A Nebraska National Guard helicopter maneuvers Saturday morning to place sandbags near a city of Lincoln well on an island of the flood-ravaged Platte River. State of Nebraska, Courtesy photo I avoided making a nuisance of myself by not driving out to see the 2019 Nebraska floods devastation personally. However, I have spent [...]
Two weeks ago I wrote a post called Equations from Data. In it, my pre-calculus students first were charged with finding a curve of best fit for global iPod sales data from 2006 to the present. Then they were asked to find an equation for the curve of best fit for global iPhone sales. The goal was to show [...]
When businesses, governments and other policy makers prepare to make decisions, they often look at data to find trends. In this activity, we will use data and a graphing calculator, Desmos, or Geogebra to find an equation that best fits the data points. Statista has Global Apple iPod sales (in million units). Plot the data [...]
Composite functions are a combination of two functions. The traditional math course introduces them like this: Let f and g be functions with overlapping domains. Then for all x common to both domains: (f + g)(x) = f(x) + g(x) (f - g)(x) = f(x) - g(x) (fg)(x) = f(x) · g(x) (f/g)(x) = f(x) / [...]
President Obama announced his carbon pollution standards for power plants on 8/03/2015. In it he outlines a 32% cut in carbon dioxide emissions by 2030. Currently, Nebraska gets about 72% of its electricity from coal. According to the American Wind Energy Association, Nebraska has the potential of meeting more than 118 times the state's current electrical [...]
It is one thing to read about a tire rotating at a specified number of revolutions per second. It is another to be able to visualize it. When you add lights to bike tires and film at dusk you slow things down enough to make sense of the question. How fast is the bicycle going? [...]
You have to love people who make lemonade from lemons. A recent photo circulating in FaceBook made me envious, for just a fraction of a second, of the people in Boston who are dealing with the historic snow falls of the 2014-2015 winter. Snow Pit, South Boston, MA. 2015. Courtesy Bill McKay The [...]
The National Retail Foundation sends out press releases that outline their predictions for consumer spending each holiday season. The 2007 - 2009 recession is quite evident in the dips in the charts of the predictions. Some economists argue that due to unemployment and under-employment Americans have not yet fully recovered from the effects of the [...]
The release of the 2015 Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition often brings controversy of some sort. This year's inclusion of a plus-size model does not disappoint. Is it an about face that recognizes that women come in all shapes and sizes or an effort to boost revenue for a flailing industry? MPA The Association of Magazine Media publishes [...]
