MATHEMATICAL LETTERS
We have three sets of essays:
CURRICULUM ESSAYS and Teaching the Problem-Solving Mindset for classroom mathematics thinking, and COOL MATH ESSAYS for cool math in general.
Scroll down for the essays of interest.
If you would like to receive these monthly math essays directly via email, just let me know at TANTON.MATH@GMAIL.COM and I’ll add you to the email list.
[But one can just keep coming here to check them out!]
A BOOK! Over 30 past essays are updated and collated in a new book. Out now!
MOST RECENT ESSAYS
Cool Math
Cool Math BONUS ESSAY 2021: Heronian Triangles
Cool Math Essay June 2021 Special Heronian Triangles
Cool Math Essay May 2021 Sums of Powers
Cool Math Essay_April 2021 Numbers Possessing a One
Cool Math Essay_March 2021 Prime Deserts
Cool Math Essay February 2021: Average Square Sequences
Cool Math Essay January 2021: Angles in Stars
Cool Math Essay December 2020_Polynomials and Integer Points
Cool Math Essay November 2020 Permutation Matrices
Cool Math Essay October 2020 A Surprise Appearance of Euler’s Formula
Cool Math Essay September 2020 The 27 Card Trick
Cool Math Essay_August 2020 Dots and Dashes
Cool Math Essay_July 2020_64 Coins
Cool Math Essay_June 2020_Maximal Products
Cool Math Essay_May 2020_NIM
Cool Math Essay_April 2020_Pouring Puzzle
Cool Math Essay_March 2020_Symmetrical Solutions and the AG inequality
Cool Math Essay_February 2020_Lattice Points Inside Circles
Cool Math Essay_January 2020 How Rational is your Circle?
Cool Math Essay_December 2019_Suspension Bridges
Cool Math Essay_November 2019_Counting Explosions
Cool Math Essay_October 2019: A Global Math Week Experience
Cool Math Essay_September 2019 Explaining Lill’s Result
Cool Math Essay_August 2019: Hendersons Result Once More
Cool Math Essay_July 2019 Henderson’s Geometric Gem
Cool Math Essay June 2019 Doubly Fractal Sequences
Cool Math Essay_May 2019 Regular Polygon Puzzle
Cool Math Essay_April 2019_Egg Dropping
Cool Math Essay_March 2019_Grid Rearrangements
Cool Math Essay_February 2019_Dividing Lines in Triangles
Cool Math Essay_January 2019_A Surprise Golden Appearance
Cool Math Essay_December 2018_Sums of Fourth Powers
Cool Math Essay_November 2018_Sums of Cubes
Cool Math Essay_October 2018_Grape Codes
Curriculum
Blog Essay February 2019: Two Key–but ignored–Steps to Solving Any Math Problem
Blog Essay January 2019: Breaking Throught the Mathematics Education System Despite Itself
Curriculum Essay_December 2018_Compound Interest
Blog Essay November 2018: Global Joy: Uplifting Mathematics in Classrooms across the Planet
Blog Essay October 2018: A Young Student’s Approach to Polygon Areas
Blog Essay September 2018: Personal Stories of Discovering Mathematics
Blog Essay June 2018: The Unreasonableness of K-12 Mathematics
Curriculum Essay_May 2018_Tangent Curves
Blog Essay April 2018: Time Does Not Run Clockwise: Here’s Proof!
Blog Essay March 2018: 7 times 8 is 54: The Call for Math Memorization
Blog Essay January 2018 Just Teach My Kid the **adjective** Math!
Teaching Problem Solving
Teaching Problem Solving Mindset 1 Systems of Equations
Teaching Problem Solving Mindset 2 Fractions
Teaching Problem Solving Mindset 3 Remainder Theorem
Teaching Problem Solving Mindset 4 Rational Functions
Teaching Problem Solving Mindset 5 Fitting Quadratics
Teaching Problem Solving Mindset 6 A Distance Formula
Teaching Problem Solving Mindset 7 Rational Graphs II
Teaching Problem Solving Mindset 8 Transformations of Periodic Functions
Teaching Problem Solving Mindset 9 Graphing Polynomials
Teaching Problem Solving Mindset 10 Reflecting on Solutions
Past Essays (Scroll way down to see the Cool Math ones in this list!)
Curriculum Essay_January 2018_Power of Symmetry
Curriculum Essay_December 2017_Poisson Distribution
Curriculum Essay_November 2017_Ambiguity and Nuance
Curriculum Essay_October 2017_Exploding Dots Make Space
Curriculum Essay_September 2017_Back to Basics Revisited
Curriculum Essay_August 2017_Factoring
Curriculum Math Essay_July 2017_Expected ValueCurriculum Essay_June 2017_Napier and Logs
Curriculum Essay_May 2017_Law of the Lever
Curriculum Essay_April 2017_Models
Curriculum Essay_March 2017_Exclusionary Math
Curriculum Essay_February 2017_Counterclockwise
Curriculum Essay_January 2017_The Equation of a Line
Curriculum Essay_December 2016_Ratio and Proportion
Curriculum Essay_November 2016_Two Data Points
Curriculum Essay_October 2016_Functions
Curriculum Essay_September 2016_Extraneous Solutions
Curriculum Essay_August 2016_Factoring Follow-Up
Curriculum Essay_July 2016_Factoring Trinomials
Curriculum Essay_June 2016_The Premise
Curriculum Essay_MAY 2016_Math is a Language
Curriculum Essay_April 2016_Quadratic Formula in Klingon
Curriculum Essay_March 2016_Average Value
Curriculum Essay_February 2016_Averages as Fractions
Curriculum Essay_January 2016_Math Wars
Curriculum Essay_December 2015_On Having a PhD
Curriculum Essay_November 2015_EQUATING FAMILIARITY
Curriculum Essay_October 2015_ON GRAPHING
Curriculum Essay_September 2015_PEMDAS
Curriculum Essay_August 2015_Undergraduate Courses for Teaching
Curriculum Essay_July 2015_Basic Probability
Curriculum Essay_June 2015_Same Questions
Curriculum Essay_May 2015_IRRATIONAL NUMBERS
Curriculum Essay_April 2015_SLOPE
Curriculum Essay_March 2015_TEACHING ALGORITHMS
Curriculum Essay_February 2015_WHY DO WE NEED TO KNOW THIS?
Curriculum Essay_January2015_ON SIMPLIFY
Curriculum Essay_December2014_TRIG ADDITION
Curriculum Essay_November2014_POLYNOMIAL DIVISION
Curriculum Essay_October2014_ON THE WORD OF
Curriculum Essay_September2014_AREA and PROBABILITY
Curriculum Essay_August2014_LINE OF BEST FIT
Curriculum Essay_July 2014_MEAN AND VARIATION
Curriculum Essay_June 2014_ABSOLUTE VALUE
Curriculum Essay_May 2014_PYTHAGORAS PRECURSOR
Curriculum Essay_April 2014_CIRCLE THEOREMS
Curriculum Essay_March 2014_FRACTIONS ARE HARD
Curriculum Essay_February 2014_MATRICES
Curriculum Essay_January 2014_VECTORS
Curriculum Essay_December 2013_SPECIAL TRIANGLES
Curriculum Essay_November 2013_On Significant Figures
Curriculum Essay_October 2013_On Thales Theorem
Curriculum Essay_September 2013_On the AREA OF A TRIANGLE formula
Curriculum Essay_June 2013: PILES AND HOLES
Curriculum Essay_May 2013: FITTING EQUATIONS TO DATA
Curriculum Essay_April 2013: LOGARITHMS
Curriculum Essay_March 2013: The VINCULUM
Curriculum Essay_February 2013: WHO CHOSE THOSE NUMBERS?
Curriculum Essay_January 2013: ARE CIRCLES SIMILAR?
Curriculum Essay_December 2012: TROUBLESOME ZERO
Curriculum Essay_April 2012: GRAPHING QUADRATICS
Curriculum Essay_May 2012: UTILISING SYMMETRY IN QUADRATICS
Curriculum Essay_June 2012: DOES ORDER MATTER?
Curriculum Essay_July 2012: ANGLES IN A TRIANGLE
Curriculum Essay_August 2012: THE PARADOX OF AREA
Curriculum Essay_September 2012: 0.9999….
Curriculum Essay_October 2012: WHY IS NEGATIVE TIMES NEGATIVE POSITIVE?
Curriculum Essay_November 2012: ASSESSMENT THOUGHTS
Cool Essay_June 2018_Rotations
Cool Essay_May 2018_Napier’s Checkerboard
Cool Essay_April 2018_Reversible Sums of Two Squares
Cool Essay_March 2018_Incenters
Cool Essay_October 2017_Three Points on a Circle
Cool Essay_September 2017_Plimpton 322
Cool Essay_August 2017_Triangular Sequences
Cool Essay_July 2017_Powers of Two in Pythagoras.docx
Cool Math Essay_Febuary 2017_Vivianis Theorem
Cool Math Essay_January 2017_Sticks and Triangles
Cool Math Essay_December 2016_Geometric Series Issues
Cool Math Essay_August 2016_Zero Knowledge
Cool Math Essay_June 2016_Sandpiles
Cool Math Essay_December 2015_Paper Sizes
Cool Math Essay_November 2015_Algebra in Geometry
Cool Math Essay_October 2015_Carry Triangles
Cool Math Essay_September 2015_Rolling Parabolas
Cool Math Essay_June 2015_BICYCLE TRACKS
Cool Math Essay_APRIL 2015_Weird Multiplication
Cool Math Essay_MARCH 2015_Intermediate Positions
Cool Math Essay_FEBRUARY 2015_Wrapping-Paper Slices
Cool Math Essay_JANUARY 2015_Leapfrog Plus
Cool Math Essay_DECEMBER 2014_Two Trig Puzzles
Cool Math Essay_NOVEMBER 2014_Polynomial Fun
Cool Math Essay_OCTOBER 2014_Parabolic Multiplication
Cool Math Essay_AUGUST 2014_TRIANGLES ON A QUADRATIC
Cool Math Essay_JULY 2014_AVERAGE FACTORIZATIONS
Cool Math Essay_May 2014_RepDigit Squares
Cool Math Essay_April 2014_On Cyclic Quadrilaterals
Cool Math Essay_March 2014_FRACTIONS TAKE NO SPACE
Cool Math Essay_February 2014_SEMIMAGIC SQUARES
Cool Math Essay_June 2013: THOSE BRAIDS!
Cool Math Essay_May 2013: DIVISIBILITY
Cool Math Essay_April 2013: CUBIC and QUARTIC FORMULAS – and more!
Cool Math Essay_March 2013: COUNTING PARENTHESES
Cool Math Essay_January 2013: SUMS OF SQUARES, CUBES and BEYOND!
Cool Math Essay_December2012: GOING FURTHER WITH AVERAGES>
Cool Math Essay_April 2012: MEDIANTS AND FORD CIRCLES
Cool Math Essay_July2012: ON AVERAGE
Cool Math Essay_August2012: CHECKERBOARD WALKING AND COLOURING
Cool Math Essay_September 2012: PASCAL “RING” TRIANGLE