
Writing 1/3 in binary (2014) [video] - vo2maxer
https://mikesmathpage.wordpress.com/2014/12/17/writing-13-in-binary/
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velcrovan
Loved seeing this video, just gotta quibble with this part of the blog post:

> “I think the fun of topics like this can draw kids into math …”

Nope, it can't! There is no generally applicable lesson about building math
enthusiasm here! “The fun of topics like this” is only legible to kids who are
already into math!

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inkeddeveloper
I'd have to agree here. Show this to a classroom of students and half wouldn't
even give attention to an introduction.

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PaulHoule
I homeschooled my son in math and I found he was fascinated by the way
repeating decimals formed cycles. I'm sure that this reinforced his skill at
long division.

I think may be more fun to do than to watch somebody else do it.

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penagwin
In my experience some people just love numbers, myself included. I could spend
all day looking at various patterns of prime numbers, server metrics, etc.

Other people just.... don’t care numbers at all. Which is really disheartening
when you find something really cool and everyone else doesn’t even listen. :(

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anreekoh
Seeing how that kid went about that problem, seeing how interested he seems,
makes me want to teach. It's impressive how natural the discussion was with
the kid, the two were on exactly the same page throughout the entire
discussion. This video doesn't really show that all kids can get this
interested in math, but it does show that for the right kids, of which I
suspect there are a substantial number, we can be teaching concepts much much
earlier.

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air7
Perhaps an easier way would be to just do normal long division just in base 2.

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jonsen
An easier easier way:

    
    
      1/3   =   0.3333...   =      0.????...b
       *2   =   0.6666...   0 ->   0.0???...b
       *2   =   1.3333...   1 ->   0.01??...b
       -1   =   0.3333...
       *2   =   0.6666...   0 ->   0.010?...b
      etc.

~~~
dTal
This is insightful, but hard to read.

Essentially:

    
    
      1/3 * 4 = 4/3
      4/3 = 1 + 1/3
    

So, working backwards, our number can be more and more closely approximated by
repeatedly adding 1 and dividing by 4 - or in binary, prepending a 1 and
shifting two places right: 0.01010101...

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twoodfin
Flagging as I was redirected in Safari to a malware fake Flash download.

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vo2maxer
I’m not redirected when I open it in Safari, FF, or Chrome.

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twoodfin
I'm not getting it now either. Probably got hit with a rotten ad. Unflagged.

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seandougall
Same here, for what it's worth -- I got redirected to a fake antivirus
download (also in Safari), but only on the first load.

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ivoras
That guy knows how to teach.

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stOneskull
He's a great dad. Gives me warm feelings

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gumby
I loved seeing the kid do this. When I was 12 my dad gave me math problems
(including long division) in all sorts of bases (he started with hex, octal,
and binary but went on to 3, 7, 27, etc). Sadly this was pre IEEE 754 -- I
could really have benefitted from that!

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jp57
1/11?

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dwheeler
Exactly, I thought the same thing myself.

See, that wasn't so hard!!

I'll be here all week, try the lamb.

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etrk
If this kid pursues a career in tech, he's going to crush his whiteboard
interviews.

