Thiel College To Reinstate Men's and Women's Tennis Programs

After an interruption of several years, Thiel College is reinstating the men's and women's tennis program for the 2010-2011 academic year. The Tomcats will compete in the Presidents' Athletic Conference (NCAA Division III).

This is great news for tennis in Greenville, PA and Mercer County!

In the last couple of years, the tennis courts (6 of them) at Thiel College have been neglected with tattered and torn nets. The College is planning to resurface the courts in the near future.

The Tennis Teams at Greenville High School have benefited tremendously over the years by having the tennis facilities at Thiel College. I have coached many players who grew up playing on these courts. In fact, some of the best players in recent Mercer County history (including the current captain of the Mercyhurst College Men's Tennis Team) obtained an early love for the game of tennis in part due to these tennis courts. Access to tennis courts is crucial for the growth of the sport.

Math Is Not A Spectator Sport!

I often tell my students that "Math is not a spectator sport!"

From Screen Jelly and Blabberize:

http://www.screenjelly.com/watch/_XQ-yXeUGcc

Arthur Benjamin's formula for changing math education | Video on TED.com

Arthur Benjamin argues that the pinnacle of math education should not be calculus, but instead it should be statistics and probability. Check out the interesting video.

Arthur Benjamin's formula for changing math education | Video on TED.com

WolframAlpha - A Computational Knowledge Search Engine

A student at my school let me know about a computational search engine called WolframAlpha. The goals of this search engine are ambitiously laid out as follows:

Wolfram|Alpha's long-term goal is to make all systematic knowledge immediately computable and accessible to everyone. We aim to collect and curate all objective data; implement every known model, method, and algorithm; and make it possible to compute whatever can be computed about anything. Our goal is to build on the achievements of science and other systematizations of knowledge to provide a single source that can be relied on by everyone for definitive answers to factual queries.
Wolfram|Alpha aims to bring expert-level knowledge and capabilities to the broadest possible range of people—spanning all professions and education levels. Our goal is to accept completely free-form input, and to serve as a knowledge engine that generates powerful results and presents them with maximum clarity.
Wolfram|Alpha is an ambitious, long-term intellectual endeavor that we intend will deliver increasing capabilities over the years and decades to come. With a world-class team and participation from top outside experts in countless fields, our goal is to create something that will stand as a major milestone of 21st century intellectual achievement.

The people at WolframAlpha are associated with Mathematica, a powerful math software package. I performed a search with WolframAlpha to have it compute the derivative of 2 + 6sin^2 (0.3t). It correctly gave me 3.6sin (0.3t)cos (0.3t). It also provided me with graphs of the derivative and other information.

This might be a great tool for math students.

500 Touchdowns and Counting!

Yesterday, Favre recorded his 500th career touchdown in the Vikings win against the Bears. By the end of the game, Favre's career totals in the regular season amounted to 502 touchdowns (488 passing and 14 rushing).

Daddy Playing Tennis

This is a painting by my 4 year old daughter of me playing tennis. The tennis world is warned that she intends to play tennis with me when she gets bigger. She told me that "We will win!"

Tennis Is Growing!

 

The U.S. Tennis Association said in a recent survey that 30.1 million people hit the courts this year. That’s a 12 percent increase from 2008 and up 25 percent from six years ago.

The survey showed participation grew in all age groups under 50 and within all ethnic groups. The biggest increases were among Hispanics, with 32 percent more playing the game. Blacks had a 19 percent increase.
There were 7.1 million newcomers to the sport, a 19.5 percent increase from last year. Regular players, those playing between four and 20 times a year, increased 26 percent this year to 14.8 million.
“Over the past several years, we’ve strived to make the game more accessible, particularly at parks and schools around the country,” said Kurt Kamperman, the USTA’s chief executive of community tennis. “Combine this with the health benefits of tennis, and you get surging interest in the sport.”
Among age groups, the biggest percentage of players are 12-17 years old at 20.5 percent, followed by 18-24 at 18.4 percent, and 6-11 years old at 16.25 percent.
The survey showed the sport is doing better at retaining players, with a 6.3 percent increase from the year before. Former players are returning to the game for the third year in a row, with nearly 7 million coming back this year.
The annual survey of 6,000 Americans was done by Taylor Research Group on behalf of the USTA and the Tennis Industry Association.

Kraynak's Christmas Land and Light Up Night Parade

NFL's Top Rated Passer

 

Don't look now, but the highest quarterback rating in the NFL belongs to a 40 year old named Favre.  Favre has a QB Rating of 107.5 with 17 TDs and only 3 Ints.

Highest Rated Cable TV Show Ever - Not in NYC or LA

The highest rated cable TV show ever was the Monday Night Football game with the Green Bay Packers barely losing to the Minnesota Vikings in Minnesota. A midwest event with an old Mississippi quarterback named Brett Favre playing in his first game against the Packers.

Before the game, many people asked me which team I was rooting for. I wanted the Packers to win, but I wanted Favre to play well. Favre played very well and the Packers should have won the game. I didn't quite get what I wanted.

Pfuffnick's Nobel Prize in Economics Triumph Hailed by Many

The Nobel Prize in Economics is one of the most prostegious annual awards in the world. The list of past recipients is a who's who of giants in the field of economics. Recently, Quintus Pfuffnick was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics for 2009. The following is the Associated Press account of this important event.

From the Associated Press (with some light editing):

Pfuffnick's Nobel Economics Prize triumph hailed by many

LONDON — The surprise choice of first-year graduate student Quintus Pfuffnick for the Nobel Prize in Economics drew praise from much of the world Friday even as many pointed out the youthful economist has not yet published anything in scholarly journals.

The new PhD candidate was hailed for his willingness to tackle difficult problems, his commitment to improving the economic system, and his goal of bringing efficiency and equality into harmony.

Professor Paul Krugman of Princeton, who won the prize in 2008, said Pfuffnick's award shows great things are expected from him in the coming years.

"In a way, it's an award coming near the beginning of the first year in grad school of a relatively young economist that anticipates an even greater contribution towards making our economy a better place for all," he said. "It is an award that speaks to the promise of Mr Pfuffnick's message of hope."

He said the prize is a "wonderful recognition of Pfuffnick's essay in his grad school application."





OK, you got me! This story is a spoof of President Obama's Nobel Peace Price that I found on the blog of Greg Mankiw, a Harvard University economist.

Using Animated Movies to Learn About Mathematics

I recently discovered a cool web tool that allows you to create animation movies from text. It is called xtranormal. They offer a free plan. I plan to create some movies that pertain to math, economics, sports, etc.

Here is an example that someone created using xtranormal to talk about the limits concept from calculus.

Teenage Employment and Minimum Wage Increases

The unemployment rate has recently reached 9.8% and threatens to break through the double digit threshold. Meanwhile, a few subsets of the population have been especially hard hit during these difficult economic times. Interestingly, certain economic policies have led to a higher unemployment rate for the least skilled population subsets.

Teenagers tend to be low skilled when it comes to labor markets. They just haven't had the time to accumulate much labor market skills. Congress increased the minimum wage to $7.25 per hour in July. Furthermore, Congress has increased the minimum wage by more than 40% since July 2007. Basic economic analysis tells us that increases in the minimum wage lead to a decrease in the quantity of labor demanded by employers and, subsequently, a reduction in employment by low skilled teenage workers.

This is precisely what has occurred to teenage workers. According to a recent Wall Street Journal report, 330,000 teenage jobs have vanished in the past two months and nearly 700,000 teenage jobs have been eliminated since Congress began increasing the minimum wage in July 2007. The September teen unemployment rate hit 25.9%, the highest rate since World War II. Even worse, the unemployment rate of black male teens rose to an incredible 50.4%.

Employment is a productivity and skills issue. Government cannot mandate a productivity and skills increase when it mandates a minimum wage increase. If it could, why stop at $7.25 per hour? Why not have Congress increase the minimum wage to $100 per hour? Magic!

Ol' Gunslinger Favre

The ol' gunslinger makes another nearly impossible touchdown pass to beat the 49ers in the last few seconds.

Old Rock Songs Site is Sadly Gone

In my June 7, 2009 blog entry, I was promoting a youtube account (site) called Old Rock Songs. It was a collection of good classic rock songs from primarily the 70s and 80s. Recently I discovered that the account was closed. Long live rock!

Do You Want To Rock?!

If you are an old rocker like me or a young old rocker (actually this describes me better), then you need to check out Old Rock Songs from youtube. This site has a collection of hundreds of classic rock videos. So if you want some Def Leppard, Boston, Journey, Bon Jovi, Aerosmith and more, tune into Old Rock Songs.

Federer Beats Nadal At Madrid Open 2009

Roger Federer did the nearly impossible by beating Rafael Nadal on clay. Nadal is viewed by nearly everyone as the greatest clay court tennis player of all time. Federer won the Madrid Open in straight sets 6-4, 6-4. This was only the 5th loss that Nadal has suffered in his last 155 matches on clay.

Inflationary Use of the Word "Crisis?"

Check out the recent Freakonomics blog about President Obama's State of the Union Address.

Obama used the word “crisis” 11 times — more than twice as much as any other president. Hoover used it only four times in 1932 during the Great Depression.

Is the economy worse now? Or is there an inflationary use of the word "crisis" so that the word needs to be used more because the value (impact) of the word has diminished? Sort of like the reduction in the purchasing power of a dollar.

Permutations Continued

The post entitled Permutations contains a flowgram about a counting technique used in statistics and probability that is called permutations. When we select r objects out of n total objects and arrange them when the order of arrangement matters, then the total number of permuations tells us the number of different arrangements possible.

Permutations

Math Tutorial Videos and Multiplicity

One of the things that I intend to do as I evolve is to create tutorials (video and audio) in various areas such as mathematics, economics, technology, etc. In the meantime, I stumbled upon a mathematician that has created a large number of math tutorial videos for algebra, SAT prep, trigonometry, statistics, probability, and calculus. I watched a few and found them to be pretty good. I would encourage any of my students that need a little help in any area to search the following two sites and check out the math tutorial videos.

Just Math Tutoring Videos

Math Tutoring Videos

My long term goal is to incorporate technology into the learning process in such a way that I can essentially create another me (clone) that can take care of my teaching duties. The original me (not the clone) will then play tennis all the time and still remain employed in the teaching profession. Check out the movie Multiplicity.

Favre & Gruden & Jets?

Last night I was preparing my Extra Attacker Fantasy Hockey roster before the Pittsburgh Penguins home match against the Anaheim Ducks. I checked Yahoo Sports for any last minute information when I saw the breaking news about Jon Gruden being fired by the Tampa Bay Bucs. Instantly I remarked to my wife about an interesting, though unlikey, scenerio. Wouldn't it be interesting if the New York Jets hired Jon Gruden as head coach. Gruden worked with Brett Favre in Green Bay under Mike Holmgren. Perhaps Favre could be convinced to give a serious effort at proper off season preparation under Gruden. Just a passing thought.