a homeschooling blog about Simon, a young mathematician and programmer, and his little sister Neva. Visit https://simontiger.com
How fast can a fidget spinner spin? Is it not that fast or can you literally use it as a car wheel? Inspired by Matt Parker, who listened to the … Continue reading What is a fidget spinner’s actual speed, in km/h?
It’s not that easy to make a chaos model. A system where a slight tweak in the initial conditions creates major change down the road and even makes it impossible … Continue reading Chaos with Legos and Shapes
Simon has made a visual about what he calls “three different ways to make a physics simulation”: Blue: Modified Euler Integration (aka Backward Euler Integration); Green: Euler Integration (aka Forward … Continue reading Integration Techniques for Physics Simulations
Simulation of multiple particles connected mutually with springs. Made for Dan from the Coding Train. Simon’s original code with 2 particles: https://editor.p5js.org/simontiger/sketches/18ib3ZNKm Four particles: https://editor.p5js.org/simontiger/sketches/gkexoSqZZ Simon has also started building … Continue reading Particles connected with springs and Simon’s Physics Library
I sampled 9 points on this curve. The x coordinates have constant increments (equally spaced horizontal coordinates). I then measured the y coordinates — that’s what the numbers at the … Continue reading A quick experiment to prove that a catenary is not a parabola
One thing I don’t like about From NAND to Tetris is that they don’t explain sequential logic, like at all. They basically say: “Here’s a D flip-flop, don’t worry about … Continue reading Further plans about the NAND to Tetris project
Last week, Simon found this awesome free computer engineering course and textbook, and dove right in. The course teaches how to create: A basic computer A higher-level language A mini … Continue reading From NAND to Tetris
Simon enjoyed the informal interaction during the live session, even though he had been a little critical about the course. He always tunes in better once it gets less formal. … Continue reading A Beautiful Universe by Professor Cumrun Vafa World Science Scholars Live Session
Last weekend, Simon started this new school year’s first World Science Scholars course, A Beautiful Universe: Black Holes, String Theory, and the Laws of Nature as Mathematical Puzzles with Breakthrough … Continue reading Simon’s first impressions of this year’s first course with World Science Scholars
The new cohort of World Science Scholars (a World Science Festival program for young math talents from across the world) seems to be more active than last year’s group. Or … Continue reading Year two of the World Science Scholars program
Autumn started with the death of our dear aunt Noor in The Netherlands, which came as a shock. It also brought about the second wave of COVID-19. That second wave … Continue reading Autumn in the skies
Geeks out of the box 