Presents a probability activity addressing students' misconceptions regarding the Law of Large Numbers. Provides students with better conceptual understanding of the Law of Large Numbers. (ASK)

Discusses an algorithm that converts a fraction in simplest form into a terminating decimal and allows students to explore the efficacy and conceptual bases of a mathematical algorithm. (ASK)

Rough set theory is a new mathematical tool to deal with vagueness and uncertainty. Computational methods are presented for using rough sets to identify classes in datasets, finding dependencies in relations, and discovering rules which are hidden in databases. The methods are illustrated with a running example from a database of car test results.…

Examined analog number representations in 5- to 7- year-olds. Found that subjects accurately estimated rapidly presented groups of 5 to 11 items. Children's data were qualitatively and to some degree quantitatively similar to adult data, with one exception. The ratio of the standard deviation of estimates to mean estimates decreased with age.…

Describes two card games to motivate students to understand number sense concepts that can be used at the 2nd-5th grade levels. (ASK)

Describes how a teacher helped his students develop fractional number sense through a process-oriented activity. Illustrates how a teacher included a worthwhile, interesting and challenging mathematics question in his class to create a good learning environment for children. (Author/MM)

Discusses linguistic influence on children's numerical development. Describes and reviews recent papers that address the relationship between number naming systems and children's numerical concepts. (Contains 20 references.) (ASK)

Although children take over a year to learn the meanings of the first three number words, they eventually master the logic of counting and the meanings of all the words in their count list. Here, we ask whether children's knowledge applies to number words beyond those they have mastered: Does a child who can only count to 20 infer that number…

This article concludes the serialization of the Royal Statistical Society's Schools Lecture for 2004, on "Lies and statistics".

The starting point of this article is a search for pairs of quadratic polynomials x[superscript 2] + bx plus or minus c with the property that they both factor over the integers. The search leads quickly to some number theory in the form of primitive Pythagorean triples, and this paper develops the connection between these two topics.

A result known as the Borel-Cantelli lemma is about probabilities of sequences of events. This article presents an example in which it appears that the hypotheses of the lemma are satisfied but the conclusion is not. The explanation of why not combines elements of probability theory, number theory, and analysis.

This article discusses prime numbers, defined as integers greater than 1 that are divisible only by only themselves and the number 1. A positive integer greater than 1 that is not a prime is called composite. The number 1 itself is considered neither prime nor composite. As the name suggests, prime numbers are one of the most basic but important…

The term "random" is frequently used in discussion of the theory of evolution, even though the mathematical concept of randomness is problematic and of little relevance in the theory. Therefore, since the core concept of the theory of evolution is the non-random process of natural selection, the term random should not be used in teaching the…

After extensive laboratory testing of the famous memorist Rajan, Thompson, Cowan, and Frieman (1993) proposed that he was innately endowed with a superior memory capacity for digits and letters and thus violated the hypothesis that exceptional memory fully reflects acquired ''skilled memory.'' We successfully replicated the empirical phenomena…

This article features questions regarding logarithmic functions and hair growth. The first question is, "What is the underlying natural phenomenon that causes the natural log function to show up so frequently in scientific equations?" There are two reasons for this. The first is simply that the logarithm of a number is often used as a replacement…