Geeks out of the Box

This is a blog about Simon, a young mathematician and programmer, and his little sister Neva. We write this blog together, share their projects and thoughts on their journey towards self-dicovery. They’re growing up in a supportive non-coercive learning environment. We deeply believe in interest-based, self-paced education and have had to move countries to make this possible as a family. Visit Simon’s website at https://simontiger.com/ We are a family from Amsterdam who moved to Antwerp because homeschooling is illegal in The Netherlands. This blog started as https://antwerpenhomeschooling.wordpress.com in March 2016. Over the years, most of our entries have gravitated towards exploring together with Simon as he has developed an insatiable passion for programming, math and science. His sister Neva is treading on his heals. We changed or name to Geeks of the Box in May 2021.

By Geeks out of the Box January 27, 2019January 29, 2019

Electromagnetic Spectrum and the Opponent-process Theory

Simon has been fascinated about the Opponent-process theory (suggesting that color perception is controlled by the activity of three opponent systems, three independent receptor types which all have opposing pairs: white … Continue reading Electromagnetic Spectrum and the Opponent-process Theory

By Geeks out of the Box January 27, 2019January 27, 2019

Illumination Problem

Simon studying light reflection as part of the so-called Penrose Illumination Problem: if a room with mirrored walls can always be illuminated by a single point light source, allowing for … Continue reading Illumination Problem

By Geeks out of the Box January 27, 2019January 29, 2019

Graham’s Number

By Geeks out of the Box January 27, 2019January 29, 2019

MathsJam Antwerp 22 January 2019

By Geeks out of the Box January 27, 2019January 27, 2019

Thin ice plates behaving like tectonic plates

And some more winter physics: trying to powders snow and ice:

By Geeks out of the Box January 27, 2019

Simon playing Händel’s polyphonic Fughetta

By Geeks out of the Box January 27, 2019January 27, 2019

Simon’s code for an intriguing problem from the 3Blue1Brown math channel

The number of collisions between two objects equals a number of digits of Pi. The code on GitHub: https://github.com/simon-tiger/Pool_Pi Simon writes: From where I got this I called this sketch … Continue reading Simon’s code for an intriguing problem from the 3Blue1Brown math channel

By Geeks out of the Box January 27, 2019

Simon’s new optical illusion

You can play with Simon’s illusion in Geogebra online at: https://www.geogebra.org/m/aevtyumr

By Geeks out of the Box January 27, 2019

Daniel Shiffman quotes Simon’s thoughts about complex numbers

NYU’s Associate Professor Daniel Shiffman quotes Simon during a Coding Train live tutorial from New York about Fourier Transform Drawings on 16 January 2019. Simon was participating via the Slack … Continue reading Daniel Shiffman quotes Simon’s thoughts about complex numbers

By Geeks out of the Box January 27, 2019

Euler’s Conjecture

We were reading a bedtime story, from the book “17 Equations that Changed the World” and Simon told me about how a computer disproved Euler’s Conjecture. I was surprised at … Continue reading Euler’s Conjecture

By Geeks out of the Box January 24, 2019

Newtonian GPS would place you on the wrong planet!

Simon explains why our modern satellite navigation (the Global Positioning System or GPS) is a great experimental proof for Einstein’s relativity theory and what would happen if the software calculated … Continue reading Newtonian GPS would place you on the wrong planet!

By Geeks out of the Box January 24, 2019January 28, 2019

Physics Experiments: Will the wooden block fall?

This is almost a magic trick that Simon borrowed from the Actionlab channel. Will the wooden block fall down on the ground once you let it go? Obviously, it will. … Continue reading Physics Experiments: Will the wooden block fall?