Comments and a "high pi"

Basically, I'm only posting this because I want to start a new comment field. As you see, my last post has about 170 posts (as of now) and I don't think I want it to go any further...

Also, be aware that anything insulting or disturbing or including swears in the comments field cannot be posted. I shall be moderating comments from time to time and deleting the bad ones.

But you MUST look at this picture. Some of you know the "high pi" thing that Ben started after Pi Day. Basically, it's like a high five but you only stick up 3.14 fingers. Well, I found this cartoon on the Internet of two mathematicians doing the "high pi." Take a look:

Is Clayton Really Smart???

We all (or most of us) know Clayton Jiang. He's in seventh grade and he is on the math team and has gotten multiple awards for perfect score. He just seems like this smart and nerdy kid who is really good at math and at school. BUT IS IT REALLY LIKE THAT???

I have a lot of evidence that this may not be the true "Clayton," but only what he shows at the surface.

1. He has shown his love life early in the year when he first entered eighth grade math.
2. He has admitted the Melanie is nice (though I'm not sure which way he meant it).
3. He gets B's and C's on average in his math class even though he is supposed to be good at math.

There are many more reasons, but those are the main reasons.

HOWEVER, today, I witnessed something very interesting during lunch. Clayton, the super math genius is trying to buy an ice cream and he hits the numbers "155." But he soon screams out in horror when he finds out that there is no ice cream in 155. The little screw thingy just rotates yet reveals no food! In vain, he argues with the lunch teacher, who doesn't seem to believe him becuase of his guilty-looking face what happened. But we must ask ourselves, how could such a smart person do that??? Please post comments to further extend my hypothesis.

And btw, I'm not posting the new lyrics.

A Song for Melanie and Daniel Zhang

As promised, here are the new lyrics for Melanie and Daniel Zhang. It doesn't rhyme and isn't very good, but I came up in approximately 3.14159265358979323846264338327950288 minutes. It can sung to the introduction of "American Pie" by Don McLean. This is also the song that the "pi" song is sung too.

American Love

A long, long time ago

romeo and juliet

fell in love

but nowadays it's not like that

it's melanie and daniel zhang

going out together and getting married

but do they really like eachother?

or is he just pretending to love her

I can't be certain how much she tried

to get him to like her more

but something deep inside them cried

the day they went to Enceladus.

Anyone want to take over and create more lyrics??? Just email them to me at twang7888@yahoo.com or you can just leave a comment. By the way, Enceladus is a moon of Saturn which is said to be the future honeymoon location for Mr. and Mrs. Zhang. Please leave comments, because I really want feedback for this.

American Pi

This is the BEST song about pi EVER!!! It is based on the tune of American Pie by Don McLean, but the lyrics for the pi song were written by Lawrence Mark Lesser. It is basically about the history of pi and includes up to 12 of its digits. I found it while searching for a song for math class. We (ST$ and I) have decided to use this tune as well and create new lyrics for it about pi. I'm starting this weekend. You HAVE to hear this song. It gets stuck in your head and is soooo catchy. YouTube "american pi" (sorry, I'm too lazy to get a link) and click on the first one. The introduction is, according to Ben, the "loser" part, so don't just exit. Wait about 50 seconds until the cool part of the song starts. You can get the lyrics on the Internet by googling "american pi" and clicking on the first link (again, sorry that there is no link). The first verse for the chorus goes as follows:

Find, find the value of pi

Starts 3 point 1 4 1 5 9

Good 'ol boys all gave it a try

But the decimal never dies (x2)

It's soooooo good, you HAVE TO LISTEN TO IT! Contact Ben, Daniel, or the Wang for more information.

Math Song

Yeah, so I told most of you that I wouldn't be updating as much since I don't want to spend as must time as I did before, which was actually what got me into trouble. So basically, we were in math class and we were learning about FOIL (first, outer, inner, last). Mr. Rosenthal showed us a math music video about it and now I'm trying to see if we can do it too (for lots of extra credit of course). So bascially, I've been trying to find some good songs and math topics and people who can play instruments and sing and are in my math class. (That was a lot of and's.) Right now, I really need an electric guitar player, so does anyone know one on my team? Another post in a few days... stay tuned.

I'm back to my blog!

Hello to all my blog visitors. Welcome back to this site. As most of you know, I had to convert to a website because of... ummm... some issues. So anyway, I'm back now. However, I won't be able to update my blog as much. Before, I used to update daily. Now, I'll probably only update about twice a week. It won't be as interesting, but at least it's better than my old website. Every single person has said that my blog is better than my website. This is one of the main reasons that I have switched back. This blog had a lot more hits than my website, BY FAR! It used to be first on Google! Now, it's like somewhere else. But anyway, I hope to get the visitor number higher now.

For starters, please inform everyone you know about this blog and that I'm going to convert back to it.

Stay tuned for further posts!

POTW #7

The second question in the competition!


Bob is obsessed with pencil twirling. Every time he is thinking, he twirls his pencil. The way he twirls it is by spinning the pencil around his thumb. Bob can spin it once, twice in a row, three times in a row, and so on. However, Bob sometimes drops the pencil. It takes Bob 1.5 seconds to spin it once, 3 seconds to spin it twice, 4.5 seconds to spin is thrice, and so on. It takes Bob 6 seconds to pick up the pencil if he drops it.
One day, he is in math class doing a hard math problem. He spins, his pencil twice, drops it, once, drops it, five times, drops it, eight times, drops it, drops it again, twelve times, drops it, writes a large number down (23 seconds), fifty-four times, drops it, once, drops it, fifteen times, drops it, drops it again, drops it again, nine times, drops it, twice, figures out the answer and writes it down (5 seconds), screams "Eureka!" (1.99 seconds), and then drops his pencil. How much time did it take Bob to figure out the math problem. This includes the time he spends twirling his pencil, thinking, screaming, and so on. Basically, include all the actions in that long list above. Give your answer in minutes and seconds. (Note: If I receive any answers with only minutes or only seconds, then it’s minus 2 points, because it must be in minutes and seconds!)

Difficulty level: 3

Source: Original. The idea came to me while I was actually thinking of a good POTW question and twirling my pencil, a real life example.

It's 2007!

It's 2007 now, the first day of the year!!! Not much is new though, except that now we have to write the date with "07" at the end of it. I'll have to get used to that. Enjoy the 2007! animated pictures above. I've changed the copyright date to 2006-2007. You can see at the very end of the toolbar.

Last Day of the Year!

Today is the last day of the year! It's December 31, 2006! Tomorrow, it will be 2007! Also, we had our first day of snow, even though it was a little bit, which is why I have a snow globe up there. Happy New Year!!!

Happy Holidays!

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!!

-from the Twangsite Blogging Place

Number One on Google

Recently (this morning), I googled "twangsite" just for fun and I saw that my blog was the very first thing there! I was really happy, because I didn't think that my blog recieved so many hits that it would even be on google. However, I tried it on dogpile (that's a search engine that combines google, yahoo, ask, and more) and I found that I was only eighth on the list. I hope I will be getting some foreign visitors...

What I did on Christmas Eve

Click on the image for an enlarged view.

On Christmas Eve, I went to my dad's friend's house for the whole night. Brian, a friend of mine, and I were on the computer the whole night because there wasn't much else to do. I played Runescape for a while and I took this screen shot and saved it to my computer. It's basically me killing a goblin and I have a whole load of rubbish I picked up and I now that I look at it carefully, there's someone just standing there right next to the goblin that I'm killing. That's pretty much it.

Note: Click on the image for an enlarged view.

Make the POTWs

POTWs can get annoying after a while for me because I have to write all of them and think about good questions and stuff. Here's an opportunity to help out! Write your own POTWs and email them to me at twang7888@yahoo.com. Please include a suggested difficulty level. If I like your POTW, then I will make it one of the official ones and source you. If it does get accepted and posted on my blog, then the writer will get the maximum score possible for that post. However, the first solver will also get the maximum score, so as not to mess up the point system. Any questions, comments, or suggestions, email me at twang7888@yahoo.com.

I know that I haven't updated in a while, but keep in mind, IT'S VACATION AND THERE ARE HOLIDAYS!

My Half Birthday

Today is my half birthday! I just realized during first blog when I was writing the date down on the homework. That's great because that means that in exactly half a year, I'm going to be fourteen! A lot of great things happened today too, so I guess I had a happy half birthday!

In case you haven't figured out yet, my birthday is on June 19.

POTW #6

Which of the following has a greater volume?

1. A cylinder with a radius of 4 and a height of 6
2. A cylinder with a circumference of 25 and a height of 5.

If they have the same volume, say so.
If it is impossible to find out, say so.

Difficulty Level: 1

Source: 100% original


This is the first POTW for the second POTW competition.

Create your Blog!

Blogs are in the house! Ever since I got one, so many people have followed suit and gotten their own. For example, David, Mike, Daniel, Linnea (thought she deleted hers yesterday) and some other people. Act now and create your own blog. Just click on the link in the toolbar at the very top that says "Create Blog." It's totally free and is really easy to update. No HTML is necessary unless you don't get the beta version, which I strongly suggest.

When I first got this blog in August 2006, I did it against my dad's will. My mom was okay about it. My dad said that it would be a waste of time, even thought I have all the time in my life...wait, did that make sense? Anyway, I updated my blog secretly without him knowing. Soon when the school year started, my dad found out that I was still updating my blog, but he didn't really care. Now, which is December, my dad even wants to create his own blog for his job purposes so he and other scientists will know about meetings and stuff. He's getting it sometime around December break.

Of course, there are always those overprotective parents who don't trust their kid and think that they will put private issues on the web (hem, hem... you know who you are). One example is Linnea (sorry Linnea if this is embarrassing you). She had made her blog secretly like me and deleted it because she almost got in trouble. (Note to self: I have to remove that from the links list sometime...)

So, if, after reading this post, you are going to create your own blog, then please be sure that you get your parent's permission, because I'm not taking any blames for forcing any of you to do so.

Term 1 Math Grade Drops Dramatically

Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo! My term one grade for math dropped dramatically all because of that last test that we had that was worth 150 points! I got a 91 on that quiz! That dropped my grade down 8%, so I now have a 106%!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! At least I still did a lot of extra credit. I got 22 points worth of it. Without it, I would have exactly 100%. So either way, I would have gotten an A+.

Just so you know, you have to get 100 or above to get an A+ in Mr. Rosenthal's class. 97, 98, or 99 are still A's. Richard got all mad at that because he got a 97% for his average and he got an A, so now he's really upset. Just telling you so you won't land in the same situation as him....

(Note: some of the o's in the Nooooo were deleted due to problems with wrapping text. Please note that there should be about four times more o's)

The Winner-Mike L.

Mike L. is the winner for the first POTW competition with 62 points! In second place was Tyler Epstein, who was only three points behind Mike.
The next POTW competition starts next Tuesday. Be ready to get a good start!

Comments

The most surprising thing of the day- there are 49 comments (as of now) on the previous posts about POTW #4 Answer and Explanation! I couldn't believe it! I look at what people wrote, and then I see that GuessWhoIAm and Tyler have like had a conversation about who GuessWhoIAm is. No wonder there are so many comments...

POTW #4 Answer and Explanation

This problem was possible, so any of you that said it was impossible was incorrect. As you can see from the picture to the right, the answer is l=16 and m=9.There is a very interesting way to get the answer. You could have done it algebraically or just use your geometry logic. The easiest way is to use your geometry logic.

You know (or hopefully you knew, because it said right in the problem) that this is a right triangle. In that case use pythagorean theorum and you get that the square root of 15^2 + 20^2 = the hypotenuse, which is 25. Now you know that l + m = 25. So then you get the area of the triangle to find the length of line BD. The base can be 15 and the height can be 20. (Note: to see this, you can picture out and rotate it, or you can simply turn your head or create a picture your brain.) You do 20*15*(1/2) and you get 150 for the triangle's area. Now, you use the other base, the hypotenuse and the height so that they equal 150. So 25*x*(1/2) = 150

Guide to Getting Good Grades

Setting "Preliminary Deadlines" is the key to stress-free, timely, and high-quality assignments.


A. Papers-- Set a preliminary due date for all papers 4 DAYS before they are due, and enter this in your assignment notebook. Once you have finished the first copy of your paper, bring it to your English teacher and ask is he or she has any comments to help you improve your writing. Even if you have good English grades, this is the real way to improve your writing skills.

B. Projects/Posters-- Depending upon the project, aim to have it done almost a week in advance. Write this prelininary deadline in your assignment notebook. This way, you'll have time to relax and be able to correct small errors and for posters, you have more time to make things look more appealing to the eye by changing colors and deciding on placement of text and images.

C. Quizzes-- Study for 2 DAYS (not one day) before a quiz. Enter "Study for quiz" for two days in a row into your assignment notebook. That way, you won't be rushed to do it all in one night.

D. Tests-- Study for 4 DAYS leading up to a test. Enter this for four days in a row into your assignment notebook. Tests require more and longer study time because their grades count more to your overall grade than quizzes do.

E. Mid-Term Tests-- Study for 1 WEEK leading up to a mid-term test. It is easier to study for a little bit every day because your brain memorizes things easily that way. Enter this into your assignment notebook for one week straight.

F. Finals-- Study for 2 WEEKS leading up to a final. You should study just a bit every night. That way, there is not as much stress and you have time to ask teachers or other students questions. Enter this into your assignment notebook for two weeks straight.

Musical Balls v3.0

This is the video that we watched in science class. I found it on YouTube and decided to post it to my blog. It's an even newer version than before. There is an extra part added at the end of the show. It's really cool!
Just in case you don't know, it is made from animation and it is not real!

Poll #1

Cool Gadgets for My Blog

Blogs were originally made just to share your daily life. However, as you see, I'm going beyond the horizon. I have POTWs, which no one has ever thought of putting on a blog. I also support accounts, which I apologize, haven't been updated for a while. If you haven't noticed, I like doing things beyond the ordinary. I'm still doing some things to have even more cool stuff. Soon, I'm going to have a vote form, so that I can give surveys and people can answer them and then find out which was the most popular answer. I'm not sure not to do HTML for that, so I might just steal someone else's.

Please tell me any cool web gadgets that you think I should include on my blog. If I like the idea, I might source you. Please email me all your ideas at twang7888@yahoo.com.

POTW #5

A water tub that holds 1000 gallons is empty. The owner wants to fill the tub, so he turns on the water to fill the tub. Water is filling the tub at five gallons per minute. Five minutes later the tub starting filling with water, a mischivious child turns on the drain, which drains water away at two gallons per minute. How much more time did it take for the tub to fill with the drain on than without it. (In other words, take the time that it took to fill the tub witht the drain on and stract it from the time it would have taken if the drain was never turned on.) Give your answer in hours and minutes.

Hint: Use ALGEBRA! Make an equation.

Difficulty level: 5


Source: Original, but the idea came from last year's math class at Chinese School.


This is the very last POTW for this competition. The winner gets a prize. (Don't expect anything that's worth more than a dollar.) Even if you are very behind, this is your chance to catch up. First place is worth 25 points!