Month: April 2013

The Uses of Large Numbers

High School Mathematics

Large numbers are used mostly used in astronomy and cosmology.  According to the Big Bang Model, the universe is estimated to be 4.3 \times 10^{17} seconds old, the observable universe is 8.8 \times 10^{26} meters, and it contains 5 \times 10^{22} stars.

In computing, if a hacker attempts to open a computer with up to a 40-character password, we should really wish him luck. Even though he may create a program that would display 1 billion strings per second indefinitely, it would take him 2 \times 10^{87} seconds or about 6 \times 10^{79} years to complete all the combinations.  That is way, way older than the universe which is  only about 13.7 billion years old. » Read more

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The Beauty of Mirrors and Symmetry

Beauty of Math, High School Mathematics, Math Lite, Math Palette

Symmetry is considered by many as a reflection of beauty and perfection. A symmetric object is an object where we can place a line such that the images on both sides of the line mirror each other.

line of symmetry

The geometric shapes in the first figure are symmetric. As shown, we can draw a line — in fact more than one line — to show symmetry. The equilateral triangle has three lines of symmetry, the square has four, and the circle has infinitely many. » Read more

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4 Types of Composite Numbers You Probably Have Not Heard Of

High School Mathematics, High School Number Theory

There are numbers that are named because of their special characteristics. Prime numbers for example are unique because they only have two factors, 1 and itself.  Composite numbers, on the other hand, have more than two factors.

composite numbers
Speaking of composite numbers, there are different types of such numbers that you probably have not heard of. In this post, we familiarize ourselves with these types of numbers. » Read more

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