Month: April 2013

Have you tried Gmail Blue?

Web 2.0 Technology

If you love the color blue, or Michael Johnson’s song “Bluer than Blue,” or you’re just simply blue, you might want to try Gmail Blue. On April 1, the 9th year of Gmail, Google introduced the revolutionary Gmail Blue which took six years in development.  In Gmail Blue, everything is blue. According to Google, the Compose button is blue, the word Compose is blue, and even the Bold, Italic, and Underline buttons are blue. They said that they choose blue because brown was a  disaster.  Watch the video below to know more about the epic changes made in Gmail Blue.

Yes, this maybe sound like an April Fool’s day joke (grin), but there’s actually a Google Chrome extension for Gmail Blue if you want to try it out.  I have not tried it out though.

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Write Math Expressions with MathBrush iPad App

iPad App

The MathBrush iPad app is an application that recognizes mathematical expressions as you write them. It does not just support numbers but recognize a wide variety of mathematical expressions. Mathbrush recognizes handwriting which includes variables, functions, integrals and matrices. It is also capable of generating square root sign and Greek letters.

MathBrush iPad App

Mathematical expressions created with MathBrush may be exported as Latex, MathML and image formats. They can also be viewed onscreen or shared by email. Files created in MathBrush  can also be shared with other MathBrush users.  » Read more

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Mathematics: The Science of Patterns

General Education, High School Mathematics

Since elementary grades, we have learned that mathematics is closely related to patterns. Given a sequence of numbers, we would know the next few terms without much effort. We know that the next three terms in the sequence 3, 7, 11, 15, are 19, 23, and 27. Just by looking at the Koch’s  snowflake shown in the first figure, we have an idea of how to draw the sixth figure. It may not be as accurate as a computer drawing, but we would surely be able to draw the necessary details. These patterns are obvious and intuitive, so it is easy to predict the next “terms.”

koch-snowflake1

A little more challenging pattern is shown the second figure. Observing the colors of the circles, we can see that the sum of the first 2 odd integers is 2^2, the sum of the first 3 odd integers is 3^2, the sum of the first 4 odd numbers is 4^2, and so on.  From the pattern, we are quite confident that the sum of the first 1000 odd integers is 1000^2 without having to exhaust the 999 odd integers. » Read more

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