POV and Pic Problems

POV

Here's a pic, courtesy of my good friend Jerry Burdick:

Jerry wears many hats: dog trainer extraordinaire, IT professional, bass player with mad skills, overall great guy and salt of the earth, and last but not least...great photographer. With online sharing resources such as Flickr, etc., teachers have access to loads of free pictures. The problem is, the vast majority of these pictures don't capture our world from a mathematically friendly point-of-view. You can't blame Jerry though. How often does Jerry think, "Today I'm going to cut a satellite dish in half and take a picture of the cross-section so Mr. 2pi will have a good resource for his chapter on conic sections!"? Never.

Sometimes if we just change the POV a bit, we get something a bit closer to what we need in the classroom:

Same tower, same Jerry, different POV. I'm not sure exactly how I would use that, but I do know that it's a better candidate for appearing in my slidedeck in one of my classes than the first picture. (If I were really mean I could make the students count triangles...mwahaha!)

Start Snappin'

Keep a camera with you at all times. If your phone is anything like mine, then you will want a better quality camera that is a little bit more robust and can fit in your pocket or purse. No need for a Digital SLR with multiple lenses, but at least something whose primary function is picture-taking.

Now, just keep your eyes peeled and be on the lookout for anything mathematical and interesting. A scenario that, in pixelated form, could deliver the catalyst for that essential, burning question, all with the click of a button. Once you've done that, load it up to your favorite photo-sharing site and post the link in the comments.

Have fun!!