Proud Father

[4ARedOctober Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close 4ARedOctober]

Jim,

Great story and congrats....you should be very proud. It is great when kids are so motivated these days. And Mandarin will prove to be very worthwhile in the future.

There are a lot of great kids out there these days...and usually it is the parents behind them that take their responsibilities very seriously that makes the difference.

Keep up the good work.

[BocaBum99 Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close BocaBum99]

WOW, this is something to be proud of.
It sounds like one day your son’s name will be added to this list.

The World Great Mathematicians

Charles Babbage

Augustin Louis Cauchy

Albert Einstein

Jean Baptiste Joseph Fourier

Carl Friedrich Gauss

David Hilbert

Karl Gustav Jacob Jacobi

Pierre-Simon Laplace

Andrei Andreyevich Markov

Sir Isaac Newton

Blaise Pascal

Carle David Tolm Runge

George Gabriel Stokes

Alan Mathison Turing

and Boca son

LOL. My favorite is Carl Gauss. He was a number theory guy as well. My favorite Carl Gauss story was when he was in first grade. Not sure if it is true, but it certainly had an impact on me.

Evidently, Carl Gauss was not only smart, but he was smart a$$ kid as well. He got in trouble once and his teacher gave him a punishment that she thought would occupy him for a while. She told him to add up all the numbers between 1 and 100. Within about 5 seconds, he said, "5050"

In utter amazement, the teacher asked him how he solved it so quickly. He basically said, it's easy. First you add 1+100, then 2+99, then 3+98, and so on.

You notice that you keep getting 101. So, to add up the number in a sequence of numbers, you just add the first plus the last number, multiply it by how many there are and divide by 2 to eliminate double counting.

In the case of 1...100, (1+100)*100/2 = 5050.

All kids know this now. It's much harder to be the first to discover it or by discovering it on your own.

P.S. you left out Fermat, Archimedes, Euclid and Euler. You list includes most of the great Scientists / Engineers vs. the Pure mathematicians.

[shaggy Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close shaggy]

I am very impressed. I didn't graduate college because I couldn't do Math or Acience. The part of my brain that remembers #'s is not thereShaggy

[gophish Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close gophish]

Boca,
Sounds like a smart kid, you have good reason to be proud!!

[RESORT2ME Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close RESORT2ME]

Way to go BUM. It is great that you are proud. Let him know it, too.

[lawren2 Malibu Beach Barbie & A Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close lawren2]

I would rephrase that as a smart kid and an ambitious mother. If it weren't for his mother, he would be playing RuneScape (the online adventure game) 24 hours a day.

Oh he hasn't discovered the World Of Warcraft? The current bane of my existance.

When my son was 8 years old, we were headed to Orlando and he was doodling with numbers. He wrote down the following sequence of numbers: 1, 4, 9, 16, 25, 36, ... Those numbers are recognizable to us as the sequence of squares. 1*1, 2*2, 3*3, 4*4, and so on.

He observed that every number in the sequence had a difference of 2 more than the difference of the previous 2 numbers in the sequence. In other words, if you look at the numbers (4, 9) in the sequence, the difference between those two number is 5. Now look at the previous 2 numbers which are (1, 4). The difference between those numbers is 3. The next pair of numbers in the sequence is (9, 16) whose differnce is 7 which is 2 more than the difference of the prior pair in the sequence (4, 9).

He told me that in order to calculate the square of a number, all he had to do was start with the first number (1), then add 3 to it to get 4. Then, add, 5 to that and get 9. Then, add 7 to that and get 16. And so on.

I was blown away at that observation for a 3rd grader.

I just asked him if he remembered that day. He said he did. And, he told me that when he was in 4th grade, he proved to himself why his observation was true. I couldn't believe how clever the proof was. He basically used tiles to do it. I can't describe it. It was very impressive.

See now that REALLY impresses me. He will be very successful some day Jim.

[BocaBum99 Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close BocaBum99]

Oh he hasn't discovered the World Of Warcraft? The current bane of my existance.

He has. I just asked him if he's heard about it. He said it was one of the more popular MMOs. I don't even know what an MMO is.

He told me that the only reason he doesn't play it is because it is $15/month. RuneScape is only $5/month.

[greenwagonmom Member Find all posts View Profile Close greenwagonmom]

Wow! I am impressed that he is learning number theory in 8th grade. I used to teach math and always appreciate a bright student!

[Steamboat Bill Banned Find all posts View Profile Close Steamboat Bill]

We all now know the secret weapon that Boca uses to snag all those great exchanges!

[katiemack Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close katiemack]

Thanks for sharing these wonderful stories! I agree the apple doesn't fall far from the tree, but having met Mrs. Boca, I will say that the tree has two strong and wonderful boughs....your son is very lucky to have two great parents whose brilliance shines thru him. Enjoy every minute of the discoveries...oh, I don't need to say that, it is clear that you are doing just that! Bravo!

[BocaBum99 Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close BocaBum99]

Another Proud Father Moment.

Okay, here is something so good, I had to post it as a follow up to this thread. It's been about 1.5 years since I started this thread. My son is in 9th grade now and he is in Trigonometry. When he got home, he came to me and said, "Dad, I know how to calculate the generalized slope of any parabolic (or quadradic) equation." I said really? Show me.

Sure enough, he used the general equation y = ax2 + bx + c as the quadratic equation (he actually left off the c, but I told him for completeness he needed to keep it in there. He left it off because it doesn't impact the slope, it just shifts the curve). And, he said the slope was y= 2ax + b. For those of us who have taken calculus, we know the second equation as the derivative of the first equation and it represents the slope of the curve.

He didn't use limits to prove it as he will in Calculus. He actually used geometry, the equation for the foci of a parabola(the focal point of a parabola which is how telescopes gather light and focus it onto a point) and basic algebra to do it.

He showed that the hypotenuse of the isosceles triangle made from the foci of a parabola to a point on the parabola was parallel to the tangent or slope of the curve. So, when he created the equation for the slope of the hypotenuse of that triangle, he got the formula above.

It is actually a very simple and elegant observation. The math wasn't difficult, but the thought process he used was amazing to me. When I first took calculus, it took me a while to get the concept of the slope of the curve and how to use limits to prove that the slope is indeed the derivative of that polynomial equation.

[kapish Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close kapish]

Jim, thanks for sharing. I am happy to read about your brilliant son. I am equally thrilled he has a father who understands what he is talking about, and can participate in an intelligent conversation about the subject!