Mathematics at the Curtis School

December 19, 2011: Steve Curtis was the head of the Math Department and a football coach (defensive backs). Today, he is the Principal of the Lower School.

This project officially began on December 19, 2011 in Steve’s classroom with his three geometry classes and two ACT preparation classes.  These classes learned about base-2 exponential notation by observing nested geometries using the tetrahedron and octahedron. 

The process.  These classes went deeper and deeper inside each object by dividing each edge in half and by connecting the  new vertices to create a smaller set of nesting tetrahedrons and octahedrons.  By about the 45th step within — on paper — the size of the tetrahedron-and-octahedron was about the size of a fermion. Within about 67 more steps, that size was approaching the Planck Length.  At that time there were about 112 steps within from the size of our original plastic models.

We then went out into the universe by multiplying each edge by 2. Somewhere between 90 and 98 steps, we were in the area of the Observable Universe.  It wasn’t until we followed Planck Time to the Age of the Universe did we finally settle on just over a total of 202 notations.

This project has been under the watchful eye of Steve Curtis right from its beginning.

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