My Favorite Comment

          What is your favorite comment that you've gotten? Well my favorite comment that was on my blog came from Mr.Kuropatwa. I know that his n ame sounds funny but it sounds like Care-o-patch-wha. He is a teacher from Winipeg, Canada and he teaches senior math and he and his class were blown away because my writing and vocabulary skills.

          Here is what Mr.Kurowpatwa's comment said.

Hi Eddie!

Thanks again for dropping by my blog and leaving me such a warm comment. I've just been reading through some of the posts on your blog. If you hadn't told me I never would have known you were a grade 5 student. You're so articulate. (You express yourself so well.)

I was drawn to this post as the one to leave my comments because, as you know, I teach senior math at a high school in Winnipeg, Canada.

It's true what you and the other folks that have left you comments say about math -- it's everywhere. Even in our own bodies.

There are some very special numbers in math that you'll learn about in high school. They're so special that we give them special names because we can't write the whole number on any one piece of paper. Pi (pie) is one of them. Maybe you've heard about it when you learned about circles. 3.1415926.... and on and on it goes. There's another special number called "e" and another one called phi (like "fly" without the "l").

Phi is approximately 1.618 which seems weird I know, but it gets weirder. If you measure your height and then the distance from the ground to your belly button, then divide your height by the belly button distance it's going to be pretty close to 1.618.

Measure the length of your arm (shoulder to finger tips), then measure from your elbow to your finger tips. Divide the long length by the short one ... you'll get 1.618 (Phi) again.

This is even true about your fingers! Take the length of any finger and divide by the length to the second knuckle from your finger tip you'll get phi ... again! Do this again with the two smaller lengths of the same finger and you get phi again!

There's a building in Greece called the Parthenon. When they built it 2500 years ago, they made all the doors and windows so that the length divided by the width equals 1.618. Some folks call this number The Golden Ratio ... a very pretty name for a very special number. We don't know why this is, but when things are made so that their length divided by their width is phi they just look pretty to us.

So, why am I telling you this. Well, two reasons:

(1) It's another example of how math is everywhere ... even in places you wouldn't think to look.

(2) You can get better marks without your teacher even knowing why she's giving you more marks. The next time you do a project, it might be on paper or it might be on presentation board, cut it just so ... so that the length divided by the width is 1.618. It'll just "look prettier" to your teacher and he/she won't even realize it ... and you'll get a better mark. ;-)

Keep studying your math Eddie. There's a lot to learn and sometimes it's really hard, but if you get through some of the hard (and boring) stuff there's a whole lot of really cool stuff you'll be able to learn as well. Don't even get me started about the Fibonacci Sequence. ;-)

PS: There are special symbols that we use for Pi and Phi but your blog won't let me write them. I'll bet you can find them if you search on Google. ;-)

        The comment that he sent me inspired me to be a better blogger. When I read his comment (even though it was long) it made me feel excited. It inspired me to become a better writer. I was even eager to try the activities that he told me to try. I wouldn't have even thougt that a senior math teacher from Canada would look at  a 5th grade student's blog. This is what I felt when I read Mr. Kuropatwa's comment.

Comments

[Darren Kuropatwa]

Very cool Eddie. I'm honoured. (We spell some words a little differently in Canada, you write color, we write colour, you write honor we write honour. ;-))

Don't stop learning ... it keeps you young and makes life a whole lot more interesting. ;-)

Cheers,
Mr. K.

[eddie]

Mr.K,
We all have many differences and it is okay to be different. I am different from you but were all still the same even with different literature.
eddie