Grange Academy Issue 316

20/4/2015
mathematics Department subscribers
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Welcome Milk rota

Welcome back everyone! April 22nd would
The next four folk on milk are:
have been the 128th birthday of Danish
Mathematician and 20th April Nadia
footballer Harald 27th April Elaine
Bohr. In the 1908 5th May Chris
Olympics, Bohr 11th May Aimee
represented his
country, picked up Equable triples!
a Silver medal and I will mention equable shapes elsewhere in
played in a record- this issue. They are shapes with the same
breaking 17-1 numerical value for area and perimeter!
semi-final victory
over the French Of course it's easy to equate the formulae
team. He became a for the squares, circles and equilateral
sporting hero in the process. In fact, when triangles as our Level 4 pupils investigate
he defended his dissertation at the to find three equable shapes:
University of Copenhagen in 1910 there
were more football fans in the audience EQUABLE
than Mathematicians! SHAPE AREA PERIMETER
IF...
His brother, Niels, was a
SQUARE
decent goalkeeper too. Side L L2 4L L4
Neils wasn't selected to
CIRCLE
play in the Olympics but
Radius R
 R2 2 R R2
made up for when he
picked up the Nobel Prize EQUILATERAL
3 2
for Physics in 1922! TRIANGLE S 3S S4 3
Side S 4

DM Every Maths teacher has their own

We have a CODM today!
S1 Reports
Our final batch of full reports are S1
Reports and are due Thursday 30th April!
Thought of the week
Why do they call them ‘Zebra
crossings’, despite the fact
that the camouflage effect
makes them far more perilous for
Zebras?!
favourite Pythagorean Triple! Even if these
two aren't your Triple Heroes, you've no
doubt used the following guys a few times
before...
13 8
5
12 10 6
Have you ever noticed that the perimeter
AND area of the (6,8,10)triangle is 24?
Or that the perimeter AND area of the
(5,12,13) triangle is 30? Yes, these famous
integer length triangles are equable!
*Actually, there are only five equable triangles with integer length
sides! The three others aren't right-angled but still deserve a
notable mention: (6,25,29), (7,15,20), and (9,10,17).
Maths De par t me nt N e w sle tte r
sequences roundup 2
Now for the latest instalment of the
roundup from my presentation at the SMC
Conference. In our Level 4 course we
devised a lesson series on patterns and
sequences to address Experience and
Outcome MTH 4-13a.
Page 2
triangles, others circles). Challenge them
to find equable shapes (those who have a
perimeter and area equal in numerical
value) or to identify "impossible" points.
This investigation is brilliant and (*spoiler
alert*) I had no idea the following pattern
would appear...

The lessons kick off with an introductory

"What's Next?" activity where pupils must
deduce what will complete the sequence
(some are numerical, others are not). We
get the pupils to respond remotely using
their ActivExpression handsets. More next week! I've uploaded a few of the
resources to TES: https://t.co/m6S2I0FYal.
Put n points round a
circle (in class we
use laminated Weekly puzzle
pictures of pizza) There was some characteristically sterling
and join each to all work from Paul Smith in cracking the
the others by lines previous puzzle.
going through the Let's work in degrees.
interior of the circle. Since X+Y+Z=180 it's clear that X+Y =180-Z
Make sure that no therefore tan(X+Y) =tan(180-Z)
THREE lines pass use the addition formulae
through a single tanA  tanB
point inside the tan(A  B) 
circle. Count the number of regions into 1 tanA tanB
which the interior of the circle is divided. tanX  tanY tan180  tanZ
so    tanZ
Don’t be fooled: this sequence’s formula 1 tanX tanY 1 tan180 tanZ
n-1 multiplying both sides by 1-tanXtanY
looks like it’s going to be 2 but it turns
tanX  tanY   tanZ  tanX tanY tanZ
out to be given by the following formula
meaning
which uses the binomial coefficient:
tanX  tanY  tanZ  tanX tanY tanZ
 n  n (an interesting result, you'll agree!)
      1  1
n4  6n3  23n2  18n  24 
4 2 24 THIS WEEK’s PUZZLE:
This just serves as a health warning for
pattern-spotters! Rigour is vital. 18 87 6 15 10 31 12 ?
After these two activities, we begin a Dan 78 81 51 9 13 25 ? ?
Meyer-inspired exploration into 2D shapes.
Stick a set of axes on the board labelled
area and perimeter and ask pupils to find a
shape that could be plotted on your grid. I
For Next Newsletter…
usually split the kids into teams (some Let me know of any news/items/lesson
look for squares, others equilateral ideas to share by Friday lunchtime. Chris