 Can you put into words what these equations are telling you? Think of a big number. How about one million? It's a thousand thousand. That's a lot. If you counted nonstop to a million, it would take you about 23 days. A million is small compared to a billion, which is a thousand million. Want to count that high? You'll be at it for 95 years. But a trillion makes a billion look puny. A trillion is a thousand billion (or a million million). Counting that high would take you 200,000 years. Have fun! Of course trillion is not the biggest number. There's quadrillion, quintillion, sextillion, septillion, octillion, nonillion, decillion and more. Each is a thousand of the previous one. There's even a humongous number called vigintillion, a one with 63 zeros. But vigintillion is a shrimp compared to a googol. Googol? Notice how it's spelled: G-O-O-G-O-L, not G-O-O-G-L-E. The number googol is a one with a hundred zeros. It got its name from a nine-year old boy. A googol is more than all the hairs in the world. It's more than all the grass blades and all the grains of sand. It's even more than the number of atoms in the universe. Astrophysicists estimate the number of atoms to be a one with 82 zeros. You'd need to add 18 more zeros to get to a googol. Incidentally, a few years ago, the two men who had invented a powerful new internet search engine decided to name their website and company for the gigantic number googol. But they spelled it wrong. That's why the company Google is spelled with an L-E. But the number googol is still spelled with an O-L. Googol is so large that it's practically useless, but the boy who named it came up with a name for an even bigger number, "googolplex." A googolplex is a one with a googol zeros. There isn't enough ink in all the pens of the world to write that many zeros but feel free to give it a try. So is googolplex is the biggest number? What about a googolplex and one? Two googolplex? A googolplex googolplex? Any number you say, I can say one bigger. I hear you asking, "What about infinity? Isn't that the biggest number?" Sorry, but infinity isn't a number. A number specifies an amount and infinity is no amount. It means "goes on and on forever." And that's what numbers do. They go on and on forever. Infinity is not a number but numbers are infinite.  Think you're too old for an alphabet book? You'll think again if you check out a sampling from David M. Schwartz's: B is for Binary, F is for Fibonacci, P is for Probability... You can see that this is an ABC book unlike any other. For more information, click here. David Schwartz is a member of iNK's Authors on Call and is available for classroom programs through FieldTripZoom, a terrific technology that requires only a computer, wifi, and a webcam. Click here to find out more MLA 8 Citation Schwartz, David M. "What's the Biggest Number?" Nonfiction Minute, iNK Think Tank, 1 Dec. 2017, www.nonfictionminute.org/ Whats-the-Biggest-Number. 
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 Do you want to be a lot older? Here’s how: state your age in seconds instead of years! Ready to do some math? But what math will you do? First you have to design a problem-solving strategy. There are many approaches but for all of them, consider that with every passing second, you are a second older. So your age is a moving target. Best to pick a specific time of day and find your age in seconds at that time today. It doesn’t really matter what time of day you pick. If you can find out from your birth certificate what time of day you were born, you could select that time today for your target. If you were born at 4:14pm, you will find out how old you are (in seconds) at 4:14pm today. Or just pick any time today and pretend you were born at that time. What next? I hope you will try out your own approach but here is a simple strategy that would work: Step 1. How many days old are you? Figure out how many days elapsed between the day you were born and your most recent birthday. There are 365 days in a year, not counting leap years. In your lifetime, every year divisible by 4 was a leap year and it had a 366th day, which was February 29th. So add an extra day for each February 29th you’ve lived through. Then figure out how many days have passed since your last birthday. Try to find a way to make this job quicker than counting each day. Look at calendars as you do this to find shortcuts. Now you have your age in days. It’s already looking like a big number, isn’t it? Just wait! Step 2. How many seconds are in a day? Think about how to figure this out. You know how many seconds are in a minute (60) and how many minutes are in an hour (60) and how many hours are in a day (24). So how many seconds are in a day? Multiply 60 X 60 X 24. Bet you didn’t realize a day was so long! Step 3 So what’s Step 3? You now know how many days you have lived and how many seconds are in a day, so what do you do next? Again, multiply! Next time someone tells you you’re not old enough to do something, you can tell him or her, “Oh yes I am. I’m 299,592,620. That’s what I was at 11:30 this morning. Now I’m even older!” Good luck with that!   A is for “abacus,” B is for “binary,” C is for “cubit” and W is for “When are we ever gonna use this stuff, anyway?” David M. Schwartz's G is for Googol: A Math Alphabet Book is a wonder-filled romp through the world of mathematics. For more information, click here. David is a member of iNK's Authors on Call and is available for classroom programs through Field Trip Zoom, a terrific technology that requires only a computer, wifi, and a webcam. Click here to find out more. Schwartz, David. "How Old Are You...in Seconds?" Nonfiction Minute, iNK Think Tank, 3 May 2018, www.nonfictionminute.org/the-nonfiction-minute/ How-Old-Are-You-in-Seconds.  
Pi Day takes place on March 14th this year, as it has every year since 1988 when this mathematical holiday was invented. Pi Day? Does that sound crazy? Sure it does. It’s irrational. Pi is the world’s most famous “irrational” number. Therefore, Pi Day is the world’s most irrational holiday! Take a circle, any circle, and divide the circumference by the diameter. The quotient is the number called pi, represented by the Greek letter π. It is a little more than three. How much more? That is a question that people have been working on for centuries. Pi is an incredibly useful number in mathematics, physics and engineering. It helps us understand things from the shape of an apple to the energy of stars. It helps us design things, from buildings to spaceships. Pi is an irrational number. That means when you write it as a decimal, its digits do not just end (like 3.5) and they do not repeat in a pattern (like 0.3333…, where the 3s go on forever). Here is a slice of pi: 3.141592653… The “dot-dot-dot” means the digits keep on going. How far? Is there a pattern? With supercomputers, mathematicians have probed the mysteries of pi to over a trillion digits. The digits keep going. Infinitely. No pattern has ever been found. (Written in an ordinary font, a trillion digits of pi would go around the world 50 times.) But the endless, patternless nature of pi enchants many minds and some people delight in memorizing the digits. A 69 year-old man named Akira Haraguchi recited 100,000 digits from memory in Tokyo in 2006. He shattered the previous record of Chao Lu from China, who had memorized merely 67,890 digits of pi after studying for four years. Can you see a date in the first three digits: 3.14? It’s March 14th — Pi Day! This holiday is celebrated worldwide by students, teachers and math enthusiasts who enjoy pi-themed activities, clothing, jokes and food (namely pie). This is an ordinary year as far as Pi Day is concerned, but in 2015, Pi Day was really special. After 3.14, the next two digits of pi are 15. So March 14, 2015, was not just any old Pi Day. It was the “Pi Day of the Century.” You’ll have to wait until March 14, 2115, for another Pi Day so sweet! Happy Pi Day, everybody!
 This chart shows many ways that pi can be formed -- just so you'll always recognize it when you see it. Pi is a mathematical symbol as well as a letter in the Greek alphabet. Can you find it in the alphabet chart? Hint: it follows Omega. David Schwartz probes many mathematical mysteries in his books and school presentations given all over the world. He wrote this Nonfiction Minute while celebrating Pi Day at Tashkent International School in Uzbekistan. He is a member of iNK's Authors on Call and is available for classroom programs through Field Trip Zoom, a terrific technology that requires only a computer, wifi, and a webcam. Click here to find out more. MLA 8 Citation Schwartz, David M. "Happy Pi Day." Nonfiction Minute, iNK Think Tank, 14 Mar. 2018, www.nonfictionminute.org/the-nonfiction-minute/Happy-Pi-Day. 
In spring 1665 a college student named Isaac Newton studied natural philosophy, what we call “science.” Back then, a good student could learn everything to know about the natural world. But plague, the Black Death, came to England. Cambridge University closed. Isaac went home to Woolsthorpe. For two years Isaac thought about his studies during four years at university. He’d always been thoughtful—not the best at games, making friends, or minding sheep. But everybody knew Isaac Newton liked to think. Folks told time by the sundial he’d drawn on a wall. Home at Woolsthorpe, Isaac’s learning about science and math bubbled up in his head like yeast rising in a loaf of bread. So... Newton unplugged. His mind roamed like that of an artist or composer. He was driven by the need to create—not paintings or symphonies, but questions. “Why do things always fall down?” “Why does the earth move around the sun? “Why doesn’t the moon fall onto the earth?” “Does everything ‘up there” work like things work ‘down here?’” Isaac Newton answered his questions with three science rules, Newton’s Laws of Motion. At Woolsthorpe, Newton grappled with the concept of moving objects. He worked out the math to find the area under curves. He called this math fluxions. Today we call this calculus, useful for launching rockets or tracking TV signals. Once back at Cambridge, Newton said nothing until he read someone else’s paper on fluxions. Newton published a better paper. Soon he was Cambridge’s top math professor. Isaac Newton wondered another twenty years. He played with prisms in a dark room and theorized that white light comprises the visible spectrum of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. He practiced alchemy and chemistry, looking for the legendary philosopher’s stone to turn base metals to gold. In 1687, Newton published our most important science book, the Principia. In the Principia, Newton showed how laws of gravity and motion work the same at great distances—far off in space, or in your classroom. We accept these ideas, but in 1687 many still had medieval beliefs that sun, moon, planets, and stars all traveled in their own crystal spheres. Yes, Newton wondered about A LOT:
 Sir Isaac Newton was an English mathematician, astronomer, theologian, author and physicist who is widely recognized as one of the most influential scientists of all time and a key figure in the scientific revolution. Based on a portrait by Godfrey Kneller, 1702, via Wikimedia Commons  Sir Isaac Newton's own first edition copy of his Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica with his handwritten corrections for the twentieth edition. Photograph Andrew Dunn via Wikimedia Commons  Trinity College, the part of the University of Cambridge where Newton worked and lived. Library of Congress  This statue of the young Isaac Newton stands at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History. Look carefully around his feet for a hint on what he is wondering about. If you can’t figure it out, then read about Newton and gravity. Wikimedia Commons  Featuring 21 hands-on projects that explore the scientific concepts Isaac Newton developed, Kerrie Logan Hollihan's Isaac Newton and Physics for Kids paints a rich portrait of the brilliant and complex man and provides readers with a hands-on understanding of astronomy, physics, and mathematics. A time line, excerpts from Newton's own writings, online resources, and a reading list enhance this unique activity book. MLA 8 Citation Hollihan, Kerrie Logan. "Isaac Newton's Wonder Years." Nonfiction Minute, iNK Think Tank, 21 Feb. 2018, www.nonfictionminute.org/the-nonfiction-minute/ isaac-newtons-wonder years. 
When you think of the Olympics you think of the sports: Speed skating, Bobsled. Snowboarding. Track, Gymnastics. Swimming. Tennis. Just to name a few. You may even think about some of the Olympians: Snowboarders Shaun White and Kelly Clark. Speed skater Apollo Ohno. Swimmers Michael Phelps and Katie Ledecky. Or even gymnast Simone Biles and sprinter Usain Bolt. But do you ever think about the science behind each sport? You should. Math and physics play a huge part in every part in the Olympics. Think about it. One of the most basic forces, friction, is a factor in everything an athlete does. What is friction? It’s the force that pushes back on you as you swim through the water or run through the air. Friction not only affects an athlete, but also the object they may be throwing, hitting, or kicking—like a baseball, a tennis ball, or a soccer ball. Movement of any kind deals with physics of air flow, engineering design, and (unfortunately) sometimes collision. The verdict? Athletes need to know a LOT of science to do well in their sports. Science is not just found in the activities themselves but also in the equipment they use and clothes they wear. Most of today’s superstar athletes rely on clothing and equipment enhanced with nanotechnology. What is nanotechnology? Nanotechnology is the science of the super small—microscopic even. One nanowire is 1,000 time thinner than a single strand of human hair. Now that is SMALL! Materials made with nanotechnology are stronger, more durable, and yet lighter and more flexible. Nanotechnology produces swimsuits that allow the athlete to glide through the water faster, golf clubs that hit the ball farther, and tennis rackets that flex more easily to provide the hard smash across the net. This innovative new technology has already been used in the Olympics. In 2008, swimmers Michael Phelps and Natalie Coughlin wore swimsuits that were created with nanofibers. These nanofibers are woven tightly so that the swimmer’s bodies become more streamlined (like a shark!) allowing them to glide through the water faster. In the 2014 winter Olympics, the U.S. speed skaters wore specially created vented suits (like the swimsuits—to reduce drag), and in the 2018 winter Olympics, the USA Snowboarders will be wearing snow gear inspired by the space program. Nanotechnology is a cutting-edge science that is changing the world of sports—and in particular the Olympics— as we know it. Will you make nanotechnology part of your game?  The LZR Racer is a line of completion swimsuits manufactured by Speedo using a high-technology swimwear fabric. In March 2008, athletes wearing the LZR Racer broke 13 swimming world records. Much like other suits used for high competition racing, LZR Racers allow for better oxygen flow to the muscles, and hold the body in a more hydrodynamic position, while repelling water and increasing flexibility. Kathy Barnstorff via Wikimedia Commons
Serena Williams uses a nanotech racket and Phil Mickelson uses nanotech technology in his game. Seems to be going well for both of them. (l) Wikimedia Commons (R) Photo by Siyi Chen via Wikimedia Commons  A graphic highlighting all of the ways nanotechnology enhances the effectiveness of sports equipment. Nanowerk via Wikimedia  You would have to increase a carbon nanotube x100,000 to make it the size of a strand of hair. NIEH.gov  Want to know more? Jennifer Swanson's Super Gear: Nanotechnology and Sports Team Up was listed as one of the 2016 Best STEM Books by the National Science Teachers Association. Colorfully illustrated by photos, this book introduces "the science of the very small" as applied to sports equipment and clothing. MLA 8 Citation Swanson, Jennifer. "The Science Behind the Olympics." Nonfiction Minute, iNK Think Tank, 7 Feb. 2018, www.nonfictionminute.org/the-nonfiction-minute/ the-science-behind-the-olympics.  |
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