Combinatorics: Problems in Counting

4a40898a seeable

Taught by Paul Salomon

Paul is a math nerd living in Brooklyn.  He's also a juggler, musician, mathematical artist, and father-to-be from Saint Louis. He teaches math to grades 5-12 at Saint Ann's School, and he's thankful to be done with his Masters. Now he can really learn some stuff.

Blogs:
Lost in Recursion
Math Munch

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Another in a sequence of accessible math classes at the Brainery. This class has no prerequisite and is open to all!

What's the sum of the first 527 whole numbers?  How many rectangles can be found on a sheet of graph paper? How many ways can we cover a 2x15 rectangle with dominoes? How many triangles...? How many paths...? How many handshakes...? How many...? Behold the wonders of combinatorics!

Let's get together and work through some great counting problems - the math of combinatorics. What makes these problems wonderful is how immediately we can understand the question, but only through careful analysis and clever thinking can we quantify these mysteriously large numbers.  Even better, we'll see the problems start to connect to each other, exposing some of the fabric of the mathematical world.

In 90 minutes, we'll work through as many problems as we like, one after the other. Our questions will spiral us around to different thoughts and patterns and problems. We'll discuss and diagram our ideas. We'll argue and struggle to see clearly, but the math will be lovely. If you haven't done math in years, this would be a fantastic way to reconnect with the subject. This class really is for anyone. 

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