Math Games

 

Something we have been talking about a lot is the idea of math in everyday life and I thought it was interesting when we were looking at mathematics in games and leisure. What sparked my thinking was when I was watching the documentary with the ancient game in the Middle East. It was cool to see that this math game was so prominent it was woven into their way of life and culture. Going back dozens of generations into ancient culture. Going so far to have houses dedicated to this game. Math is a tool for cultural gatherings? I think where we this is in a western society would be using math to learn or to gamble. In many casinos people can count the cards and predict what card the dealer will flip next. The game I am going to explain thankfully does not involve taking my money. It is a whole 2 dollars at the dollar store. Way better then losing 25-dollar hands in Niagara. In a more leisure sense, math can be seen with card games such as “Euchre”. A popular card game that has the player use math to predict the patterns of the cards to justify what card to play next.

In my personal experience. I always had to visualize math in front of me for me to understand it. One of the things I struggled most with was mental math. The game Sudoku challenges you with extensive mental math. You must be very aware of the pattern combinations around the board. The game has you use your mental math skills to correctly arrange the board, so each square has numbers one through nine, without repeating any numbers in the rows or columns. While playing the game you start to notice some patterns in the game that assist you in completing the puzzle. If you were unsure if a 5 could be placed on the far-left column. An easy way to eliminate some squares is seeing if any 5’s is in the far sided squares. If there were any, it could eliminate many squares you could have been unsure of. However, it does not always work or happen in every puzzle. You will know if you have successfully completed the puzzle when all columns, rows, and squares are filled 1 through 9. Easier puzzles provide you with more numbers in the beginning, where harder ones tend to provide less. While having less numbers, harder puzzles tend to have the numbers in the most ridiculous spots. Terrible.

The connections between Sudoku and Ethnomathematics is that math is somehow everywhere in your day-to-day life. People get caught up in their busy lives and they forget that they are subconsciously doing math everyday. This could be getting groceries, reading the weather, etc. After doing this blog I have become more conscious of when I do math in my daily life. I became more aware that math is involved when I think of the money I must spend.