Bat Mitzvah Favors, Messy And Full of Math.

This is a guest post by my very good friend Ellina who is celebrating her daughter's Bat Mitzvah in a few weeks.

In a strange and unexpected moment of creative inspiration (channeling my inner Martha Stewart, which I didn't know I could!), I decided to make chocolate-covered Oreos as favors for my daughter's Bat Mitzvah party, where we will have 70 kids in attendance. Some strong math should really have been involved in my decision, but I usually shy away from having to calculate anything, so I thought I'd "be creative" and "enjoy the process." What is there to do - buy a few packs of Oreos, dip them in chocolate, use food coloring spray and stencil to "Mazel Tov" on each, pack them in bags of 3, and here we go - 70 delicious and festive favors.

I was told that there is a person who charges $2 per cookie when she does this, and I thought it was an exorbitant price. I needed 70 x 3 = 210 of those and wasn't ready to pay $420 for that. 

Preparing the project, I created a list of supplies:

• I have three molding trays that make 6 Oreos each, so I can make 18 at a time
• I have three different decorative stencils -- one says "Bat Mitzvah", one says "Mazel Tov!", and one is a Star of David -- every favor will get three cookies, one of each design
• There are 36 Double-Stuf Oreos in one package
• A package of chocolate melt wafers is 14 oz.
• A can of pearl white food coloring spray (that is used to spray the stencil design onto each cookie) is 15 oz.
• Each set of 3 cookies will go into a little cellophane baggie, tied with a piece of decorative ribbon (about 8" of ribbon per baggie)
• Ribbon comes in rolls of 9 feet
• Baggies come in packs of 100 (so I will need only one pack -- this one is easy!!)
• Each baggie will have a piece of cardstock stuffed into it, as "decorative backing" for the cookies.
• Cardstock comes in sheets of 12" x 12"
• Each baggie will need a 4" x 4" piece of colored cardstock
• I want to alternate lavender and light blue cardstock (trying to stick to the party's color scheme of lavender, white, and light blue)

Just in time, the AC Moore store was having a sale on chocolate melt wafers (normally 2.49/bag, sale price of 1.99/bag), so I stocked up, got 12 bags. The first time. Little did I know that I will have to go back two more times, for wafers and other ingredients... 16 bags of wafers total.

Got 6 spray bottles of white food coloring -- with the way my spraying was going, I knew I'd need a few!  Got 4 more during a later trip. 

Double-Stuf Oreos were also on sale (normally 3.69/box, sale price of 2.99/box), I got 7 boxes and then went back for another 4 (36 cookies in each, I needed to make a total of 210, but underestimated the amount of broken cookies, eat-while-I-work cookies, cat-stole-and-dropped-down-off-table-to-share-with-dog cookies, and family-sneaking-finished-product-late-at-night cookies). 

Found cute ribbon for only $1 per roll (9 feet each), but all I could find was 3 rolls (will not be enough, as I need 8" per baggie, and need to make 70 baggies, which would mean almost 6 full rolls). Tried to find 3 additional rolls later that would be the same, scared away fellow shoppers as I frantically clawed my way through the $1 ribbon bin -- alas, to no avail. Will end up with two types of ribbons closing up the baggies. Keep reminding myself that kids don't care.

Then, I planned the actual steps and slowly perfected them through trial-and-error:

• Melt chocolate wafers (three 30-second intervals in the microwave)
•  Pour a bit of the chocolate melt into one cookie mold slot

- 

• Put Oreo into cookie mold, and push down to get the chocolate to come up around the sides
•  Pour a bit more chocolate over the top, and spread to cover up the cookie
•  Tap the bottom of the mold a few times to get air bubbles out, and to ensure the chocolate has spread evenly around/over the cookie
•  Repeat for remaining 5 cookies in the mold
•  Put into freezer for 15 minutes

• Repeat with remaining two mold trays, ending up with 18 cookies 
• Pop out cookies, take a stencil (one of the three choices), place over cookie, spray with food coloring

• Put 18 cookies into large ziplock bag, make bag airtight by sucking all air out with a straw
• Store bag in kitchen cabinet
• Repeat while tolerating rolling-eye expression from daughter and husband
• Curse Martha Stewart. 

Now, you are probably starting to wonder what got me thinking that this could be fun. Well, so did I, but this was already too late into the adventure. The kitchen was an ugly mess. Every few hours I was going into sugar-induced shock from breathing cheap candy wafer fumes, and food coloring spray fumes. I then run to the fridge, took pickles out of a jar and ate them to decrease the sugar overload. Ate them quickly, to balance out the sugar.  At that point it is important to recognize that the assembly of the favors was still to come....

Favor Assembly Steps:

• Take pre-cut piece of cardstock, put into cellophane baggie
• Put three cookies (one with each design) into baggie, with cardstock as background
• Take pre-cut pieces of ribbon
• Tie ribbon into knot
• Repeat

   

The final result:

Overall time investment: 35 hours so far.  

Total money spent: about $110 .
Chocolate consumed: 1 pound+

59 done, 11 to go... I've somehow miscalculated my sets of 18, so I now have too many Magen Davids, 7 Bat Mitzvahs (need 11), and no Mazel Tovs at all... Bought one more box of Double-Stuf Oreos...

Honestly, when this is done, I don't think I'll be able to be anywhere near another Oreo for what is likely to be years... :-)

Plan on bringing the not-yet-assembled pieces to a Memorial Weekend retreat to get the extended family help me put it together. Need to feed them ice cream before to prevent any pieces being eaten.

Exhaustion and excitement are up.

Time to the party: 2 weeks
Next on my list: video montage and table centerpieces.

From TheMathMom:  Ellina -  I am sure these elaborate multi-week home preparations make the anticipation even more special and the whole event much more personal and memorable.

St Patrick’s Day Math Pop Quiz

Prepare for St Patrick's Day with this fun math pop quiz.  A simpler version of this quiz was originally created for and published by Boston.com in 2011. Here is the old link.

Puzzle #1 Two Airplanes Puzzle

A Boston man decides to surprise his friend in Ireland for St Patrick’s Day and boards a plane for Dublin. Meanwhile, his Dublin friend has the same idea and boards a plane for Boston. The Dublin-bound plane is flying at 565 miles per hour and the Boston-bound plane at 485, because it is bucking a jet stream. Which plane will be closer to Dublin when they meet above the Atlantic?

Answers: 

1. Boston-to-Dublin plane; 
2. Dublin-to-Boston plane; 
3. same distance

Correct answer is 3. At the point when they meet, of course they will each be the same distance from Dublin.

Puzzle #2: The Snake Myth

Legend holds that St. Patrick banished snakes from Ireland. It's true that no snakes exist in Ireland today.  What do you think most likely have happened:

1.  Snakes were scared of St Patrick and slowly slid away; assuming they were traveling 5 miles per hour, in 60 hours they could cover the 300-mile length of Ireland.
2. It was the Pied Piper that run all thee snakes away.
3. Snakes never lived in Ireland, since it is an island surrounded by icy waters and snakes never had an opportunity to migrate there

Answer #3 is correct

Puzzle #3: Root Beer Puzzle

You bought a homemade root beer kit in celebration of St Patrick’s Day. But you decide to skip reading the directions and just mix up everything in the kit.  As soon as you plug the bottle and shake it, the brownish mix starts growing with an astronomical speed. It looks like it is doubling in volume every minute. If you start with one glass (250ml) of mix, how long will it take to expand and fill the whole 2-liter bottle?

Answers: 8 min, 4 min, 3 min

Correct answer is 3 min.  If the mix is doubling in volume every minute, then after the first  minute 250ml will grow into 500ml, after the second minute 500ml will grow into 1000ml and after the third minute 1000ml will make 2000ml, which is the whole bottle.

Puzzle #4: Tough Luck

The three-leaf clover (shamrock) has been a symbol of Ireland for hundreds of years.  Very rarely a clover with more than three leaves can be spotted. It is believed that encountering it brings good luck.  It is actually a tough luck to find as there are approximately 10,000 three-leaf clovers for every four-leaf clover. But you promised one for your friend. If you are searching in a one-acre field that has 500 clovers per square foot, how many square feet of field you are likely to crawl and scan before you find the lucky clover?

Answers:

1. 1,000
2. 500
3. 20

Correct answer is 3) 20. You are likely to look through approximately 10,000 clovers to find the four-leaved one. If there are 500 clovers per square foot, then you will crawl 10,000/500=20 square feet.

Puzzle #5: Parade Puzzle

St. Patrick's Day Parade starts at 1pm and goes at approximately 3mph through the South Boston. You are watching the parade start on TV but still want to experience it for real midway through, 1 mile from its start. It is a 15min walk from your apartment, but you are really hungry. Do you have extra 5 min to grab a lunch on your way?

Answers: 

1. Forget about lunch, run as fast as you can. 
2. Sure you do.

Correct answer: 2. With a speed of around 3mph, it will take the parade 20min to move 1 mile.  15min to walk and 5min to get a lunch.

Puzzle #6: The Celtics' logo

The name Boston Celtics reflects the city's Irish heritage. Celtics logo was designed by Red Auerbach's brother, Zang, in the early 1950s. He assembled the familiar leprechaun with the words Boston Celtics arched around it in a circle. You surely saw this logo hundreds of times. Do you recollect how many three-leaf clovers are featured on the leprechaun?

Answers: 

1. 3    
2. 7   
3. 12  
4. 15

Correct answer: 12 (3 on the hat, 2 on the tie and 7 on the vest)

Puzzle #7: Grandma’s Recipe

Every St Patrick’s Day you are making soda bread for a family dinner.  Your favorite grandma’s recipe lists ingredients for a loaf-shaped 12” x 5” x 3” pan. You just threw the rusty pan out and only have a square 9” x 9” x 2” pan.  Will the dough overflow?

Answers: 

1. Yep  
2.  No

Correct answer: 1) Go look for another pan or use 2/3 of the ingredients. It will overflow. Your original pan had a 12x5x3=180 cubic inch volume. The new square pan has 9x9x2=162 cubic inch.

Puzzle #8:  I can see you, can you see me?

Your band has been invited to participate in the St Patrick’s Day Parade. You are rushing to Parade start point in the car and finish applying make-up at the red lights, looking in the rear view mirror.  While applying lipstick you see in the rear view mirror the eyes of the driver from a car behind you.  He seems to be staring at you. Can he see your beautification routine?

Answers: 

1. yes he can 
2. no way, he is in the car behind

Correct answer is 1) The driver in the car behind you sees at least part of your face reflected in your rear view mirror (unless your car back is tinted).  Light is reflected with the same angle it falls on the mirror. If I can see you, you can see me.

Puzzle #9: Celtics Pride

The TD Garden has 17 NBA championship banners hanging from the rafters, one for each of the NBA championships Celtics team has won (most than any other NBA team). Celtics team was formed in 1946 and championships were held from 1947. At this rate, would they win their 34th championship by 2075?

Answers: a) yes b) no

Correct answer is a): The Celtics won 17 games in the past (2010-1947+1) = 64 years. With the same winning rate, it will take another 64 years for 17 more wins: 2011+64=2075

Puzzle #10: The Magical Year

Your father was telling you about the memorable Celtics NBA final when the TV cameras zoomed in on the year at the end of the game, then slowly zoomed out and rolled (rotated) revealing, to his amazement, that the year number is the same upside down. Which year and game this was?

Answers: 

1. 1969 
2. 1991  
3. 1961

Correct answer is 3) 1961 will be 1961 upside-down if 1’s are written as lines.

I Can See You Breathing

This is fresh from the oven - terrific new technology from the MIT Computer Science team.

You know how it is easier to recognize someone from a caricature than from a photograph?  This is because caricaturists exaggerate our imperfections and exasperation help our brain to do the match.  What if we can apply such exaggeration to other fields?  For example, what if we can exaggerate small motions? A hand tremble, eye movement, chest raising while breathing, blood pulsation  on the neck or cheek? Computer Scientists from the MIT propose to process a video stream with such motions and use some surprisingly simple math to detect and amplify these motions so that they will be clearly visible to our eye.  This is the beginning of a great technology.  Technology that can allow you to easily check whether your baby is breathing by just glancing at the video camera, check his pulse without EKG, observe your body's blood flow without going to an alternative medicine clinic, define guilt during a trial through involuntary eye movements, and even verify whether Batman is still alive.  Check the clip:

Playful Family Statistics

This came via Facebook.  It is written by Orit G. in Hebrew.
Since it is so funny and true, plus it is family statistics, I decided to translate it for your enjoyment:

Questions that kids are asking mom:

• Mom, where is my towel?
• Mom, what are you making to eat?
• Mom, when are you coming back?
• Mom, what time is it?
• Mom, what day is today?
• Mom, where is my pencil?

Questions that kids are asking dad:

• Dad, where is mom?

How to Help Your Kids Handle Test Stress

It may be a dance or piano recital, SAT test or mid-term exam for your kids; a job interview or important conference call for you. Perfectly prepared, you became more anxious as time gets close and fail to deliver at your best.  Does it mean that you or your kid are just not built for stressful situations and should avoid them altogether?

Last week I stumbled upon a very important article in NYTimes by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman  "Why Can Some Kids Handle Stress While Others Fall Apart"  In case you don't have a subscription or time to read all 6 pages, here is a short summary.

Some of us are striving in a competitive stressful environment (school tests, sport or arts competitions) while others worry and perform worse than they could in a regular "peaceful" surrounding. Turns out that people of this second type can be trained to embrace the stress and out-perform on a long run. So the answer in not less testing but more testing of the right kind.

Few recent studies pinpointed an "anxiety-related gene" that can have either Worrier or Warrior state.  Since we all inherit one gene from our mother and one from our father, a quarter of the population has two Worrier genes, a quarter has two Warrior genes and a half of the population has one of each genes.

Worrier gene gives us cognitive advantage: better reasoning, concentration, higher IQ. And this advantage appears to increase with the number of years of education. However, this advantage disappears at the time of stress and leads to under-performance.

Warrior gene, on opposite, lights up at the time of competition. People with to Warrior genes are "like Superman emerging from the phone booth in times of crisis; their abilities to concentrate and solve problems go up." (BC professor Adele Diamond)

Should Worrier types avoid stress altogether? No. "In fact, shielding them could be the worst response, depriving them of the chance to acclimate to recurring stressors. Training, preparation and repetition defuse the Worrier’s curse." (UCSD professor, Douglas C. Johnson) Some early studies show that " Worrier-genes can still handle incredible stress — as long as they are well trained. Even some Navy SEALs have the Worrier genes, so you can literally be a Worrier-gene Warrior. "

"There are many psychological and physiological reasons that long-term stress is harmful, but the science of elite performance has drawn a different conclusion about short-term stress. Studies that compare professionals with amateur competitors — whether concert pianists, male rugby or female volleyball players — show that professionals feel just as much anxiety as amateurs. The difference is in how they interpret their anxiety. The amateurs view it as detrimental, while the professionals tend to view stress as energizing. It gets them to focus."

Studies show that a similar mental shift  helps students in test-taking situations. Grades of the students improved only after their were told to see stress as beneficial.

"David and Christi Bergin, professors of educational and developmental psychology at the University of Missouri, have begun a pilot study of junior high school students participating in math competitions. They have observed that, within a few weeks, students were tackling more complex problems than they would even at the end of a yearlong class. Some were even doing college-level math. That was true even for students who didn’t like math before joining the team and were forced into it by their parents. Knowing they were going up against other teams in front of an audience, the children took ownership over the material. They became excited about discovering ever more advanced concepts, having realized each new fact was another weapon in their intellectual arsenal.

Maybe the best thing about academic competitions is that they benefit both Warriors and Worriers equally. The Warriors get the thrilling intensity their minds are suited for, where they can shine. The Worriers get the gradual stress inoculation they need, so that one day they can do more than just tolerate stress — they can embrace it. And through the cycle of preparation, performance and recovery, what they learn becomes ingrained."

So, what can help any Worrier to do better at a test time? It is:

• training, preparation and repetition
• change of attitude toward stress - looking at it as excitement, energizing physiological process
• participation in more tests, especially group-type confidence-boosting academic competitions

Top image by db photography, distributed under CCL.

How Long Should Your Phone Number Be?

Arranging a carpool recently I was surprised to discover that the father of my daughter's friend has a very suspicious and easy to remember number ending with "9999." Inquiring whether he is anyone very important to be assigned such a number, I received a straight answer from his 9-year old daughter: "He got this number as a payback after being very mad at his cell service."

Most of us cannot keep more than 4 digits in a memory for too long. Why then our phone numbers should be so long we have to bribe or threaten  phone providers to get an easy-to-remember number?

As you may have guessed the answer is in math, simple and applicative.  Exactly the type of math that many argue should be taught at school. Blessed with a free afternoon this week, I decided to try the following on my 9 and 12 year old kids.

Imagine that we have just 10 people spread around the world. Just 10 people, no one else. And a fully functioning cell phone system. Do these people really need 10-digit phone numbers to dial each other?
Since there are only 10 of them, we can give them 1-digit numbers:  0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9.

But as soon as eleventh person is born and grows mature enough to get her/his phone number, we need to use number 10. And we add to all the other numbers 0 in front: 00, 01, 02, 03, 04, 05, 06, 07, 08, 09, 10.
Then another person (twelfth) grows and gets number 11.
We can continue adding up more phone customers till a hundredth person gets number 99.

So, we see that:
1 digit is enough for 10 people.
2 digits - 100 people.
continuing this we get:
3 digits - 1,000 people.
4 digits - 10,000 people.
etc.

How many people live in our home state of MA?  6.5 million.  Let's see how many digits do we need so that everyone can get a unique phone number.
5 digits are enough for 100,000 people.
6 digits - 1,000,000 people. Still less than we need.
7 digits - 10,000,000 people.

So, using 7 digits in a phone number will allow us to create 10 million various phone numbers that will be more than enough for all the people of MA.  And guess what, check your home phone number.  Not counting the 3 area code digits, it is exactly seven digits long!  Someone thought it through.

Now, imagine that you want to establish a new cell phone service in Russia. How long should your numbers be?  I let my kids to Google Russian population (160 million) and come up with a 9 digit answer.

Then we tried China with 1 billion 344 million people and realized that we need 10 digits.

Now think car license plates or zip codes. Imagine yourself planning a Mars colony. How many digits in their phone numbers, flying saucer license plates and zip codes would you need?

Top image by Ed Yourdon, distributed under the CCL.

Matchmaking - how does it work?

Imagine that you have four daughters and you want to marry them. You carefully select four guys and let each of your daughters spend some time with each guy. Then all the daughters and all the guys mark their potential partners in the order of their priorities. How do you use this ranking to match your daughters to the guys to create four stable couples? Couple is considered stable if each of your daughters is happy with her partner and she wouldn't rather be with some other guy who simultaneously also prefers her to his current match.

Or take another matching game. Four medical residents need to be matched to work in the hospitals. Each of the residents spent some time practicing at each of the four hospitals in the program. Then all the residents and all the hospitals mark each other in the order of their preferences. Your task is to use this rating to create a satisfactory match, sending one resident to each of the four hospitals.  Each resident should be sent to a hospital where he is happy. It may not necessarily be her or his first choice but there should be no other hospital that he would rather be at that simultaneously also wants him more than the current resident you sent there.

Try playing such match-making and when you are done, watch this video.  Click to see Harvard Postdoc Emily Riehl explains the optimal  matchmaking algorithm for such situations. You can share this with your 10+ year old kids.

You can also see the explanation of the same algorithm applied to the National Resident Matching Problem via this link.

Note that while this algorithm is simple and is always guaranteed to converge to the optimal result, the algorithm is not symmetric. The optimal solution for girls is different than the optimal solution for boys, and optimal solution for residents differs from the optimal solution for hospitals.

Top image by imaekelley, distributed under CCL.

Prime Number Pop Quiz

The year 2013 has just started and while writing a check or holiday cad you may have noticed that 2013 is odd. It ends with 13 that many would rather skip. It contains all the digits in a range of 0-3 with no repetitions, however it is not a number you would call beautiful.  Definitely odd. Perhaps even prime...
Is it prime?
Nope, 2013 is divisible by 11, 3 and 61!
Dare to take a quiz about prime numbers?
If you need some muscle-buildup before the quiz, here is an article about recent prime year 2011 I wrote for The Boston Globe: 2011 is a sexy prime.

Ready for the Quiz?
Here we go:

• 1.

1.Puzzle #1: Prime Olympics

True or false: Number of rings in the Olympic emblem is prime.  

Answer: True, there are 5 rings and 5 is a rime number.

2.

Puzzle #2: Leap Prime

True or false: Leap year cannot be a prime number year.  

Answer: true, leap year numbers are divisible by 4.

3.

Puzzle #3: Infiltrator

Which of the following four numbers is not a prime: 1, 37, 911, 991. 

Answer: 1 is not prime because prime should have two different divisors: 1 and itself. However, long time ago 1 was considered to be a prime.

4.

Puzzle #4: What are primes?

Which one of the following is a correct definition of a prime number:

–

1. Odd number ending with 1, 3, 5, or 7. 
2. Any number present in the multiplication table. Multiplication table is a “base” of all the numbers. 
3. Number that can be divided by only two distinct divisors. 
4. Number that looks the same left-to-right and right-to-left. 

Answer: #3.

5.

Puzzle #5: Prime Flowers.

True or false: Number of petals in any flower is always prime.  

Answer: false. There are 4 petal flowers, 4 is not a prime.

6.

Puzzle #6: Even Primes

True or false: No even number is prime because all even numbers are divisible by 2 in addition to divisors of 1 and itself.  

Answer: this is false because 2 is a prime number. The only even prime. It is divisible by 1 and 2.

7.

Puzzle #7: Math Magic

True or False: This trick can only be done in the prime year such as 2011:  Take the age you were in 2011, add the last two digits of the year you were born and get a number that ends with 11 or 111. 

Answer: This trick will work for any year that ends with 11 such as 1911. And 1911 is not prime: 1911 = 3 x 7 x 7 x 13  Therefore the magic statement is false.
In general, if you add your age to the year you are born you will always get current year. So in 2011 it will end with 11, as well as in 1911 and 3311.

8.

Puzzle #8: Prime Senate.

Number of Democrats in the US Senate is a prime number as well as the number of Republicans in the US Senate.  

Answer: This is true.  There are 47 Democrats and 53 Republicans currently in US Senate.

9.Puzzle #9: Prime 108

True or false:  Famous “Prime 108” restaurant in Nashville, TN located in the Union Station is named after prime number 108 that is the number of entries on their menu. 

Answer: false. 108 is not a prime number (108=54x2). The restaurant is named for a Bully 108, the first steam engine to chug through Union Station, and "prime" alludes to the high-quality ingredients used to compose the dishes.

10.

Puzzle #10 A Special Year.

True or false: Current year is rather special. It is prime in the Gregorian calendar – year 2013; prime in the Islamic calendar – year 1434. And prime in the Hebrew calendar – 5773. 

Answer: false. 2013, 5773 and 1434 are not prime numbers.

This quiz was created by TheMathMom for the Boston Globe in 2011. Link.

Food shopping: optimizing it all but still enjoying it.

From time to time everyone of us has to reconsider our food shopping strategies. You either move to a new area, have a new baby, or send old baby away for college, get laid off from work, start a new demanding job, or simply discover new stores in the neighborhood. Either way your old shopping strategy falls apart and you have to piece it back again ensuring everything is covered, feasible and optimal.

You want to remember it all - baby products, kids' breakfast foods, fruits and vegetables, meats, breads, dinner components, cleaning supplies - and renew it all on a weekly basis. What is your strategy for accomplishing this?

For a few years I have been encouraging you to create and utilize a Master Shopping List and even posted  my list for you to copy and edit. I advised to check the supplies before leaving for the store, crossing everything you don't need to get, take a pencil with you to the store and check-mark the items as you drop them into a cart.  But guess what, I am seriously questioning this strategy now.

It may be the new baby that we got that requires a load extra items; or the frequent long lines in the meat department, but I came to realize that my weekly shopping became an impossibly tedious and dull process that I am always trying to postpone. It takes me about an hour to zigzag the supermarket and efficiently gather all the items on my list. But approximately after 30 min it stops being fun. The pleasures of smelling fresh produce, trying samples, browsing through and discovering new products or combinations, planning the meal in my head - all expire at about 30 min from the store entry and all my senses shut down. I feel like a pawn in a reality show trying to mark off all the remaining items in a least possible time. At about 60 min threshold I get angry and start transferring my anger to the foods in my basket. A very sad beginning of the food as a pleasure process.

 I discover that I enjoy short specialized shopping trips much more than I enjoy one long exhaustive food purchase.  Biweekly stops at a bakery, weekly order from a fruit and vegetables farm, one or two quick specific visits to the supermarket (breakfast stuff only, dinner products, diary and meat items).  I still do shopping lists but not the long master shopping list that I believe turns me into a food soldier.  I create short lists of absolutely-do-not-forget products and try keeping the number of items in them below 20. This way I can keep my eyes on the shelves rather than in the list and let me mind explore and discover, noting, touching and smelling the items. I feel that I am adding fun as a new component to my overall shopping puzzle that already included time and money optimization, overall product coverage and product quality.  The new strategy is definitely more time consuming but the fun factor makes it much less strenuous.

I think long shopping lists are still great for some people (aka food soldiers)  and some situations. If, like my father, all you want is to restock on the items your wife asked without adding any frivolities, you cannot accomplish it without a long list.  If you have to assemble an elaborate meal consisting of tens of obscure ingredients, you need the list and the focus on the list. You cannot avoid the long list also when coming back from a vacation.  But for the rest of the days I insist on making my food shopping an adventure. What about you?

Image via Flickr, distributed under CCL.

Math-phobic Glossary of Math Terms

I decided to start 2013 with something playful. Over the years I have heard from many of my girlfriends that they feel quite uneasy with math. Below is my attempt to define math as something relevant, fun and hip. Please share it with the women in your life. And, let me know what you think about it.

Random : an arbitrary piece of clothing you are picking from your closet without even looking at the mess in it.  Beware - if you cheat and feel the material type, buttons, zippers or, god forbid, take a peak - it will be a preudo-random item.

Average : Something you first want but then try to avoid to be.

Positive numbers: height extensions that high heels provide to you.

Negative numbers: The depths your pumps sink into the ground when you find yourself at the back yard party.

Infinity : the amount of sweets that your kids consume while you are away.

Parallel: your Sunday plans to your husband's Sunday plans during the football season. Absolutely nothing in common.

Perpendicular: your plans for the same Sunday to your teenager's plans. He needs you as a driver but for the rest please stay as far as possible.

Arithmetic series: your clothes' size, sampled every decade.

Geometric series: dramatically increasing amounts of gray hair you observe monthly on your head.

Integral: the amount of cork in your platform shoes.

Derivative: the steepness of the arch of you heel.

Signal-to-noise ratio: proportion of the neatly folded items to the messy stuff in your closet.

Median:  you, dividing your kids' quarrels.

Acute angle: a narrow corner where you frequently want to hide.

Obtuse angle: a corner where you really are - observed and exposed.

Square Root: size of the present inside the holiday gift box, as compared with the size of the box.

Pythagorean Theorem: something to consider if your bed is too short for you. Perhaps you can fit on diagonal - it is just a square root of the sum of squares of the sides.

Fraction: you get what you get and you don't get upset.

Sine function: pessimist's happiness curve (indifferent and cautious at first, regularly surprised to the good but always finds a reason to push the mood back down).

Cosine function: optimist's happiness curve (happy to start with,  regularly disappointed, but always brings his spirits back up).

Exponential growth - the speed rumors travel.

Parabola: the complimenting soft shape of your shirt's neckline exposing a bit but not too much.

Logarithm:  how much does it take to make two (or more) kids to do what you planned.

Factorial:  all your exes, numbered and multiplied.

Correlation: the coefficient of your marriage describing how strongly two strangers can connect and continuously affect each other.

Equation: your life with its ups and downs, some stable constants and a few unknowns.

Common denominator: greatly compromised choice for a family movie night.

Top image by she was, distributed under CCL.

Life Jokes Sweetened by Math

This is my assembly of jokes that arrived to me from various places on Earth and in different languages. I was carefully choosing life jokes that are sweetened by math rather than jokes about mathematicians or math ignorance. If you have anything to add - please add it in the comments below this post. 

The speed with which woman says nothing when asked "What's wrong?" is inversely proportional to the severity of the anger that is coming.

I am not so good at "Scissors, paper, stone". Tried practicing in front of the mirror but it is very frustrating.

I bought pills for raising IQ, but couldn't figure out how to open the bottle.

A real optimist even at the cemetery sees pluses instead of crosses.



Bob, a 70-year-old, extremely wealthy widower, shows up at the Country Club with a breathtakingly beautiful 25-year-old woman. His buddies at the club are all aghast. At the very first chance, they corner him and ask, "Bob, how'd you get the trophy girlfriend?"

Bob replies, "Girlfriend? She's my wife!"

They are knocked over, but continue to ask.

"So, how'd you persuade her to marry you?"

"I lied about my age," Bob replies.

"What, did you tell her you were only 50?"

Bob smiles and says, "No, I told her I was 90."

We, women, have the hardest time finding a job. Everyone wants to hire a 18-year old with a 30-year experience,  high education and grownup kids.

No, I am not so fat. My hubby says that I have a perfect figure.

Dear, but your hubby is a mathematician. For him, the perfect figure is a sphere! 

My wife has just two complaints: first, she has absolutely nothing to wear. And second, she's run out of closet space to keep it in.

 Bob bought a donkey from an old farmer for $100. The farmer agreed to deliver the donkey the next day. The next day the farmer drove up and said, “Sorry, but I got some bad news. The donkey died.”

“Well then, just give me my money back.”

 “Can’t do that, I went and spent it already.”

 “OK then, just unload the donkey.”

 “What are you gonna do with him?”

 “I’m gonna raffle him off.”

 “You can’t raffle off a dead donkey!”

 “Sure, I can. Watch me. I just won’t tell anyone he’s dead.”

 A month later the farmer met up with Bob and asked, “What happened with the dead donkey?”

 “I raffled him off. I sold 500 tickets at $2 a piece and made a profit of $898.”

 “Didn’t anyone complain?”

 “Just the guy who won. So I gave him his $2 back.”

Logical confusions:

Sign on an aircraft exit door: "If you cannot read these instructions, call a stewardess."

A fortune cookie note says: "Don't take advice from a fortune cookies."

And lastly: We do not stop laughing because we grow old,  we grow old because we stop laughing. 

So, Happy upcoming 2013 and much laughter for you all in it: with your friends, parents, spouse, kids, co-workers, TV, smartphone or radio. Do not miss any opportunity.

Top image by melthork, distributed under CCL.