Pottering with numbers...

I've just had about an hours worth of happy mathematising (probably not a word. Yet...), playing around with some centre of mass stuff after dealing with a few sixth formers' questions in after school study group. I've not done that much, really just proving the standard formula for the centre of mass for a circular arc and uniform sector, as well as finally beating into submission one of the tougher questions in the exercises. But that's not the point. It's nice to mess around with numbers every now and again and realise that I still enjoy it somewhat...

I also made it to a twilight seminar in the Department of Education held by John Mason, which was really good - demonstrating a tool called "structured variable grids", which seem to be a useful aid in promoting pattern spotting, and are something I want to have a look at to see if I can make some use of it in my lessons. Very enjoyable session in its own right anyway, lots of fun trying to figure the patterns out and predict what the next term would be. Anyone interested in seeing what they are about, I've been told copies of the grids can be found at John's website here, although I've yet to check that out myself.

Has left me feeling reasonably productive and motivated by the end of the day. Even though I still have a rather significant amount of work awaiting me tomorrow...