MathematiCAL

I love to draw but it is difficult to control or hold a pencil like you because I have choreo-athetoid cerebral palsy. That basically means that my muscles and movements are not working how I want them to. BUT. . . don’t underestimate me. As you can see I am very capable of using my mind.

So, you might be wondering how I create art when I have unsteady movements. The answer is – easy (it’s not really easy, but with an ipad, some apps, a switch adaptor, two switches, apple’s switch control settings, a creative mind and a lot of determination it is possible).

I use two head switches to control my ipad. Here are some of the artworks I have created.

These first pictures were made using an app called Tux Paint.

These next creations were made using an app called Geometry Pad. I plot coordinates and join them with lines to make a picture.

I would like to thank my mum for making this possible.

A collection of things that I find funny.

I love jokes about anything as long as they are funny! Here are some I have found. If you share my sense of humour, let me know.

Sometimes I have trouble trying to get to sleep because my brain is always thinking about something. The other night when I couldn’t get to sleep I discovered a new set of numbers. I have called them Callaghan Numbers. When I woke up the next morning, I couldn’t wait to tell my Dad about my discovery (my Dad is a maths nerd like me). I was jumping out of my wheelchair that morning while I explained this awesome discovery. My Dad and my Mum were proud of my new finding.

So, let me explain it to you. A callaghan number is a number whose factors all multiply to make the square of that number.  (A factor of a given number is any whole number that divides evenly into the original number). The only callaghan numbers known are 0, 1, 6, 8, 10, 14, 15, 22, 26, 27, 33, 34, 35, 38, 39, 46, 49, 55, 57, 58, 62, 65, 69, 77. For example: take the number 8. Its factors are 1, 2, 4, 8.

If you multiply 1 x 2 = 2,

2 x 4 = 8,

8 x 8 = 64 and 64 is the square of 8.

Tadaa! Now you have a callaghan number!

Try it out for some of the other callaghan numbers and let me know how you go. I will give a shout out to anyone who finds more Callaghan Numbers and shares them along with the proof.

Earlier this week I went to Mildura and visited Zambrero’s (a mexican fast food chain). While I was there I saw two things that were mathematiCAL:

1. A 10 digit number display telling how many meals had been donated at that point in time. It was constantly changing. I watched it change.

2. There was a fruit bowl on the table that caught my eye. The fruit bowl was in the shape of an Icosahedron – a platonic solid with 20 faces (a platonic solid is a shape where every vertice has the exact same number of faces eg: in this case, each vertice has 5 faces). Icosahedrons are also 1 of 8 strictly convex deltahedron (all faces are equilateral triangles).

Have you heard of this shape before? Where have you seen one?