math

Brain teaser: Will you finish your thesis on time?

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Imag­ine spend­ing the sum­mer pol­ish­ing your PhD the­sis in the library. Every day you take the sub­way, a train going up North to the university.

One day you real­ize that the trains going South can bring you to the beach. Noth­ing is wrong with some leisure. You cal­cu­late that if you spend half of the remain­ing sum­mer vaca­tion in the library that should be enough to fin­ish the the­sis. To spice up the sum­mer, [Read more…] about Brain teas­er: Will you fin­ish your the­sis on time?

Math brain teaser requiring no math — just perception and cognition

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Necrop­oli Grot­ti­cel­li, the tomb of Archimedes in Syracuse

Greek math­e­mati­cian, physi­cist, engi­neer, inven­tor, and astronomer Archimedes made many great sci­en­tif­ic dis­cov­er­ies through­out his life. He explained why and how bod­ies float in the water, designed mir­ror arrays capa­ble of focus­ing sun rays and set­ting ene­my ships on fire, found the way of approx­i­mat­ing the num­ber of grains of sand that will fit inside the universe. 

Now to the brain teas­er part.

His tomb was dec­o­rat­ed with his favorite dis­cov­ery. Which one of the fol­low­ing three sculp­tures was hon­or­ing Archimedes, and why?

  1. A gold­en crown com­mem­o­rat­ing his famous Eure­ka moment in the bath
  2. A lever with which he promised one could move the Earth
  3. A sim­ple cylin­der and a sphere

The puz­zle answer is below. Please think about it before check­ing it out… [Read more…] about Math brain teas­er requir­ing no math — just per­cep­tion and cognition

Meta-analysis finds value in teaching the science of neuroplasticity, especially for math achievement among at-risk students

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The ‘Brain’ in Growth Mind­set: Does Teach­ing Stu­dents Neu­ro­science Help? (Edu­ca­tion Week):

“Teach­ing stu­dents the sci­ence of how their brains change over time can help them see intel­li­gence as some­thing they can devel­op, rather than innate and unchange­able, finds a new analy­sis of 10 sep­a­rate stud­ies online in the jour­nal Trends in Neu­ro­science and Education.

Teach­ing stu­dents the con­cept of neuroplasticity—the abil­i­ty of the brain to make new neur­al con­nec­tions as a result of experience—is a com­mon tac­tic in help­ing stu­dents devel­op a so-called “growth” rather than “fixed” mind­set … on aver­age, such inter­ven­tions improved stu­dents’ moti­va­tion, they par­tic­u­lar­ly ben­e­fit­ed stu­dents and sub­jects which pri­or stud­ies have shown are at high risk of devel­op­ing a fixed mind­set. [Read more…] about Meta-analy­sis finds val­ue in teach­ing the sci­ence of neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty, espe­cial­ly for math achieve­ment among at-risk students

Study suggests the real deficit underlying Attention Deficit Disorders is not Attention, but Working Memory

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Many par­ents have observed that their child with ADHD stays atten­tive and engaged dur­ing ‘high inter­est’ activ­i­ties, e.g., while play­ing video games, but has con­sid­er­able prob­lems stay­ing focused on less inher­ent­ly engag­ing tasks, e.g., doing school­work. This dis­crep­an­cy in atten­tion dur­ing pre­ferred and non-pre­ferred activ­i­ties has led some to [Read more…] about Study sug­gests the real deficit under­ly­ing Atten­tion Deficit Dis­or­ders is not Atten­tion, but Work­ing Memory

Hard brain teaser to challenge your pattern recognition

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Here’s a quick but hard brain teas­er to chal­lenge your abil­i­ty to find a pat­tern. In the table below, each row across fol­lows the same pat­tern. See if you can dis­cern the pat­tern and fill in the miss­ing num­ber in the bot­tom row.

For added chal­lenge, time how long it takes you to com­plete the puz­zle. Then, pass it along to some­one else and see who can solve it faster…

7 4 8
3 9 7
6 5 10
? 8 4

Have you solved it yet? If not, here’s a hint:

If you read your fig­ures like words in the West,
then mul­ti­ply your efforts and sub­tract the rest.

WARNING:  Answer and solu­tion fol­lows. Try to solve the puz­zle before you read fur­ther. [Read more…] about Hard brain teas­er to chal­lenge your pat­tern recognition

Under new CEO, Lumosity to expand brain training platform with focus on applied skills and broader social, wellness factors

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lumosityLumosity’s Stum­ble Reveals How We Think About Think­ing (Buz­zFeed News):

“The ads were per­va­sive, pop­ping up on CNN, Fox News, NPR, and Google search­es. And they were per­sua­sive: Play­ing Lumos­i­ty games would do your brain good…But these claims sound­ed a lit­tle too rosy to the Fed­er­al Trade Com­mis­sion, which [Read more…] about Under new CEO, Lumos­i­ty to expand brain train­ing plat­form with focus on applied skills and broad­er social, well­ness factors