Adrienne Hestenes

@ahestenes.bsky.social

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Math, books, crochet. #MTBoS #ITeachMath

This picture shows the book “Once Upon a Prime: The Wondrous Connections Between Mathematics and Literature” by Sarah Hart.
The metal bowl now contains pizza dough risen and ready to use.
A metal bowl with a cup of water at the bottom. Yeast is blooming as we watch the video, coming up from the bottom and rising to the top.
The result of a game of 2048. Shows a score of 14720 with the highest tile being 1024z. There are no more moves in this game.
Photo shows the book cover of “99 Variations on a Proof” by Philip Ording. The image on the book cover is a 10 by 10 square grid with the top left corner removed, showing 99 squares.
A Hypertiles is in the shape of a hyperboloid of one sheet showing the saddle point. In this photo, 3 have been connected with linkages to make a sort of wavy triangular shape with a peak in the middle.
Student whiteboard work showing sketches of Ferris wheels with dimensions labeled. Next to them are the graphs of a person’s height as the wheel turns along with equations.
The cover of a Merriam Webster Collegiate Dictionary: 10th edition. Given to me on my highschool graduation in 1993.
A photo of Ocotillo in bloom. Looking up towards the sky. Ocotillo is covered in small green leaves and the ends have the bright red cone shaped flowers. Some flowers are not open yet and appear as yellow buds.
Vector field F=<y-x, -x-y> has been overlayed onto a snail shell. The vectors point in the direction of the spiral of the shell.
Image is a subsection of Van Goghs Starry Night. It’s the large whorl in the sky. Over the image is a vector field which points along the whorl. The vector field is -sin(x-y) for the i component and cos(x+y) for the j component. The vector field is handwritten. The image is black and white.
A square divided into 4 rectangles each n by n+1 in dimensions arrayed around one digit at the center. My attempt to show a visual proof that and odd square number is one more than a multiple of 8.
A visual proof that an odd number squared equals 8 times a triangular number plus one. This image is a 9 by 9 grid with the center square colored purple. The remaining squares are broken into 8 equal triangles of 10 and colored to look like a pinwheel. So 81 = 9^2 = 8(10)+1.
A picture of the previously described map
Student whiteboard work which shows an attempt at drawing the Koch snowflake. Start with a triangle, divide each sides into thirds, and replace the middle third with a new equilateral triangle, then repeat. Below the Koch Curve is a table which records the number of sides in column one, the length of a side in column 2, and the third column will hold the perimeter, but is currently empty. The rows represent the iteration. Below the table the students are working on are some multiplication calculations.
This photo shows the arm of a student writing on a whiteboard. The work shows some quadratic equations in vertex form, some sketches of the equations, and some student notes about which constraints can or cannot pair together.
A quick mathematical sketch on lines kitchen paper of a 3 by 4 rectangle. On the top left corner is an inscribed rectangle labeled 4-x on the length and 3-x on the height. In between this inscribed rectangle and the original larger rectangle is a strip of width x that makes an L shape around the edge. Like a sidewalk on two sides of a garden.
Merriam-Webster instructs me to take a screenshot of their posted gif explaining whichever word I get is my word for 2026. The screenshot shows green ombré background with the word “potato”.
Book cover for Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir. The cover is largely black with part of a yellow-brownish planet in the back right and an astronaut in a white spacesuit in the foreground. The writing for the author and title are in all caps, bold white lettering with triangles for the letter A. A circular seal on the right of the book says #1 New York Times Bestseller.
A wood hexagonal frame contains 48 puzzle pieces. The pieces made up of between 1 and 6 hexagons connected to make every possible shape. The pieces are 4 different color, blue, green, orange and purple. The goal is to tile all the pieces into the hexagon frame making sure that no two pieces with the same color touch.
A variety of “Step Puzzles”. 4 circles are linked in a row and joined with another row of circles. Different numbers are in a few of the circles. The student has to fill in the empty circles with numbers to complete an arithmetic sequence. Each puzzle has a unique shape. For example, the two rows of circles might make a “V” or a “Y” shape.
8 cards containing a unique polynomial graph . One group of 3 cards that have end behavior of positive, even degree polynomials. One group of 2 cards that have the end behavior of negative, even degree polynomials. One group of 2 cards with end behavior of positive, odd degree polynomials. And the fourth group has one card with end behavior of a negative, odd degree polynomials.
Student work on a whiteboard showing some diagrams, working out, and lists of results. There is a 5x5x5 cube with individual cubelets numbered by how many sides are showing. There is 6x6 square showing the arrangement of 1,2,3 surface cubelets. There are some lists and tables keeping track of numbered totals for different size cubes. And the beginnings of a formula for an nxnxn cube.
Standup and Ponder 1. There are three boxes. One is labeled “APPLES” another is labeled “ORANGES”. The last one is labeled “APPLES AND ORANGES”. You know that each is labeled incorrectly. You may ask me to pick one fruit from one box which you choose. How can you label the boxes correctly?
An embroidery in a circular hoop of the Lorentz Strange Attractor. Embroidered using backstitch and variegated thread of colors aqua, indigo, and pink. The pattern loops around giving a two lobed appearance of a butterfly.
Three boxes of 3inch long pullback car toys, ready for students. My favorite are the pink and red mini coopers with the Union Jack on the roof, followed closely by the Volkswagen buses. Roughly 30 toy cars can be seen of various styles.
Zometool construction of a hypercube sitting on a student desk behind a sheet of paper containing 8 Schlegel diagrams of a hypercube. The student has shaded the location of 8 different cubes, one for each diagram.
A photo of the morning sky, covered in light fluffy clouds after a storm the night before. Sun rays are peaking through. In the foreground are palm tree sillouhettes, the road and sidewalk. 6:45 am, no cars or people out yet.
Students work on graph paper showing her square disections into smaller squares.
A student is placing a tower of 5 snap cubes into an arrangement of other towers of snap cubes. We see the students notebook and hand as she is placing her construction.
Four games lined up and ready for students. In front is Tri-Tac-Toe, a tic tac toe game on 3 levels. Behind are 3 games of Qubic, which adds a fourth layer to the tic tac toe game.
Showing my scattered work while learning about how modular arithmetic works. There are lists of sequences I created by adding the two previous numbers in module 10 to generate the next numbers. There is a table I made trying to sort out which 2 numbers generate a cycle length of a particular length. Lots of erasures, notes to self, and partial work while thinking things through.
A paper model consisting of 2 irregular dodecahedrons (purple) and 6 tetrakaidecahedrons (white). They are joined together to create a model of idealized foam bubbles.
DragonFjord’s A Puzzle A Day currently in the silver position for today’s date, July 7th. The puzzle is brown particle board with 8 pieces. The pieces are 7 different pentaminoes and one hexamino. Moving the pieces around leaves gaps in the puzzle which show the month and day.
A black Navajo wedding vase with two spouts coming together at the base.
A sculpture made of pencils. There are 4 groups of 19 pencils arranged into hexagons and interleaved between each other.
Photo of the roof at the California Science Center. A large circular, purple dome window covered in a grid of squares. Lots of randomly placed beams intersecting in front of the window make a variety of angles. From the beams are suspended small spheres, several hundred? Filling up the space.
Math work showing a difference table for a sequence of numbers. The first row is 0,2,10,30,68,120,222. The second row are the differences 2,8,20,38,62. The third row are the second differences 6,12,18,24. The 4th row are the third differences 6,6,6,…. The finals row are all zeros. Underneath is a table showing the leading diagonals for n cubed 1,7,12,6,0: for n squared 1,3,2,0,0: for n 1,1,0,0,0: and for one which is 1,0,0,0,0. The sequences leading diagonal is written 0,2,6,6,0. Then there is some work I did to try to find a combination of the given leading diagonals to find and equation of my unknown sequence. I found n cubes minus 3 n squared plus 4n -2.