Sometimes I wonder if I am running out of ideas for the Friday Funny. The above picture might not be funny, but is a splendid piece of art to finish the week with.
Here is a funny video called "The Running Matador".
Running is a very serious sport, usually lacking in funny moments.
That is until we see a guy who just doesn't get it.
Image Source: http://www.failpix.net
This next running race is also a bit out of the ordinary. Could it be a modern take on the "Hare and the Tortoise" race ?
A blonde goes out for a run. She comes to a river and cannot see a bridge anywhere nearby.
She spots another blonde on the opposite bank. "Yoohoo doll!" she shouts, "How can I get to the other side?"
The second blonde looks up the river then down the river then shouts back, "You're already on the other side!"
Running Jokes 2
A brunette was jogging down the street saying "66,66,66" etc. a blonde comes up behind her asking her "why are you saying 66."
The brunette says "It helps me jog better." So, the blonde goes across the street and starts saying "66,66" etc.
The brunette yells "Its a lot easier if you do it in the street." So, the blonde goes in the middle of the street saying "66" all of a sudden a truck comes up and hits her.
The brunette keeps jogging down the road saying "67,67,67".
Joke Source: http://www.best-running-gear.com
And full proof of the validity of the above jokes is very evident in the following photo finish.
This next video is all about sticking by your friends in times of trouble.
The Joy of Jogging
1. For every mile you jog, you add one minute to your life. This enables you, at the age of 85, to spend an additional five months in a nursing home at $5,000/month. 2. The only reason I took up jogging was to hear heavy breathing again. 3. I joined a health club last year, spending $400 in the process. I haven't lost a pound. Apparently you have to show up. 4. I have to exercise early in the morning, before my brain figures out what I'm doing. 5. I like long runs, especially when they are taken by people who annoy me. 6. The advantage to exercising every day is that you die healthier. 7. I have flabby thighs but fortunately my stomach covers them. 8. If you are going to take up cross-country running, it helps to start with a small country. 9. I don't jog; it makes me spill my milk shake. 10. Actually, I don't exercise at all. If we were meant to touch our toes, we would have them farther up on our body.
Joke Source: http://www.jokesnjokes.net
But not everyone who goes out running is exactly who the appear to be.
Image Source: http://www.motifake.com
If you think that runner looked surprised, then check out the surprise you get when we find out who is jogging along in these running shoes.
This one isn't so funny, as just absolutely incredible. Parkour Free Running was invented by the Russians, and combined running with amazing gymnastic stunts in public places.
Serious Warning: Don't try this at home!
Something else incredible is this crazy UK guy called "Neg", and his Urban take on running sports.
Neg's Urban Sprinting low quality but only embeddable one
(Warning: Some viewers may be offended by the language in this video).
Neg would definitely never get away from these security guys.
Suppose we want to do some weight training in the gym to help us with sport and be healthy. We might need to get a few things worked out first.
How do we know how much weight to lift for a given exercise?
How do we know how many times ("repetitions") we should do?
How do we know how many sets of exercises to do ?
How do we know how long to rest in between sets ?
How many times should we go to the gym a week ?
How long should we rest between trips to the gym ?
And what better way to get some answers to these questions than from the Internet. There is a wealth of information, online calculators, and instructional videos on weight training. We will be reviewing them here, and proving once more that whatever you need is on the Net for free.
However, the computer does not give all the answers. We need to hire a professional trainer to work out a starting point for us, and that will be money well spent.
However we can also do some internet research and a bit of mathematics, to find out some relevant information ourselves.
While it is good to do some math to determine the training weights that you can use, you should always check with a personal trainer or gym staff, before commencing your program.
The contents of this post are a mathematical review of some websites for weight training, and are definitely not weight training advice for someone to set up their own training program.
Here at Passy World we do regular weights training, but we had our program set up by professional staff at a gym. We recommend that you always do the same.
Let's look at some of the mathematics of weight training.
Here is a short YouTube video which mentions some of the mathematics involved with weight training.
As demonstrated in the video, the key to each exercise is the "repetition" which is the full motion we do to complete the exercise once.
"Brian Mac - Sports Coach" is a brilliant website about weight training, and the source of most of the material which follows in this post.
We highly recommend visiting the above link for a great overview of muscle strength development and sports training.
On the "Brian Mac" site, ranges of values for recommended repetitions are given, depending on the type of training that the person needs to do.
This is summarized in the following table.
The types of training indicated in the above table, as per the "Brian Mac" site are as follows:
Strength Endurance
The aim is to develop muscles that are able to to produce repeated contractions under conditions of fatigue. This requires high repetitions (15+) with light loading (30-50% of 1RM). Appropriate for field sports, rowing and martial arts.
Power
The aim is to develop fast powerful movements. This requires medium number of repetitions (6-10) with medium to heavy loading (70-80% of 1RM). Appropriate for power based events e.g. sprinting, jumping (long jump), throwing (Javelin).
Maximum Strength
The aim is to enable maximum loads to be lifted. This requires low number of repetitions (1-5) with heavy loads (80-100% of 1RM). Appropriate for Power Lifting, Olympic Lifting, Shot Putt.
In the table shown previously, all weight to be lifted is expressed as a percentage of the "1RM" weight value which is set at 100%.
The 1RM weight is the maximum weight we can lift for a specific exercise, where the weight is so heavy that we are only able to do one repetition of that weight. We are not strong enough to do a second lift of that weight.
As we train and get stronger, this 1RM value may become larger, and so it needs to be recalculated from time to time.
But how do we determine the 1RM weight for a particular exercise?
The "Brian Mac" site has a very nice online calculator that looks like this:
Three estimates are provided by this calculator:
Novice - an adult with less than 1 year of regular weight training
Experienced - an adult with 1 to 2 years of regular weight training
Advanced - an adult with more than 2 years of regular weight training
Once we have determined the weight we should lift for 1RM (One Repetitition Maximum) at 100% training weight from the calculator, we can then work out what weight we would need to do for different amounts of reps, according to the training program we are following: Strength, Power, or Endurance.
For example, Let's say we obtained 120kg for Military Bench Press as our 1RM from the calculator. If we want to do Endurance Training, then we need to consult our training table.
The table shows that if we want to do 14 reps per exercise for Endurance, then we need to have our barbell weight set at 65% of 1RM.
So our required weight is calculated as 65% of 120kg = 0.65 x 120 = 78kg.
For Endurance training we need to Military Bench Press 78kg of weight.
But what if we want to determine the 1RM for an exercise that is not in the Brian Mac calculator, such as Bicep Curls.
Image Source: http://munfitnessblog.com
What we need to do is work out the maximum weight we could manage for several reps, until such point as our muscles are fatigued, and we cannot lift the weight any more.
For example, to do a 1 rep max test for the bicep curls, we might lift a 40kg barbell and discover that we can only lift the weight 6 times until our muscles are completely fatigued.
From our previous table we know that 6 repetitions represents 85% of the 1RM weight value.
85% of 1RM is 40kg (Divide both sides by 85) 1% = 40 divided by 85 (Now Multiply both sides by 100) 100% = 47 kg
So our calculated 1RM value for us doing 1 rep of bicep curls is 47kg.
To check the mathematics we have done, we can use an Online 1RM Calulator. There is a very good calculator for determining the 1RM value and it's percents at the following link:
Interestingly, when we use this calculator for our 6 reps of 40kg Bicep Curls, the answer given was 46kg and not 47kg.
There are several slightly different 1RM math formulas, made by different researchers. This is discussed on Wikipedia, and the common formulas are by Brzycki, Beachle, Epley, Lander, Lombardi, and others.
The Online Calculator appears to be using the Brzycki formula:
1RM = Weight / (1.0278 - (.0278 x Reps))
which is the most commonly used formula by most Sports Scientists and Personal Trainers.
The % Table we have been using in this blog is only an approximation, with rounded off percents. It is therefore not suitable for calculating accurate 1RPM values.
We need to use the Brzycki formula to work out our 1RM correctly. This is simple to do, and involves some basic Algebra substitution.
Now that we know the 1RM for our Bicep Curls is 46kg:
If we want to do "Power Training" then we could work at 12 reps using 70% of 46 = 12 reps of a 32kg weight. And if we wanted to do "Endurance Training" for our bicep curls, we could work a set of 14 reps using 65% of 46 = 14 reps of a 30kg weight.
You may be wondering what exactly are bicep curls exercises ?
"Expert Village" on YouTube have some really good YouTube videos on how to do different weight training exercises.
So if you forgot some of the things your personal trainer showed you at the Gym, then find a video on YouTube to watch.
Here is a great example video by Expert Village on bicep curls.
Finally, let's take a look at some of the Mathematics involved in Olympic Weight Lifting.
Competition Weight Lifting is all about overcoming the force of gravity in the most efficient way possible. This involves applying some specific mathematical geometry and alignment between the weight being lifted and the the person lifting the weight.
Here is an excellent Chinese video, with English narration which explains this mathematics very clearly.
Hope the material in this post has not been too heavy going, too hard to find uplifting, or too much of a strain.
The Internet is an incredible resource for mathematics learning tools. And after we have done some learning, we need to test how much has been retained and properly understood.
What better way to do this than to take a quick online test and get immediate feedback.
"Online Tests" are onscreen interactive tests, where we can type an answer into the computer. The computer then immediately corrects all of our questions and gives us our score.
There are many websites that have free PDF Practice Tests for National testing in the UK and USA, but these are not corrected by the computer online, and so we consider these to be worksheet type resources rather than online tests.
In this post we look at ten great websites that have free online tests for Mathematics.
We have not used these online tests on Apple devices, but it is quite likely they will not work. The reason being that Apple devices do not support Flash or Java.
To get to each site, use the text link supplied at the end of each mini review. Click this text link to go to the site - do not click the banner image.
Free Math Test
This site is really good and simple to use. It covers basic mathematics up to Averages and Integers, Substitution, Order of Operations. There do not seem to be any Fractions, Decimals, Percentages, Ratios, or Solving Equations questions.
This site allows a person to choose the level of difficulty, and the number of questions they want to do.
This site has a great range of online tests, but a selected test can take a minute or two to load in, so be patient.
It also does not appear to allow selection of the number of questions or their difficulty, and seems to default to 10 questions for each test with a 30 minute time limit that is enforced by an onscreen timer.
Math Goodies This site does not have quizes that you can directly go to, but has lessons on topics, that most times have a short online quiz at the end of them.
The topics are on basic math, and do not include middle school topics like Trigonometry, Equations, and Algebra.
This site does not allow selection of the number of questions or their difficulty, and the number of questions in an end of lesson quiz varies.
As well as lessons with Quizes at the end of them, the site also has plenty of worksheets.
It is an excellent site, and one of our favorites. Check out all of the lessons at the link below.
This site is like Maths Goodies, and has lesson lists and the lessons contain online tests.
It does not allow selection of the number of questions or their difficulty, and the number of questions at the end of a lesson always appears to be 10.
This is a great site and one of our favorites.
Check out the comprehensive list of lessons covering basic number through to Trigonometry, Algebra, and Equations. So the BBC cover primary through to middle school for free online resources, and do it as good as any site we have seen.
Saving one of the best for last, the Kahn Academy is an awesome website of free online Math Learning resources.
There are lots of videos, but to do online practice tests, we need to click on the "Practice with an Exercise" button, and then navigate down the left had side of the page to the topic we want to practice.
The practice sessions have scoring, and you can ask for hints, or watch a video if you are struggling with the test.
This site does not appear to allow selection of the number of questions or their difficulty
This is a great site that has lessons, games and quizes for math from Primary through to the end of middle school. We have found that students really like this site for the math games and activities it has.
The online testing can be found under the "Practice Problems" link.
Here we usually get problem generators, so we can do as many questions as we like, on a very specific part of math, and get an answer when we need it.
For example check out this typical one at a time question generator.
So that's our Top 10 of great Free Math Quiz and Test sites. These are a great way to check up on how your math skills are going, and an excellent tool to use when reviewing for tests.
Best of all they are available 24x7, and 100 percent FREE!
Hi there, it's good to be at the gateway to another weekend. This Friday we are poking some fun at Geometry. If that doesn't add up, then it's not supposed to, because it's Geometry!
Let's hope this Friday Funny makes everyone a lot happier than this unfortunate little chap.
Image Source: http://www.failepicfail.com
There is right and wrong geometry for everything. Whoever designed that bike never heard wheels on the bus going round and round.....
What makes them go round?
The fact that they are round you dodecagon!
Speaking of things going round and round, here is an interesting little science experiment. (Warning: Don't try this at home!)
Keeping with circles as our geometric shape under close scrutiny, we all know that plane engines have circular openings, and the plane is cylindrical in shape.
Even though the geometry theory has been implemented in the following example, there still seems to be something annoyingly wrong.
Image Source: http://3.bp.blogspot.com
When dealing with plane engines, it is important to remember that square things don't fit into round holes.
Image Source: http://4.bp.blogspot.com
Not all things fit in square holes either, no matter how much money you throw at the problem!
Image Source: http://www.dailyhaha.com
Spacial geometry tells us that an air traffic controller's circular screen could not fit this many planes taking off at once.
Image Source: http://projectwander.com
But it's not just humans who struggle with the complexity of geometry.
Don't worry, we will still be keeping Passy's World of ICT and the Friday Funny going. But we are also very busy writing our first ebook, and so there might not be so many posts in the next few weeks.
Here at Passy World we are contantly searching the web to find great free stuff that can be used for fun and learning. Because learning should be fun !
But sorry there is no fun for Apple users, because these games are in Flash and Java.
Thanks to Apple's designers, Flash and Java do not run on ipods or ipads. We do have an ipad here at Passy World, but hope to replace it in the near future with an Android tablet with USB connection and Flash and Java capability.
In this post we present a great collection of free online games for gaining skills in dealing with decimals, fractions, and percentages.
If Blogger sites are blocked in your school, then you can also read this post at our Mathematics blog on WordPress by clicking the link below:
Note that to get to each Game, it is necessary to Click the Link that we have supplied. Clicking the screen shot of the Converter, does not take you to the online app.
(Eg. Because it is a bit tricky to do picture links in Blogger, we haven't connected each screen shots to it's app, but instead provided a direct text link at the end of each review.)
We have certainly checked out a lot of games on the web, and here we give you the best of the best! So let the fun begin.
"Mission Magnetite"
Mission Magnetite involves Fractions and Percents.
In this fun game we click a percent first into it’s bottom circle, and then click it’s equivalent fraction, and then into the last bottom circle the appropriate drawing. It is a race against time to complete the puzzle before the rocket fills with fuel.
In this really fun jeopardy game we change fractions to decimals and percents and vice-versa. We can play this game by solo, or with our friends, or in teams. Remember to click on your character to get them to buzz in first for the answer.
In this American football math game, we solve decimals place value problems. For each correct answer, we earn seven points, but we lose three points for each incorrect answer.
Use the mouse to move the ball thrower left and right, and when it looks a good time to pass to your layer, then click the mouse to do the pass.
After the pass is completed, we get to do a math question on decimals.
In this Soccer game we practice our knowledge about rounding decimals to the nearest whole numbers. You have to answer each question correctly to get a chance to kick the ball. You must score enough goals to move on to the next level!
To round a decimal to the nearest whole number, look at the digit that indicates the tenth place value. If this digit is greater than 5, you have to round the decimal up. If that digit is less than 5, you have to round the number down. Erase the decimal point.
Example: 31.78 rounded to the nearest whole number is 32, because 7 is greater than 5, therefore we have to round the number up.
56.2 rounded to the nearest whole number is 56, because 2 is less than 5, therefore we have to round the number down to the nearest whole number.
The game also includes rounding to tenths, hundredths, and thousandths.
Note that to kick goals we first mouse click how much power we want to apply, and then mouse kick again to have the kick at goal.
In this baseball math game we practice our knowledge about rounding decimals. We first need to click the mouse on the batter when the ball is pitched to get a home run.
After this we get to answer a rounding off question. Each correct answer gives 1000 points and each incorrect answer takes away 1000 points from our score. The game has several levels, but we need to get enough home runs to advance from one level to the next.
The following web page has a listing of several Decimal Mathematics Games including adding, subtracting and multiplying questions. Do some of these if you need to learn more about decimals than we have covered here.
“Decention" involves Percents Fractions and Decimals Groups of 3 Matching.
Use the mouse to move the players into circles in groups of 3, then click the “Check” button to see how things are going. The groups of three have to be equal values. For example 4/5 and 0.8 and 80% belong in a group of three because they are all representations of 80 percent.
This Memory Matching game is very challenging, as we can only reveal two squares at a time, and have to remember what was under each square as we continue through the game. It will teach fractions and their percent equivalents, as well as improve memory.
This matching game has the player click pairs of circles, and if they match correctly they turn red, and go into the answer box in the top left hand corner.
This is not so much of a game as an activity, where percentages can be viewed as part of a Pizza, a number of people, how full a jug is, or how much chocolate is left. We simply click down and hold the mouse button, and then drag the % value from the right hand table, into the black action box, and the picture changes.
Percentages to Fractions - Private Investigator Game
In this game we solve the mystery of the burgled bank vault with Percentage P.I. Visually we locate percent values on Pie Charts and learn the fractions associated with percentages.
In this game we push down our mouse button and drag the left hand decimal values, over onto the right hand number line. We can click “Check” anytime to see how we are going, but we lose a life is a decimal is in the incorrect position.
This game is a movie mystery story with percentage puzzles along the way. Requires sound to hear the story. Very well produced and entertaining. Note that you need to mouse over area names on the map to find out how many squares they actually are.
This game is basically a set of quizzes which get progressively harder as we move through each 10 question game. It lacks action, but is good for practicing our skills.
This Millionaire game contains whole number tens, hundreds, thousands, place value questions and is good fun. Can be played in one player or two player mode.
This is a fun game where we have to choose which Pirate to cast our sword on, depending on the decimal place given at the top of screen information box. We move our sword to the correct Pirate and then click the mouse button.
In this game we have to type in a decimal value in between the two values they give us, and gradually work our way along the number line to the house where the criminal is hiding. Note that values like 0.5 have to be entered in the bottom right hand box as .5 (eg. There is no room for the leading zero).
In this Olympic Medals awards ceremony, choose the Long Jump even to do decimals. Drag the country to a Position number in the "Pos" column. Then click on this number with the mouse to have to country's details entered in there. Once all countries are in, click the Award Medals Button.
Getting this Puppy Race game started is tricky, because if there is only one player then you have to create a game moving through the options and then play against the computer. Not sure how multiplayer works, but the option is there.
In this flying game we click the mouse button to make our helicopter go up, and let go of the mouse button to let it go down, as it flies through the city. We are given a decimal value in the middle of the screen, and have to fly above or below the decimal towards the correct Fraction answer. If we fly too high or too low, or hit the decimal, the game ends.
The game takes a while to get used to, and it is very annoying that there is not a restart button. To restart a game we have to reload/refresh the web page with our browser.
In this Invading Aliens game we get to save the world from invading decimals by converting the fraction value given in the left hand corner to a decimal. We move the fraction man superhero using the arrow keys, and use the space bar to shoot. Note that the webpage loads the game in slowly, so we have to wait a minute or two for it to come in.
This is an online quiz activity. Note that we get given some study notes first, then we need to scroll down the web page to do the quiz that is shown above. When a decimal value is given, click the yellow fraction button which is equal to the given decimal value.
This is an online quiz activity. Note that we get given some study notes first, then we need to scroll down the web page to do the quiz that is shown above. When a Percent is given, type the /100 fraction in the answer box, and then click the yellow "Check" box. Note that we do not reduce fraction answers down, so that 80% is 80/100 and not 4/5 in this game.
In this Time Trial activity, we type the answer in the answer box and then press enter, (or click the check box). We are then given immediate feedback about our answer. At the end of the time we get a % accuracy score for our work.
In this Time Trial activity, we type the answer in the answer box and then press enter, (or click the check box). We are then given immediate feedback about our answer. At the end of the time we get a % accuracy score for our work.
