No, I'm not insulting Danica McKellar's math ability, I swear! I even sell her math books over in the Grey Matters Store!
Math Bites is actually the name of Danica McKellar's new weekly video series from Nerdist, which started last month.
Math Bites can be found on YouTube, and you can subscribe to the Nerdist channel for regular updates, as well.
Each episode is only about 5-6 minutes long, and focuses on one math topic. The style is somewhat like that of Square One TV, in that there are short comedy skits and musical segments that help reinforce the concepts or give you breathing time to let the concepts sink in. I especially like the takeaway tips at the end of each episode, which summarize the important points of each episode.
The first episode focused on a topic near and dear to my heart, the constant Pi:
While many Grey Matters readers have memorized Pi to 400 digits, some might prefer the full Dance of the Sugar Pi Fairy to help them memorize Pi to 139 digits.
The second episode talked about the importance of being able to do math in your head. No, this episode doesn't talk about extraordinary mental math feats like those taught in the Mental Gym, but rather knowing how to do basic arithmetic and estimation well enough so that you don't get ripped off:
You can already get an idea of why I like this series so much. It touches on the basics of topics I've posted about many times before. I've posted about binary numbers both on their own, and their importance in Nim, so the 3rd episode on binary numbers was also helpful and entertaining:
The most recent episode as of this posting is about percentages, and focuses on how they can mislead you. Sometimes you can get taken advantage of when businesses can't do math, and also when businesses can do math, so percentages can be very important to understand:
Even if you missed the initial announcement of Math Bites, you're now completely caught up with the series. Here's hoping that Danica McKellar keeps this series up for a long time to come!
