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Math Teacher's Mission: To Make Equations Fun
Sidewalk Instructor Fights Epidemic of 'Math-aphobic' Americans
 Listen to Madeleine Brand's report.
 Read the peanuts-and-cashews math problem posed on Morning Edition -- and its solution.
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George Nobl gives New Yorkers a sidewalk math lesson. Photo: Yehuda Duenyas |
April 16, 2002 -- Every Wednesday at lunchtime, on an easel he sets up in New York's Times Square, math teacher George Nobl poses standard math problems. Onetime math students cringe to remember these word problems, says NPR's Madeleine Brand -- they're "the ones that look easy at first glance, but then you quickly realize just how awful they really are."
In the college classes Nobl teaches, students invariably say the same thing -- they hate these problems, and math in general. "The way math is taught in this country, 80 to 90 percent of the people are math-aphobic," Nobl says. "Smart people, you know. So what kind of a country do we have if we turn 90 percent of the people off to math? This is not right."
By giving math lessons in Times Square -- and tossing candy bars to people who get the right answers -- Nobl hopes to persuade people to give math another chance. On Morning Edition, Madeleine Brand poses one of Nobl's problems: "If cashews cost one price and peanuts another, how much would a mixture cost?" To see the solution, click the answer link at the end of the question.
The Peanut/Cashew Problem
You're a candy store owner. You have 20 pounds of cashews costing $3.55 a pound. And you have peanuts that cost $2.50 a pound. How many pounds of peanuts would you have to mix with the cashews to get a mixture costing $3.20 per pound?
Get The Peanut/Cashew Answer
Exclusively for npr.org, Nobl offers three more math problems:
The Combination Lock Problem
A combination lock has four places to be set with numbers. We would like to know how easy it is to guess the combination by trying all the possibilities. How many possible combinations are there?
Get The Combination Lock Answer
The Pizza Problem
A pizza maker sells a 6-inch pie, which costs him $5 to make. He wants to know how much it will cost him to make a 12-inch pie.
Get The Pizza Answer
The Clock Hand Problem
What is the angle between the hour hand and the minute hand when it's 3:50?
Get The Clock Hand Answer
Other Resources
• For more information about the "math musical" George Nobl is staging June 2, contact him at nobl@erols.com.
• The Clay Mathematics Institute promises to pay a $1 million prize for the solution to any of seven math mysteries.
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