fuzzy math

Do you tend to avoid anything that involves math? Are you calclueless? Don't you hate how they call it "the calculus" like it's all high falutin and more important than the other math subjects?

The basic problem is, math has a bad rep. Math was like mental gymnastics class, some people excelled at it and the rest of us just got through it with much moaning because we had to.

That's because they never told you about cuddly math.

I had this idea back in college one day when the professor mentioned how most people have an irrational fear of the integral symbol. I thought, wouldn't it be cool if there was a cuddly stuffed integral symbol that you could pass around the classroom and let everybody play with it and maybe get over that weird fear. Here it is at last.

Step 1: Stuff you need

an old pillow

some soft fabric. I used a cheap blanket I found in the Ikea as-is department. It is called the "Polarvide" which was $2.00.

Sewing machine

Comments

[snotty]

Nice. They're quite the sexy nerd toy. :)

Maybe some Velcro or magnets would be nice to stick them together in various ways.

And they would be awesome as bodies for soft circuitry. Plushy graphing calculator anyone?

[foobear]

ooh, I like it when you talk brilliant to me. 

[luvit]

 i see things. is my mind dirty?

[xxCSG]

hahaha! this is BRILLIANT!

[hydrnium.h2]

Someone should make an instructable on fuzzy logic.

[dungeon runner]

Do you mean the logical concept "fuzzy logic" or a bunch of fluffy stuffed AND, OR, and NOT gates?

Either way, I'm all for it ;).

[kathrynl]

Brilliant!  I'm oh so very tempted.

[nax]

I have an irrational fear of i .

[monkeychipsx2]

Don't worry, It's not real.

[foobear]

har!

[Ecchin]

Oh.... My dirty mind was seeing some weird shapes in that pillow. But then i realised they were not there, but only in my head. :rolleyes: Cool calc pillows!

[Tamaresque]

Yes, but what does it say / mean? I'm mathematically challenged beyond BODMAS,

[Goodhart]

In the last frame, what appears to be a tall elongated s is the FUNCTION sign (example: _{place that symbol here} f(x) dx means a function whose derivatitve is f).

You know the Pi symbol I assume, and then the one that appears to be a capital M on it's side means sumation: sum over … from … to … of

[Zachalicious]

I was not aware that the elongated s stood for function. I thought it was just a long s to represent the limit of sums as the change in x (or whatever your variable is) approaches 0... can you explain how it's the function sign?

[Goodhart]

indefinite integral or antiderivative or indefinite integral of the antiderivative of or definite integral or integral from … to … of … with respect to calculus. It is sometimes written straight up and down, and sometimes the top leans to the right.

[aalison]

Or if you're still non the wiser:
the sideays M is called sigma and it means you add together the set of things that come after it.
the long s is an integration sign and it also means adding, but it's for things you can't easily add because they're all stuck together. it's useful for seeing how much room there is under a line or for seeing how far an imaginary truck would go

[Patholos]

Argh.. My irrational fear of the integral kicks in. Btw good job on the props :)

[owlsquest]

This is an awesome idea for my science students. Molecular models help with understanding bonding, so not much of a stretch to relating it to Ionic/Molecular, Acid/Base, Equilibrium...... Off to my drawing board!

[foobear]

cool! plushy molecules!

[BJMN]

You didn't go to U of M in Winnipeg, did you? We also had a calc prof who talked about people's irrational fear of the integral symbol...

[foobear]

No, I went to UCSD. I think the fear of the integral symbol is universal.

[OzWoden]

I don't think so. At least I've never heard of it here in Australia.

[sonaps]

I've never heard it referred to as "the calculus", only as "calculus", but it's still a total pain and though I'm profficient at it I still try to avoid it.

[naught101]

Have you tried using a bolder font? The characters would be more physically robust, would hold their shape better. Also, it would probably be more cuddly - more cushion to squeeze :)

[foobear]

yes that's a good idea!

[wolf555hound]

I sooooo wanna make that Pi symbol. I memorized more pi then our teacher, cause he had a pi symbol on the wall. He was going to throw it a away, so I took it and hung it up on my wall. Only 6th grader to memorise over 30 numbers of pi.

[foobear]

Cool. I don't understand these mysterious numbers like pi and e and their significance. Or prime numbers. Some day the aliens will come and explain it. Also, I've never understood why people memorize so many digits of pi. Maybe it's a 'length' thing. hehe.

[Zorink]

Prepare to have your mind blown:
http://xkcd.com/179/

[foobear]

That's just insane. Just conceptually it doesn't really make sense to raise something to a power of i. If you raise something to a power, you multiply itself by itself a certain number of times. But I can't picture how you could multiply something by itself i times.

[Zorink]

I can't really remember why, but it makes a wave function that you can breakdown using differential equations and eventually cos and sin are in the exponent and things drop out then it all works.
e^{(i*pi)+1=0 is a neat equation too, because it contains 5 of the most useful numbers in math.}

[Zachalicious]

There's a good explanation of it here:
http://www.math.toronto.edu/mathnet/questionCorner/epii.html

[sbot]

AWESOME instructable, j_l_larson! And thanks for the food for thought, zorink!

[corvett]

I love calculus! And we just finished all the basic integral stuff, and are moving on... I love it. This is pretty awesome.

[foobear]

hehe thanks

[bxridley]

Does not compute! Does not compute! Does not compute!

Math = fear. Math >/ fear.

Warm/fuzzy = Math?

Core dump, imminent.
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