Thursday, December 31, 2009

Blogging is a creative art

The math/art project Aaron and I are working on has had me thinking a lot about people's perception of mathematics. In my course evaluations for calculus this past fall I asked two questions to gauge this perception. Here the responses from the 50 students who completed the survey:

Mathematics is an applicable science.
strongly disagree
0%
disagree
0%
neither agree nor disagree
10%
agree
36%
strongly agree
54%

Mathematics is a creative art.
strongly disagree
0%
disagree
14%
neither agree nor disagree
32%
agree
26%
strongly agree
28%

Roughly half do not agree that mathematics is a creative art.

Of the seven who responded "disagree" to the second question, one responded "strongly agree," three responded "agree," and three responded "neither agree nor disagree" to the first question.

Of the sixteen who responded "neither agree nor disagree" to the second question, one responded "neither agree nor disagree" to the first question, with the rest splitting agree and strongly agree 11-4.

Monday, December 28, 2009

The comeback kid

This post has been a long time coming. There is a certain amount of pressure associated with any type of comeback attempt, and I think I've found a way to handle it in this, my own personal attempt to come back down three games to none in a best of seven.

The following is a list of known nicknames for Butters. Feel free to add your own in the comments.
  • Stinker
  • Stink
  • Stink-o-cat
  • Butt
  • Buttas
  • Bubbers
  • Stinkerbutt
  • Stink-o-butt
  • Cutsy Buttons
  • Biggity Butters
  • Biggles
  • Biggie Smalls
  • Buttface
  • Bibblty-Bibblty-Butters
  • Stinkerbell