Mathematics in Popular Culture Essays on Appearances in Film, Fiction, Games, Television and Other Media Edited by Jessica K. Sklar and Elizabeth S. Sklar Foreword by Keith Devlin Print ISBN: 978-0-7864-4978-1 Ebook ISBN: 978-0-7864-8994-7 25 photos, appendices, notes, bibliographies, index 353pp. 2012
"Despite what we may sometimes imagine, popular mathematics writing didn't begin with Martin Gardner. In fact, it has a rich tradition stretching back hundreds of years. This entertaining and enlightening anthology--the first of its kind--gathers nearly one hundred fascinating selections from the past 500 years of popular math writing, bringing to life a little-known side of math history."
"A McNugget number is a positive integer that can be obtained by adding together orders of McDonald's® Chicken McNuggets"
While these numbers are interesting in themselves, I'm particularly taken by the idea of building an interesting problem based on consumer or popular culture. What other prompts might we find in a similar vien?
"A McNugget number is a positive integer that can be obtained by adding together orders of McDonald's® Chicken McNuggets"
Find the largest number that IS NOT a McNugget number.
Math Goes to the Movies Burkard Polster and Marty Ross"Mel Gibson teaching Euclidean geometry, Meg Ryan and Tim Robbins acting out Zeno's paradox, Michael Jackson proving in three different ways that 7 x 13 = 28. These are just a few of the intriguing mathematical snippets that occur in hundreds of movies."