There is also Ancient Greek Geometry. The user interface is more “elegant”, but less powerful.
The main difference is that in Ancient Greek Geometry you don’t acquire constructions as atomic procedures, you need to inline all the steps each time. So it doesn’t scale to complicated constructions, but on the other hand it is kind of interesting, you get a sort of gut feeling for how many steps are involved in the proofs. For example, a high school textbook will show the construction to make perpendicular lines at, like, page 1, and then you never think about it again. But if you actually have to do all the steps of it each time, you will want to plan out your constructions to make sparing use of perpendicularity...
The What if? section of the webcomic XKCD displays excellent examples of using science to answer bizarre trivia questions. In this episode, a Fermi estimation of ink molecules:
The Last Express (I finished this a while ago but was reminded by reading Stamboul Train this month). It’s… ambitious, and mostly successful at its aims; it’s literally the only game I’ve ever played that’s created a solid-feeling world that feels like more than just a setting for the game, and the characters have lives that feel like they extend beyond a single narrative. As a game it has its downsides—the puzzle format is frustrating, at least for me (a climactic sword fight on the top of the train sounds like an excellent idea, but implementing it as 8 quicktime events in a row makes it much less so. Having to replay the same timeframe over and over again when you get something wrong can also be irritating, though mitigated in that the game does make some efforts to send you back to where you made your last mistake). But as a work of craft it’s beautiful, and the characters and scenes have stayed with me in a way that few games have.
Other Media Thread
http://euclidthegame.com
Fantastic way to learn Euclidean geometry. High school math should be like this!
There is also Ancient Greek Geometry. The user interface is more “elegant”, but less powerful.
The main difference is that in Ancient Greek Geometry you don’t acquire constructions as atomic procedures, you need to inline all the steps each time. So it doesn’t scale to complicated constructions, but on the other hand it is kind of interesting, you get a sort of gut feeling for how many steps are involved in the proofs. For example, a high school textbook will show the construction to make perpendicular lines at, like, page 1, and then you never think about it again. But if you actually have to do all the steps of it each time, you will want to plan out your constructions to make sparing use of perpendicularity...
The What if? section of the webcomic XKCD displays excellent examples of using science to answer bizarre trivia questions. In this episode, a Fermi estimation of ink molecules:
http://what-if.xkcd.com/106/
The Last Express (I finished this a while ago but was reminded by reading Stamboul Train this month). It’s… ambitious, and mostly successful at its aims; it’s literally the only game I’ve ever played that’s created a solid-feeling world that feels like more than just a setting for the game, and the characters have lives that feel like they extend beyond a single narrative. As a game it has its downsides—the puzzle format is frustrating, at least for me (a climactic sword fight on the top of the train sounds like an excellent idea, but implementing it as 8 quicktime events in a row makes it much less so. Having to replay the same timeframe over and over again when you get something wrong can also be irritating, though mitigated in that the game does make some efforts to send you back to where you made your last mistake). But as a work of craft it’s beautiful, and the characters and scenes have stayed with me in a way that few games have.
Marvellous flash animation of WW2′s Eastern Front.