Estimation

I'm baaaa-aack!

I'd estimate it's been almost 3 weeks since my last post! (Fine, you caught me. It wasn't real estimating. I went back and checked, realized it'd been 19 days, and decided to round it to 3 weeks to make it look like an estimation. You're right. I am very ashamed.)

Anyways, a very important subject- or at least a subject I'd estimate is important (that was a good one, eh? Eh??)- brought me home:

ESTIMATION!!!

Now, I personally have very strong feelings toward estimation. I hate it. I just find it easier to find the real number and have no doubt rather than estimating something that we will never need to know. And also, WHY DO THE UNLIKELY SCENARIOS ALWAYS REVOLVE AROUND SCHOOL BUSES????? WHY????

I've given you the troubled past between estimation and I. I know if this was a movie, estimation and I would solve our differences, I'd realize it's history with school buses involved estimation's first love and that's why it feels insistent on using them often, and we'd run slo-mo into each other's virtual arms and declare our everlasting friendship- I mean, that's what I'm estimating. However, the sad reality is estimation and I are on speaking terms, but only during fiestas. When it's required.

Mr. Battaglia has shown us a nice, easy way to estimate that I am learning to accept. I admit, we still have struggles at times- most commonly involving fruit flies (ahem)- HOWEVER, (I think Mr. Battaglia is regretting giving me free reign over my own little section of the Internet where I can freely go on tangents without Mikayla around to PROCESSCHEEECK! me- or at least committing to reading it) it is typically easier to understand than some of the other ways I've been taught.

It involves powers of ten. 10^0 is one, 10^1 is ten, 10^2 is one hundred, and so on. My main issue is once we get to one thousand to ten thousand and things like that, believe it or not. It's hard for me to picture things as big as that, I think is the problem. I typically don't see whether one thousand or ten thousand fruit flies are the length of the bus, so it is very difficult for me to imagine. I need to work on the huge values and how to grasp it. Hopefully I'll get a chance to ask Mr. Battaglia- I'm estimating Monday or Wednesday- what he recommends.

As you can see, estimation and I still have a ways to go, but we are making progress, and hopefully we'll continue to move forward. On a school bus. (I'm estimating.)


***Estimated amount of estimating jokes: 5 (FINE, I counted!)***

5% Rule vs. r^2 value

Starting in the right wing today, we have the lean, the mean, the smaller-the-better.... FIIIIIIIIIIIIIIVE PERCENT RULEEE!!!!!

And coming to our left wing, we have the "Equation Equalizer," the one that wants to be as close the one as possible, .9999987689 on the calculator but #1 in our hearts, RRRRRRRR SQUARED!!!!!

Today, I asked a question in class. Here, I'll give you the floor, Narrator- or, as boxers refer to it as, the "canvas" of the ring-

Narrator: Well, the floor of our physics classroom is pretty dull- I've been meaning to ask Mr. Battaglia if we can spice it up a bit. But it really works well with spinny chairs and running around in fuzzy socks-

Not that floor, Narrator! Ugh, never mind. Just let me take over. I think we're losing the readers.

We were doing a lab, and a specific group had an r squared value of .997 (the closer r^2 is to 1, the more accurate it is). However, when they used the 5% rule, they got 4.08%- which still falls in the parameters, but is definitely on the higher end of the spectrum. I wondered, how is that possible? Aren't both the r^2 rule and 5% rule supposed to prove the accuracy? So, I asked. And here is the difference:

Both of them determine accuracy. BUT- for different things:

• The 5% rule proves how accurate your data is.
• The r^2 value proves how well your line fits your graph.

Well, that's all for this physics showdown! I hope you enjoyed this battle between our beloved 5% rule and the honorable r^2 value. And remember- though they are both important and good tests of how well things worked, they are different individuals- and we should treat them that way. Hope you all enjoyed this segment of Shirley That's Not Science! I'm Shirley, reporting from the BIBPBAIICSR- obviously, the Battaglia IB Physics Boxing Association Incorporated International Corporation Shirley Rocks. Back to you, Flying Pig.

P.S.: Has anyone noticed I've used bullet points in every single one of my posts? What can I say? They're handy!

***The DIRECT vs. INDIRECT vs. INVERSE vs. PROPORTIONAL Post***

Ahh, the long awaited post. At least for Mr. Battaglia- for my nonexistent other readers (if you do exist, thank you for reading! Thank you! Thank yo- who am I kidding? We all know the only person who reads this is paid to!) you did not know this was coming. But here it is!


These are our definitions for direct, indirect, inverse, and proportional functions. We came up with these ourselves, and they may be corrected later.

DIRECT:

• When x goes up, then y goes up. OR- the opposite, when x goes down, y goes down. (or vice versa)
• POSITIVE SLOPE

INDIRECT:

• As Btags always says is the best definition for indirect- NOT DIRECT
• When x goes up, then y goes down/ when x goes up, y does not (meaning it could stay the same or other crazy functions) (or vice versa)
• NEGATIVE SLOPE

INVERSE:

• Opposite, reciprocal slope
• When x goes up, y goes down
• IF X DOUBLES, Y IS HALVED

PROPORTIONAL:

• Slope is constant
• x to y has same ratio
• DOUBLE X, DOUBLE Y
• Must go through origin

I found that it seems direct and indirect are opposites, as are inverse and proportional.

Hopefully these will be helpful!

Our... Issues :)

Well, I mentioned our Laborama in an earlier post, and this will be a sort of... Blogorama. I know, I know. Calm yourself; don't get too excited.

First, I'll tackle the cliff hanger I left you on last post. As of that conversation in class, we could tell our communication as a group could definitely use some work. We actually had another discussion today and I could tell we were making progress! I will compare and contrast our first issues, and how we have improved.

Issue Numero Uno (I'm taking Spanish! I want to practice what Senor is teaching me- I have a quiz tomorrow!)

• Nobody would listen to each other: We'd hear the other people talk, but we wouldn't listen. What I mean is, somebody would make a comment or ask a question, and everybody would just be thinking about the point they wanted to make, and wouldn't build off what the person before them said.
• Today, I personally noticed- and I tried to practice this too- that after somebody would make a good point, even if a member of the audience had another point to make, they wouldn't say, "Yeah, OK, that's cool. So what I was thinking was.." It would be more along the lines of "Oh, wow! I never thought about that. So does that mean that..."

Issue Numero Dos

• This is kind of the opposite extreme of the issue above: We'd go off from what somebody said pertaining to the subject at hand and go way into left field with it. For example, we would start on direct functions and somehow split into three conversations, one on why pink leg warmers are soo 80's, one on who wants to move to Iceland, and one on why on Earth Hannah is holding a flying pig and hanging it from the ceiling.
• We made a huge effort on not going off topic, and I was personally very proud of us. :) Even if we just started talking over one another, or communicating about the same thing, but just in separate convos, people would start screeching, "PROCESSCHECKPROCESSCHECKPROCESSCHEEEECKKK!!!!" Process check is the IB way of saying get back on topic, though I'm starting to assume it's just a faculty-accepted way of saying shut up.

Issue Numero Tres

• We often wouldn't come to a good solid conclusion before. This time, though, we did it! We made it through 2 whole white board discussions after asking intelligent questions and then- we all agreed on a solid conclusion! I'm *tear* so proud!! Happy dance!

Well, that was the edition on Communication Problems and How We Resolved Them- More or Less. We still have things to work on, but we are improving.

Until next time! #BtagsforPhysicsNobelPrize @Mikayla

A Socratic Circle Order Share Thingamabob

Alright, I'm back!

Yesterday, in our physics class, we did a sort of inner circle outer circle thing, where we were divided into two groups and one went in the middle of the room, set up chairs in a circle, and discussed a problem referring to direct and inverse relationships while the outer circle used this very cool site in which we could comment our thoughts on what was being discussed. (That had to be THE longest run on sentence. Ever.) At first, I was in the outer circle. We were saying that we were kind of on lost on what they were saying, which mostly focused on the method of substitution they used. We thought we offered good, constructive criticism. Then- it was our turn to go in the circle. These were the main topics we discussed.

• "Multiple x's"- This was something we wanted to clarify as discussed by the first group. There was some confusion for them when given a problem such as "When given a/(bx^2), double x," whether they should double the x before squaring it or after. We quickly cleared that up by verifying, Manipulate the variable as instructed in directions FIRST, before following Order of Operations. 
• We also discussed the values of substitution versus theoretical mathematics. Which is to say- plug numbers in for the variables as an example, or just apply the instructions to the variables and try to solve. Using the example I mentioned earlier: substitution would be 8/(4 x 2^2) = 1/2 and 8/(4 x 4^2) = 1/8, so therefore the answer is divided by four. Whereas theoretical would be a/(bx^2) = y and a/(b2x^2) = y and trying to decipher it from there. I've known for a while that substitution is definitely the easier way for me (as you can see, I have trouble even explaining the alternative) but some had yet to decide their method of choice, so we tried many different presentations of how to do it. 
• When using substitution, we talked about which numbers to avoid plugging in, as they can make your answers all crazy-like, therefore leading you in the wrong direction. For instance, if we had used zero in my apparently favorite example ever, we would have gotten the same answer, as zero times two is...well, still zero. So we decided that zero should forever be avoided, and had a lengthy discussion about using 1 which basically resulted in us coming to the conclusion of Feel free to use 1, because sometimes it works, but sometimes it doesn't, so you have to be careful, because it doesn't always work, except for most of the time in multiplication, and almost always division, but sometimes it doesn't work for multiplication and messes up your results in division, but sometimes it'll work but just be tough to deal with, so only use 1 sometimes. Yeah. 

If you remember from the beginning, the topic was direct and inverse relationships.

As you can see, our class is currently suffering from communication issues. I'm finding myself exclaiming the very title of this blog! (If you don't understand, its because... just leave me a comment. I'll get back to you.) I'll save that post for another time in the near future! I know, I know... She's leaving us hanging?! Shirley that can't be the end of the post!