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Math Extended Essay

im a junior so this is my first year and we just started picking subjects and topics. due to all the good history and english advisors being taken i was stuck with doing math, which im good @ but lost on wt to do as a topic:: im not quite sure wt a topic has to be...is it question like?

would any of these be anywhere near a good topic::
topology
the mathematics behind waves
mathematics behind the chinese calendar

i also saw that someone did a survey and used statistics...is that okay 2 do 4 and e.e ?

please help!!...lol :confused:

Reply 1

James

14

I don't know about the requirements for your course, but in my opinion a study of waves (incorporating PDEs, the Wave Equation, Fourier Series, etc) would be a good choice. :smile:

Reply 2

nota bene

15

I am writing my EE in maths, on traffic flow (James, would you mind reading it through when I am finished in about 7-14 days?).

OP, try to stick to a topic that is suitable for treatment within the wordlimit, and somewhat original. Read the assessment criteria carefully, and ask your teacher for some old EEs so that you see what they can look like. A study of waves in some way sounds like an appropriate topic. If you really want topology I shall stress that you need to narrow it down _very_ much, and make sure you understand what you are doing, because in my opinion it would be quite hard.

Reply 3

tima89

5

A friend of mine is doing it on the Golden Ratio. It turned out there was more math behind it than i thought. Anyone doing the HL portfolio on 'golden quartics'? I thought that was pretty cool! By the way you can do an EE on solving quartics : )) Lots of methods...

Reply 4

James

14

nota bene

I am writing my EE in maths, on traffic flow (James, would you mind reading it through when I am finished in about 7-14 days?).

Sure, that sounds really interesting. PM me when you're finished, and I'll check it through. :smile:

Reply 5

kerii

OP

thanxx for the help...what is the golden ratio? and my firend came up with this one..would that be any where near okay??

what will the death rate from AIDS be in the year 2020?...im guessing i use statistics or sumthin

Reply 6

James

14

kerii

thanxx for the help...what is the golden ratio?

kerii

what will the death rate from AIDS be in the year 2020?...im guessing i use statistics or sumthin

I think you'd really struggle with that. It would be easy to set up a simple distribution modelled on previous data and extrapolate accordingly, but I certainly wouldn't have a clue how to do anything more advanced. And I assume your project needs to cover your chosen topic in some depth...

Reply 7

nota bene

15

kerii

thanxx for the help...what is the golden ratio? and my firend came up with this one..would that be any where near okay??

what will the death rate from AIDS be in the year 2020?...im guessing i use statistics or sumthin

Golden ratio is (Sqrt(5)+1)/2 if I am not totally wrong :p:

it is also noticable that (sqrt(5)-1)/2 =(Sqrt(5)+1)/2 -1.
All this is from the top of my head, but I think I am right...
www.wikipedia.org/wiki/golden_ratio
should be a working link(A)

James Gurung

Sure, that sounds really interesting. PM me when you're finished, and I'll check it through.

Sounds really nice=) I'll do so :smile:

edit: hehe James, you beat me on the golden ratio :tongue:

Reply 8

kerii

OP

ok lol im still confused....the golden ratio is used to show the relatioship betwen two quantities??so if its closer to the ratio then they are related??...

Reply 9

nota bene

15

If the relationship between two quantities _is_ the golden ratio, then it is what humans normally consider to be the 'perfect' proportions. I think you could to research on this by e.g. comparing proportions of faces on professional models etc. The golden ratio occurrs very often in nature, and also in maths all the time, limit of the area of Koch snowflake is the golden ratio, the same with continous fractions. Also many other things tend to the golden ratio... Interesting topic really (but not very original).

Reply 10

cjsk

what i did for mine was talk about the problem of squaring the circle. basically, i outlined the original problem and how there have been several attempts to solve it, and gave a proof that it's impossible..

Reply 11

rawkingpunkster

kerii

thanxx for the help...what is the golden ratio? and my firend came up with this one..would that be any where near okay??

what will the death rate from AIDS be in the year 2020?...im guessing i use statistics or sumthin

wow how are you going to do a whole EE just on stats alone. Beside, I'm pretty sure the factors and everything falls under geog :P

golden ratio or quadratics seem decent. waves too. investigate the phase shift and stuff as well.

Reply 12

HMSChocolate

13

rawkingpunkster

wow how are you going to do a whole EE just on stats alone. Beside, I'm pretty sure the factors and everything falls under geog :P

yeah, I agree. OP, the topic you suggested about AIDS and stats sounds more appropriate for Geog. For it to be Math you'd have to focus on calculating the stats and distributions.

See you math teacher for the assessment criteria for the math EE, then it might help you determine what kind of topic you need

Reply 13

kerii

OP

lol ok so scratch the aids one out...so if i did proving the gold ratio that would be good?.... nd thanxx 4 ur patience and help!

Reply 14

Lewb2009

nota bene

If the relationship between two quantities _is_ the golden ratio, then it is what humans normally consider to be the 'perfect' proportions. I think you could to research on this by e.g. comparing proportions of faces on professional models etc. The golden ratio occurrs very often in nature, and also in maths all the time, limit of the area of Koch snowflake is the golden ratio, the same with continous fractions. Also many other things tend to the golden ratio... Interesting topic really (but not very original).

Yes is quite a good subject to do for math EE, quite a few people i know applyin the golden spiral to mosque and other kinda of architecture. i wanna do an EE in math myself, mite consider it although its a bit too popular i think

Reply 15

IB-more

nota bene

If the relationship between two quantities _is_ the golden ratio, then it is what humans normally consider to be the 'perfect' proportions. I think you could to research on this by e.g. comparing proportions of faces on professional models etc. The golden ratio occurs very often in nature, and also in maths all the time, limit of the area of Koch snowflake is the golden ratio, the same with continuous fractions. Also many other things tend to the golden ratio... Interesting topic really (but not very original).

Wait... the area of a Koch Snowflake is phi? REALLY? How did I get a 20/20 on that portfolio and miss that?!

My advice: avoid math EE's like the plague. Think about it: only the people that get stuck with Math EE's and the people who are math brainiacs do math EE's. There's really no room for a person who's OK at math to do a math EE and get a good score without having to do so much more effort. The curve just doesn't work in your favor. I'd suggest doing something a little more subjective, perhaps like History or English? Also, I already know 2 people in 2 different schools writing their EE's on the Golden Ratio. So you might want to narrow it down... a lot.

</naysayer>

Reply 16

andy_cole2

14

avoid maths EE at all costs, top tip statistically (for all you mathematicians) mathematics EE's are among the worst results.