Mr Block's maths home

"I tell them if they will occupy themselves with the study of mathematics, they will find in it the best remedy against the lusts of the flesh." Thomas Mann

Welcome to Mr Block's maths site

I will be starting as the new head of maths at St. Ignatius Senior School in George Town, Cayman Islands in August 2009. The main purpose of this site is to help the students of St Ignatius School with their maths. Whether it is homework or revision help for an exam, you have somewhere to get help if you are not in class. Hopefully, it will also be useful for parents and other family members when they need to help. More than just help for school, I hope this site helps inspire and educate everyone to see there is more to maths than calculating, graphs and solving equations. Maths has intrigued and inspired scientist, artists, musicians, philosophers and everyone else for millenia.  It can be beautiful, creative, make you some money, and frequently make you pause and say "WOW!"  It can also be the source of some good laughs! There are lots of excellent sites out there from other maths teachers and maths enthusiasts that have inspired me to create my own site to cater to my own students and school community.  I hope this site educates and inspires and becomes a door to many of the other excellent sites out there.

Recommended Reads

Since I have been off since January, and had a broken foot for all of January and February, I have had lots of time to read. Here are some of my top recommendations for books that are maths related:

The Golden Ratio by Mario Livio    Wonderful book on the history of the golden ratio. What I really enjoyed was how the author critically looked at claims about the golden ratio. I have seen lots of films and other books where they throw up golden rectangles all over works of art and claim the golden ratio is designed in it. I always wondered how they decided to draw the rectangles.

Zeno's Paradox by Joseph Mazur  Interesting book using Zeno's Paradoxes to examine our concept of motion and time.

Lewis Carroll in Numberland by Robin Wilson   Fascinating book on the life of Lewis Carroll the mathematician. We all know about Alice but he was just as famous as a mathematician.

About the Size of it by Warwick Cairns  Tells the story of how we got the English and Imperial units of measure and why the actually make more sense than the metric system. Very interesting and amusing. How many metric supporters can he sway?

The Oxford Murders by Guillermo Martinez  A murder mystery built around maths. A real page turner. The Argentinian author does a superb job of integrating maths into a murder story.

Do the Math:Secrets, Lies, and Algebra by Wendy Lichtman  A good book for the younger readers (middle school). It is a short novel about a murder and maths.

Flatland by Edwin Abbott  This is a classic maths story and social satire from Victorian England. You can read this online.

Let me know how you like the site?!