Your August 2013
ShillerLearning Tidbit
Predictor of Creativity and Innovation Found
13? We may know your future
Spatial ability is the skill required to mentally manipulate 2D and 3D objects.
If you're 13 and exhibit exceptional spatial ability, the chances are that by the time you're 50 you will have made creative and scholarly achievements, especially in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics).
That's what a recent study in Psychological Science concluded.
According to Vanderbilt University, where the study was conducted, "These results confirm longstanding speculation in the psychological sciences that spatial ability offers something important to the understanding of creativity that traditional measures of cognitive abilities used in educational and occupational selection don't capture."
Hmmm... Sounds like something that Maria Montessori figured out 100 years ago.
Creativity
A boy saved his girlfriend's number as BATTERY LOW. Now, whenever she calls and he is not around, his mom plugs in his phone to charge it.
I didn't have a clue what I was doing on the final exam. So I chose the letter "A" for everything. The next day the teacher asked to see me after class. "Is everything okay?" "Sure," I said, "Why? "Well, here's your test," she said and handed me a piece of paper that was covered with red ink. "Can you explain why you chose an 'A' for everything?" Knowing that there was nothing I could do at this point, I said, "Well, I've always wanted to be an 'A' student."
August 2013 Puzzler [Grades 1-3]
How many types of triangles are there?
Provide the correct answer by August 25, 2013 to be this month's puzzler winner.
Answer to previous Puzzler [Grades 9-12]
Prove that there is no largest prime number.
Solution: Say there's a largest prime. Call it p. Multiply together all the primes from 2 to p and add 1 to the product. For example, say 7 was the largest prime. Then multiply 2x3x5x7 to get 210 and add 1 to get 211. If you divide 211 by any of the primes up to the largest prime (in this example, 7) the remainder will be 1. So 211 must either be prime or divisible by a prime larger than 7 (the number we thought was the largest prime). Either way, there's a prime larger than 7 (or whatever the number we thought was the largest prime). So there's no largest prime.
I hope you enjoyed this short math break.
Sincerely,
Larry Shiller
Publisher
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