- Pi Day Topics- Pasadena City College

Pi Day Topics

This is a "For Students, By Students" event. The goal is to promote the ownership of your math learning, to encourage you to talk about mathematics, to share your joy of learning mathematics, to develop better attitudes and mindsets needed to learn mathematics, to discover ways of overcoming difficulties or anxiety in learning mathematics, to connect mathematics with real-life applications, and to celebrate and share your victories in understanding math concepts.

As a way to showcase your hard work this semester, you will present a poster based on your research at the Pi Day Student Conference, on Thursday, March 14, 2013. The conference will begin at 9:00am and will end at 4:00pm. Our class will be presenting posters during the________________ session time, but you are welcome to attend during the other sessions to learn about the research done by your peers. Additionally, there may be a speaker and a panel of experts from 4:30 - 6:00 pm discussing topics related to mathematics applications.

You may work in groups of 3 - 4 people to create a poster showcasing your research on a topic related to your Mathematics course. The topic you research can be from the suggested list below.

Possible Research Topics - Feel free to create your own topic

Math 450:

(a) Different Numeration Systems

(b) Standardization of Measurement

(d) Accuracy (Significant Digit)

Math 402:

(a) Standardization of Measurement

(b) Pythagorean Theorem Proof (Geometric or Algebraic Proof)

(d) History of Number Sets Development (How do we come up with these number systems? ) (From using real sticks to represent one amount to drawing sticks to the number 3.)

(e) House Project

(f) Car Loan Project

Math 125-131:

(a) Pythagorean Theorem Proof (Geometric or Algebraic Proof)

(b) House Project

(d) Who invented the imaginary number "i"

(e) Applications of Complex Numbers

(f) Pharmacy measurement (mixture problems)

(g) Chemistry Calculation of pH Values

(h) Physics/Geology interpretation of Earthquake Scales

(i) How the Understanding of the Graph of Quadratic Functions helps the Optimization of a Company Revenue, Locating the motion of a Projectile, etc.

(j) How the Understanding of the Exponential Functions Helps the Understanding of Exponential Growth of Different Populations

(k) How scientific notation allows us to express extremely large numbers and extremely small numbers

Math 3, Math 7A & 7B & 9:

(a) Conics Application

(b) How to Quickly Make the Inverse Function of Sinusoidal Functions

(d) How to Make Use of the Conversion from A Complex Number to its Polar Form to Easily Find its nth Roots.

(e) Visualization of the Formation of an Ellipse

(f) How a parabola/paraboloid helps us to design lights, amphitheaters, space heaters, etc.

(g) How a room shaped like an ellipse will allow two people located at the foci to hear each other clearly in a noisy room (with pics)

Math 141:

(a) House Project

(b) Stock Project

(d) Graph Theory

(e) Game Theory

Math 22:

(a) Shortest Path Project

(b) Probability Project

Math 15:

(a) Build a Calculator (Binary System)

Stat 50: See the link below starting page 8

(a) Organizing information (charts and graphs)

(b) Graphing with excel

(d) Statistics in Medicine

(e) Statistics in Ergonomics

(f) Statistics in Sports

(g) Statistics for Consumers

(h) Statistics for Polling

(i) Statistics in the Airline Industry

(j) Are men more likely than women to help someone who has dropped his or her books? Does the sex of the book dropper matter?

(k) Does having the pictures on puzzle pieces shorten the time to complete the puzzle relative to not having the pictures?

(l) Does drinking caffeine affect students' performance on tests?

(m) Are people like the descriptions of their horoscope sign?

(n) Do the results of federal elections have an effect on stock prices?

(o) Do certain subpopulations get mammograms more frequently than others

(p) Are members of certain subpopulations (e.g., racial, ethnic, or educational backgrounds) more likely to receive the death penalty?

(q) Do girls spend more or less time than boys watching television programs each week?

(r) How does gas mileage depend on the year/model of the vehicle?

Math 5A-5C: See the link below starting page 8

(a) The meaning of the derivative of a function

(b) Root Finding

(d) What is the relation between Pressure, Volume and Work?

(e) How to visualize the Chain Rule?

(f) The shape of a hanging necklace is called a catenary, not a parabola, why?

(g) How to visualize the calculation of the volume of the solid generated by rotating a bounded region about a horizontal line (or a vertical line) by illustrating a slice?

(h) How to visualize the surface area calculation?

(i) The most economic shape of a can

(j) Who invented Calculus?-The role of Newton and Leibniz in the development of Calculus

(k) How fast does a tank drain?

(l) Which is faster, going up or coming down?

(m) Radiation from the stars

(n) Kepler's Laws

(o) Rocket science

(p) How a parabola/paraboloid helps us to design lights, amphitheaters, space heaters, etc.

(q) how a room shaped like an ellipse will allow two people located at the foci to hear each other clearly in a noisy room (with pics)

(r) Which of the following objects, a solid ball, a hollow ball, and a solid cylinder, reaches the bottom first when rolling down a slope?

(s) Connections between physics class and calculus class: One connection was between Pressure, Volume, and Work: You may make a presentation on this relationship by doing a bit of research and bringing application to the Pi Day event.

(t) Is the shape of a hanging string a parabola? More notably, if you hold up a string (like a necklace), it will hang down due to gravity. Surprisingly (or not?) the shape is not a parabola. It turns out that it's this funky shape called a catenary. You may investigate why that's the case, and how to derive the formula.

(http://scidiv.bellevuecollege.edu/ls/notes/Cat1.pdf)

http://www.math.cornell.edu/~GoodQuestions/materials.html

http://samjshah.com/2008/05/13/calculus-projects/

http://www.mastermathmentor.com/calc/calc-projects.ashx

http://www.math.lsa.umich.edu/~glarose/courseinfo/calc/calcprojects.html

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20100512045132AAvXNdT