I’m over from Turbo Tanski and I was asked by Mister McIntosh to share my thoughts on the interview project. I think overall the interview was pretty fun! From my perspective, I loved it! I always liked blogging, but never really got into it until Mister McIntosh gave us this assignment.

Mitch Edds says, “I think its a good way to put ourselves ‘out there,’ to maybe talk to someone we don’t know very well and learn about how they do things. All together, I thought it was pretty cool to learn about the person I interviewed. I think it should have been a little more open-choiced though for the person we interviewed. For example, someone our own age.”

Karl Van Ness had this to say about the project, “I didn’t really like the project because I feel like I’m not very good at blogging and since I’m not good at blogging, I got a B+, which ruined my all A streak. I think the project could have been better if he (Mister McIntosh) graded a little bit less strictly because it may have been some people’s first time using a blog and he may have graded a little bit more harshly because he has frequently used a blog before. I think he could grade easier on the amount of blogging required and the quality–it may be someone’s first time and they didn’t do very well because of it.”

I personally liked the whole aspect of blogging but maybe I say this because I have used one before. I think I have to agree with Karl in the matter of Mister McIntosh’s grading. Mister McIntosh has a large amount of posts and a fair amount of experience. I think this qualifies him as a senior blogger which may mean he has higher expectations of himself which possibly, without knowing it, means he may grade a little harsher because he has higher expectations of others.

I do think he gave enough time on the interview and enough pre-warning for people to complete theirs so there is no reason for people not to finish on time. I think that this is a very smart idea for Mister McIntosh to give students a chance to experiment with blogs and blogging. Good job to Mister McIntosh!

By: Turbo Tanski

Paul Bunyan and his blue ox Babe (Matthew High)

A few days ago I read a short story aloud in class. It was “Paul Bunyan Versus the Conveyor Belt” (1949) by William Hazlett Upson.  It’s from a collection called The Mathematical Magpie, which contains many stories that have some tie-in with mathematics. Most of the stories are science fiction or fantasy, which are genres that lend themselves more than most to a mathematically inspired plot.

In “Paul Bunyan Versus the Conveyor Belt,” Paul, along with his trusty side-kick Ford Fordson, is operating a uranium mine somewhere in Colorado. Paul has an old Ford pickup truck named “Babe” which has an attachment that drives a conveyor belt. The conveyor runs in and out of the mine and is used to transport uranium ore. The belt is quite long and has a half twist in it to even out the wear on both sides (how does that work?) making it a Mobius (pronounced moe-BYE-us) strip.

Paper Mobius strip (David Benbennick)

The Mobius strip is named after one of its discoverers, August Ferdinand Möbius who investigated it in 1858. It was independently discovered by Johann Benedict Listing in the same year. The Mobius strip is an example of a chiral structure (it has “handedness”) and a non-orientable surface. It’s a simple thing made by folding a strip of paper over on itself and joining the ends together. The Mobius strip has only one edge and one side. This can be easily proved by drawing a pencil line down the middle of the structure, or along its edge.

Two oppositely folded Mobius strips showing that they are mirror images of each other (non-superimposable). Made from duct tape of course!

In the story, Paul needs to make his conveyor belt longer as the mine gets deeper. Since he knows the belt is a Mobius strip he has an easy way of making it longer–just cut it down the middle lengthwise! That might not produce a real practical belt, but it makes for a good story, especially when Loudmouth Johnson comes along and makes a wager with Paul about what will happen when he cuts the belt, not once but two times.

To make it more fun, the class followed along with Paul by making their own Mobius strips out of paper and cutting them to see what would happen. By the time we were done we had quite a collection of Mobius strips in various colors and lengths, that had been experimentally cut in various ways.

Our Mobius strips hanging on the wall

Studying surfaces and shapes such as the Mobius strip (as well as doughnuts and coffee cups and the like ) is part of the field of mathematics known as topology (not to be confused with the computer science concept of network topology). The Wikipedia entry for topology has a few shortcoming as far as how the references are used, but other than that it is pretty good.  Check out the graphic on the page that proves coffee cups and doughnuts are just variations of the same thing (topologically speaking).