-
It’s Pi Day!
For the first Pi day after having started akickinthediscovery.com I figured that we should do something special! We’re going to show that the sum of the reciprocals of the squares equals… a surprise alla Euler: a surprise. *******Tangent: We call numbers like square…
-
Newbie at Number Theory (Part 8): The Chinese Remainder Theorem
Do you remember when you were asked to solve a system of equations back in algebra class? In the case that you don’t here’s a brief reminder. The goal of these types of questions were to have you find a value of x…
-
Newbie at Number Theory (Part 7): Euler’s Totient function
Ok, so what is this strange sounding function? (We know it must be important since it has Euler’s name attached to it.) It’s simply a function that, when given an integer , spits out how many positive integers less than are relatively prime…
-
Newbie at Number Theory (Part 1.414…): Irrational Numbers
Today we are going to discuss irrational numbers, (I know strange, since we are learning number theory and number theory focuses on integers). But our goal is to understand numbers, so we should know about all types that are out there. What are…
-
Newbie at Number Theory (Part 6): Fermat’s Fantastic Little Theorem
Today’s our sixth article in the series Newbie at Number Theory. Today, Fermat’s little theorem. If you’ve read all my articles, then you would have seen a proof using Lagrange’s theorem in the setting of group theory. This time however, we show a…
-
Newbie at Number Theory (Part 5): Modular Arithmetic
As the title suggest, this is the fifth in a series of articles on introductory Number Theory. Today’s the day that we learn about fancy arithmetic called modular arithmetic or clock algebra. A Motivating Mystery Can you see why you will never find…
-
Newbie at Number Theory (Part Four): Prime Numbers
Wow, we are already four articles in and haven’t mentioned prime numbers yet! Blasphemy! We have to fix this! I’m sure you’ve heard about prime numbers before, but to make sure we are on the same page here’s what it means for a…
-
Newbie at Number Theory: (Part 3) ax+by=1
Last time we left off with a mystery… But before we get to that, a little introduction. In your high school algebra class, you were probably given some equation like and asked to find some points that are on the line. Sometimes you…
-
Newbie at Number Theory (Part Two): The Euclidean Algorithm
Today’s part two of our dive into number theory. For those who haven’t read part one about the division algorithm click here, because we plan to use it! We talk everything Euclidiean, except for Euclidean geometry! We will learn about another algorithm which…
-
Newbie at Number Theory (Part 1): The Division Algorithm
Today’s a very special day! We’re about to discuss some number theory! It’s important for anyone interested in mathematics to know the basics of number theory. Maybe not to the level of Fermat’s Last Theorem, but definitely enough to know Fermat’s Little Theorem…
What Comes Next: 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, … hint it’s not 32
Hello,
Welcome to A Kick in the Discovery! If you’re curious where this phrase came from, that’s good! It came from the great physicist Richard Feynman. He was curious about anything and everything and he loved to explain science to others. I want to communicate the same enthusiasm about things that I find amazing! More than that, I want to practice teaching and explaining more and more complex ideas. Communication is very important and very challenging, and I hope this blog helps me learn this skill. With all this said, please bear with me while I practice my writing skills! It will be a process.
Join the fun!
Stay updated if you want…
A Kick in the Discovery 