math

A collection of 137 posts

Miscellaneous - interviews, ideas, and more

Manifold of Me (a self portrait)

If you want some notes/insight, here are some drafted below. Skip them if this piece speaks to you – you may find your own meaning and you don’t need mine.

coding

Coded Optical Illusions

I had a great time this summer doing art and professional development with Twitter peers. On one of the days, Ellen Thomson hosted activities with Optical Illusions. This got me thinking of all the ways this could be done with coding + math groups. There are two approaches I take in coding groups. T

Math Birds

Belted Kingfisher

The Belted Kingfisher catches Fish Curves on a King Graph. (This image was updated with a fix after the initial post) Sources: https://mathworld.wolfram.com/KingGraph.html [https://mathworld.wolfram.com/KingGraph.html], https://mathworld.wolfram.com/FishCurve.html [https://mathworld.wolfram.com/Fish

Miscellaneous - interviews, ideas, and more

Playing with patterns

I have been enjoying summer communities in math learning. Howie Hua has been hosting a wonderful group on Wednesdays, and last week Shelby Strong with Stronger Math shared Fawn Nguyen’s Visual Patterns resource and I had to play with creating some randomly generated patterns (below). These patterns

Math Birds

Spotted Tau-hee

Happy Tau Day! I have created another math bird piece for today with the inspiration of Spotted Towhees on my morning walk.

Math Birds

Space-Pigeonholes Imagined

The Pigeonhole Principle merged with the contemplation of black holes today. I envisioned Fractal Kitty at the whiteboard with this one, but went without the kitty today – enjoy.

Math Birds

“Two-Body” Problem: Barycenter vs Waxwing

After watching the neighborhood waxwings consume their fill of berries prior to moving on, I pondered a different kind of a two-body problem:

Miscellaneous - interviews, ideas, and more

Overdue May Update

Well, I am overdue for a post. This year was busy. I taught 11-13 classes per week on top of study halls and homeschooling 3 kiddos. I have found my creative energy slightly depleted. That being said, I got a lot done in May and hope to reset in June. 101 days of code complete! […]

GIF

In a Loop

Sometimes you just feel like you are in a loop…

Zines and Coloring

Cantor Set Zine

This is Fractal Kitty’s first zine! I was inspired by the public math website. Some wonderful zines from @becky_k_warren and @Ayliean are on there. After cutting the Cantor Set with Kirigami to investigate fraction operations, exponents, and patterns this week with my middle school groups I thought

Miscellaneous - interviews, ideas, and more

February Highlights

Coding: On January 31st, I started 101 days of creative coding. After a few setbacks (11 days with no power), I am on track. Please check out 101 days of creative coding on a computer to fully engage with the interactive days. I didn’t want to spam everyone with a daily blog post, but there […]

Miscellaneous - interviews, ideas, and more

The 191st Carnival of Mathematics

This is my first time hosting the Aperiodical Carnival of Mathematics. The Carnival is a round of math blogging that shares various articles, posts, videos, and more. Last month was hosted by Sophie the Mathmo and next month will be hosted by Eddies Math and Calculator Blog. I love the tradition of

Math Birds

Probability in the Leaves

I run and see the crows daily. They splash, play, talk, and announce the sunset. I see them in yards flipping leaves together and can’t help but feel that they are calculating probabilities. Of what, I am not sure – maybe the probability of finding a nut, bug, or piece of pizza. No matter what, […]

coding

Folding Origami

Need a pun? This is an origami I-koi-sahedron. This code is from Day 0 to kick off my 101 Days of Creative Code. I will post GIFs to the blog as they are created, but the coding will be done as pages rather than posts ( I didn’t want to spam my followers).

coding

Locomotive Rose Art

The equations used to produce these plots are in the family of rose curves. This particular form is composed of two curves added together. It almost feels like there is some locomotion happening in the visualization, and it is fun to think about the gears and shafts might that make this pattern. r =

Comics

Hyperbolic Kittyoid

coding

Parabolic Beams

I love thinking of parabolas as being formed with a directrix and focus. Coming from a background in trajectory analysis, I find the abstract relationships of the curve to the point and line beautiful. When a light shines through the focus of a parabolic mirror, the light reflected is orthogonal to

coding

Code for Two-Button Calculator

A two-button calculator can only perform two operations (like multiply by two and add five). The Global Math Project is a wonderful resource for math learning and play and has a great resource for two-button problems in this Global Math Project PDF. Another variation of this sort of problem is done

Math Birds

Gold-Phi-nch

This was inspired by my backyard Gold-phi-nches (goldfinches) that cluster on my sunflowers, brighten my days, and provide hours of entertainment. As someone who has been isolated pre-covid, I am so grateful for the joy that birds bring me. I imagine the flocks propagating sunflowers far and wide to

coding

Blue Flames

This code was generated by playing around with one of the p5.js examples. It translates and rotates using parametric equations each frame. Codepen is below (it may not run well on some machines). See the Pen blueFlame by Sophia (@fractalkitty) on CodePen.

coding

Transformed Magic Squares

I got a request from a twitter friend (Sara Resvi) to create a visual for transforming magic squares. A learner can see how one solution is many (or vice versa). Here is what I put together in an afternoon. Click the numbers to change them. Try to find solutions where the rows, columns and diagonals

coding

Parametric Waves Morphed into Unstable Charcoal

Have you ever wished that you had charcoal that is made of particles that randomly leave and come back? Wish the reference frame would rotate so down is up, but not always? Well now you have what you have always wanted – Unstable Charcoal! I created this after playing with a parametric wave visualiz

Comics

Coffee Darkness vs. Daylight

Because it’s true…

coding

Laced Reflections

My mind was on snowflakes tonight, which brought me down a rabbit hole of reflections, lace, and play. The code here is simple but fun. Enjoy making snowflakes, lace, stars, or whatever comes to mind. If you wish to fork the code or play it is here. My CodePen is below. Press the spacebar (or […]

Math Finds

Math Finds – Complex Analysis Resource

This is the first in a new category, Math Finds, on Fractal Kitty. I am a believer in growth-mindset and lifelong learning. Peoples’ willingness to share and educate allow for exposure to a plethora of topics and interests. This post is about a wonderful opensource book I found by Juan Carlos Ponce