate the exact distance, velocity, and acceleration of the earth at any point in its orbit requires calculus, standard math only gives you an approximation or a measure at the point of the highest and lowest speed. Hence the expression that something is so hard that a rocket scientist is needed to figure it out. When you discuss Issac Newton you have to discuss John Flamsteed, his long time enemy who kept trying to prove he was wrong (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Newton). You can also point out that Newton’s calculus and physics are so accurate that they are still used today, basically unchanged. Now you can get into orbital mechanics. Voyager was launched from earth, but not at a very high speed. To get extra speed it made a gravitational slingshot around the Earth, then Venus, back to the Earth, at Jupiter, and then at Saturn until it shot out of the Solar System into the Outer Solar System. Up until 2004 Voyager was the fastest man made moving object (the Pluto probe is faster). All of these orbital slingshots increased the speed of the spacecraft, while keeping it on a steady course, the celestial equivalent of threading the eye of a needle with a piece of thread moving at several hundred miles of hour while you hold the needle as far as you can from your body.

There isn’t a lot to say about Pi (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pi) it’s an irrational number invented by the Egyptians to help with their survey work. It helped them lay the pyramids out precisely. “The mathematical constant π is an irrational real number, approximately equal to 3.14159, which is the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter in Euclidean geometry, and has many uses in mathematics, physics, and engineering. It is also known as Archimedes' constant (not to be confused with an Archimedes number) and as Ludolph's number.” As to WHY it is so important and WHY it is the ration between the circle’s circumference and its diamter is impossible to say. It is just a fact of the universe and a very compelx concept like the number zero. I don’t see a lot that you can do with Pi and I wouldn’t suggest working on it. You could mention that computers cannot draw true circles instead it is done the way Archimedes found the approximate value of Pi (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Archimedes_pi.svg). A computer simply uses hundreds, thousands, or millions of short line segments to approximate the circle or the arc. A computer can only draw a line from point to point. Every thing else is an approximation.

The easiest option is the first one, the most exciting one is the second one, the most boring is the third option and the fourth option has the least that can be said about it.

Answer 4

I would do Pi 3.14. The greeks thought of it to measure the distance of a circle.

Answer 5

My suggestion is that you do an experiment on "Buffons Needle" which will be one project that is related to probablity as well as PI as well as history of mathematics -- and to boot its very interesting. You can find more information at
http://www.mste.uiuc.edu/reese/buffon/buffon.html

Answer 6

choose the one you like the most or choose the one you know the most of.

Answer 7

first one or the last..

the middle two are too broad.. to look at..

Answer 8

the easiest one is the first.