Welcome to this week’s Math Munch!

Each one of those pictures takes you to a math video.  Numberphile is a YouTube channel full of fantastic math videos by Brady Haran, each one about a different number.  Is one Googolplex bigger than the universe?  Why does Pac Man end after level 255?  Is 1 a prime number?  Click the numbers to watch the related video.  They also feature James Grime, one of my favorite math people on the internet.

Next up, let’s work on the Saint Ann’s School Problem of the Week.  You can read the fully worded question by following the link, but here it is in short:  If we start in the center, we can snake our way through the 9 small squares of a 3×3 square.  Can we snake our way through the 27 small cubes a 3x3x3 cube?  Can we do it if we start in the middle?

Can we snake our way through the 3x3x3 cube starting in the center?

There’s a new question posted every week (obviously), and if you check the Problem of the Week Archives, you can find more than 4 years of previous questions!  How many do you think we could solve if we did a 24 hour math marathon?

Finally, let’s have a mind-blowing look at higher dimensions.  The problem above is about whether a property of the square (a 2-dimensional object) can be carried over to the cube (its 3D counterpart).  So what is the 4-dimensional version of a cube?  The Hypercube!

The "cube" idea, from 1D to 4D

I’ve heard a lot of people say the 4th dimension is “time” or “duration,” but what would the 5th dimension be?  Well, here’s a video called “Imagining the Tenth Dimension.”  And if you’re hungry for more, there’s a series of 9 math videos called “Dimesions.”  All together it’s 2 amazing hours of math.  You can watch the first chapter online by clicking here.

Bon appetit!