Logarithms are everywhere. Ever use any of the following phrases?

• 6 figures
• Double digits
• Order of magnitude

You’re describing numbers in terms of their powers of 10 — a logarithm. Ever mention an interest rate or rate of… Read article

Hi all, I wanted to announce that Math, Better Explained is available on the Kindle store!

If you’re looking for a digital gift this holiday season, I know just the ticket . Continue reading →

My favorite analogies explain a thought and help you explore deeper truths. Here’s a metaphor that captures my stance on learning:

• Rote details are arrows, intuition is the bow.

Our goal is to hunt down problems. You can… Read article

The Pythagorean Theorem shows how strange our concept of distance is. Using the rule a² + b² = c², we can trade some “a” to get more “b”.

Starting with

means “A 13-inch pizza equals a 13-inch pizza”. Sure.… Read article

After a few years, I thought it was time for a new layout. The goals:

• Be warm & friendly
• Be clean & readable (more whitespace & larger fonts)
• Be easy to skim & search (search results and posts have

Seeing imaginary numbers as rotations was one of my favorite aha moments:

i, the square root of -1, is a number in a different dimension! Once that clicks, we can use multiplication to “combine” rotations of two complex numbers:… Read article

I’ve made aha.betterexplained.com to share aha! moments. In 3 words, “Twitter meets Wikipedia”.

Why?

1. Writing articles hurts: research, collect thoughts, organize, filter the best, and write. This takes 20+ hours, and most articles languish half-done.
2. People don’t share

Sine waves confused me. Yes, I can mumble "SOH CAH TOA" and draw lines within triangles. But what does it mean?

I was stuck thinking sine had to be extracted from other shapes. A quick analogy:

You: Geometry is

Calculus examples are boring. "Hey kids! Ever wonder about the distance, velocity, and acceleration of a moving particle? No? Well you're locked in here for 50 minutes!"

I love physics, but it's not the best lead-in. It makes us wait… Read article

Similarity has bothered me for a long time. Why do all circles have the same formula for area — how do we know nothing sneaky happens when we make them larger? In physics, don’t weird things happen when you scale… Read article