The Secret of the Pharaoh’s Treasure, Part 3
[In the last episode, Alexandria Jones discovered a mysterious treasure: three wooden sticks, like tent pegs, and a long loop of rope with 12 evenly spaced knots. Her father explained that it was an...
View ArticleHistorical Tidbits: The Pharaoh’s Treasure
[Read the story of the pharaoh's treasure here: Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.] I confess: I lied — or rather, I helped to propagate a legend. Scholars tell us that the Egyptian rope stretchers did not...
View ArticleHistorical Tidbits: Alexandria Jones
[Read the story of the pharaoh's treasure: Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.] Here are a few more tidbits from math history, along with links to relevant Internet sites or books, and three more math puzzles...
View ArticleThe Mysterious Temporal Freeze
Alexandria Jones stepped into the huge tent that protected her father’s excavation site from the desert winds. She laughed to herself. It was like walking into a circus. She knelt down to whisper in...
View ArticleEgyptian Math in Hieroglyphs
Egyptians wrote in hieroglyphs, a type of picture writing, and in hieratics, which were like a cursive form of hieroglyphs. Hieroglyphs came first. They were carved in the stone walls of temples and...
View ArticleAlex’s Puzzling Papyrus
(In the last episode, Dr. Fibonacci Jones discovered a torn scrap of papyrus, covered with hieroglyphic numbers. He promised to teach his daughter, Alexandria, how the ancient Egyptian scribes worked...
View ArticleEgyptian Math Puzzles
What we know about ancient Egyptian mathematics comes primarily from two papyri, the first one written around 1850 BC. This is called the Moscow papyrus, because it now belongs to Moscow’s Pushkin...
View ArticleAnother Egyptian Math Puzzle
I have one last puzzle for those of you who are following my Alexandria Jones series on hieroglyphic math and the Egyptian scribe’s method of multiplication by doubling. Here is the “teaser” problem...
View ArticleEgyptian Geometry and Other Challenges
Would you like to study “the knowledge of all existing things and all obscure secrets”? That is how Scribe Ahmose (also translated Ahmes) described his mathematical papyrus. Ahmose’s masterpiece is...
View ArticleEgyptian Math: The Answers
Remember the Math Adventurer’s Rule: Figure it out for yourself! Whenever I give a problem in an Alexandria Jones story, I will try to post the answer soon afterward. But don’t peek! If I tell you the...
View ArticleThe Secret of Egyptian Fractions
Photo from Library of Congress via pingnews. Archaeology professor Dr. Fibonacci Jones came home from a long day of lecturing and office work. Stepping inside the front door, he held up a shiny silver...
View ArticleEgyptian Fractions: The Answer Sheet
Remember the Math Adventurer’s Rule: Figure it out for yourself! Whenever I give a problem in an Alexandria Jones story, I will try to post the answer (relatively) soon afterward. But don’t peek! If I...
View ArticleEgyptian Math: The Rhind Papyrus
The audio is taken from the BBC Podcast, A History of the World in 100 Objects. Don’t miss any of “Let’s Play Math!”: Subscribe in a reader, or get updates by Email. Have more fun on Let’s Play Math!...
View ArticleEgyptian Math: Pi
One more video on Egyptian mathematics… Learn more about math history. Don’t miss any of “Let’s Play Math!”: Subscribe in a reader, or get updates by Email.
View ArticleEgyptian Math: Fractions
I have been enjoying James Tanton’s website. In this video, Tanton explains a foolproof method for creating Egyptian fractions: See more posts on Egyptian math. Don’t miss any of “Let’s Play Math!”:...
View ArticleFractions: 1/5 = 1/10 = 1/80 = 1?
[Feature photo is a screen shot from the video “the sausages sharing episode,” see below.] How in the world can 1/5 be the same as 1/10? Or 1/80 be the same as one whole thing? Such nonsense! No, not...
View ArticleThe Secret of the Pharaoh’s Treasure, Part 3
[In the last episode, Alexandria Jones discovered a mysterious treasure: three wooden sticks, like tent pegs, and a long loop of rope with 12 evenly spaced knots. Her father explained that it was an...
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