Visit: our HOME LEARNING PAGES and our Interactive Mathematical Games section. Browse our Maths in the News section. For our H and AH students: Scholar Log-in Page.

Our 75 Madras College entrants to the Senior Challenge this year gained 3 Gold, 5 Silver and 25 Bronze. All our Gold winners are from S5: Robert Woollins, Ian Johnston and Katie James and all three have qualified for entry to the prestigious British Maths Olympiad. Congratulations to all our young Mathematicians who helped achieve this magnificent set of awards. Read more details.

Congratulations to Jonathan Cameron S6, Ian Johnston S5, Robert Woollins S5, and Katie James S5 who, on Monday 10th November, successfully competed in the UKMT Senior Team Maths Challenge Regional Final at the University of Edinburgh along with teams from 16 other schools. Competition was very tough and after three gruelling rounds of Mathematical problem solving our Madras College team finished a very creditable 3rd place!

• The incredible Stereoscopic Animated Hypercube. Worth getting a red/blue viewer to watch this 3D projection of a spinning tesseract. Also: Stellations of the Dodecahedron
• The Art of Mathematics from the BBC Website
• Try Eratosthenes Experiment with your class on 22nd Sept (the solar equinox) and send in your calculation of the circumference of the Earth - a great cross-cutting theme for your CfE!
• Enjoy Life
• Maths can inspire great art: this on-line Exhibition of Mathematical Art is a prime example. You can explore the mathematical art work of 44 different artists on this Site - enjoy!
• Check out this Maths and Craft blog
• The World Clock Site will provide plenty starting points for discussion.
• Visit the remarkable  60 Optical Illusions & Visual Phenomena Site created by Michael Bach, University of Freiburg, Germany
• Investigate the Distance Travelled by the Vertex of a Rolling Polygon using this excellent animation from NRICH
• Bloxorg is a clever problem solving game of rolling cuboids
• Try Eleusis Express with your Maths class - a unique card game involving pattern spotting
• Mathematical analysis has solved the mystery of that astonishing chord at the beginning of the Beatles classic 'A Hard Day's Night'. Read how Jason Brown used Fourier Analysis to solve the mystery: Mathematics, Physics and A Hard Day's Night . Is there no limit to the powers of Mathematics?
• A 5th November link: Can you fill the firework outline with the Tangram Pieces?
• Cartoons from Adison University - a growing collection
• Just how much information can be conveyed by 15 moving dots? Visit the Biomotion Lab to find out. Mathematics in Motion!
• These applets explore the fascinating properties of the Arbelos.
• Watch Leonardo's Notebook page on Geometrical Solids come to life!
• Visit LT Scotland's Mathematics Page
• Akiyoshi's illusion pages have some startling visual effects
• This excellent Sudoku Solver can be used as a tutorial to learn new strategies
• An introduction to Penrose Tiles then download the software called Bob
• Visit the Institute For Figuring where there is an on-line Mathematical Paper Folding Exhibit.
• The 1st World Sudoku Championship was held March 10-12 2006. Download the instruction booklet, it has examples of all the different types of puzzle (with answers!)

Our S1 (new S2) Team won the Fife Junior Maths Challenge Cup on Tues 24th June. Competing against 15 other teams from Secondary schools all over Fife, Jacob Lamb, Andrei Ruskuc, Paul Sinclair and Finlay Williamson gained an astonishing total of 660 points to achieve their remarkable victory. Congratulations to the team on their tremendous achievement.

More details and a photograph

Our 5th Year Team was the overall winner in this contest and our 4th Year team was placed 3rd in their category . These results were announced at the prizegiving ceremony at Heriot-Watt University on Monday 16th June. Congratulations to both teams on their tremendous achievement.

More details and a photograph

PI DAY is Friday 3/14. We are delighted to announce that the

UK Schools Pi Memorising Record

has been broken by Daniel Ramsay an S2 pupil at Boclair Academy. He has memorised 701 decimal places. The previous record of 628 decimal places was held by Colm MacQueen formerly of Largs Academy and was set in 2003. Congratulation to Daniel on this magnificent achievement. His ambition is 1000 places. Yet again the UK Record is retained by a Scottish pupil!

At Madras College we held our own class Pi Memorising contests. One of our stars was Mhairi Ramsay (S1) who achieved 86 decimal places. Is our school record at risk? This was 160 places set by Dave Stewart way back in 1999. Congratulations Mhairi and keep going for the school record!

For those who wish to attempt a record bid: visit A Million Digits of Pi - be ambitious!

A total of 60 National Awards (8 Gold, 28 Silver and 24 Bronze) were gained by our Madras College entrants to this contest - the 2nd highest total of awards ever! Congratulations to all our winners. Special congratulations to Ian Johnston, Robert Woollins and Katie James whose high scores gained them entry to the European Pink Kangaroo follow-up round.

More details here.

Class 1YT have been creating Circle Diagrams. Can you figure out the method they used?

3XP have been investigating Pythagorean Triples. You can read one of their write-ups (by Fiona Meek) here: Pythagorean Triples

Exactly what is Maddy's Law ?

Exactly what is a One-Switch Palindrome ?

Try the Chinese Test Question - E-mail the organisers your solution and..... who knows - you may be lucky!

Class 1XP has been creating Tough Fractions problems. They invite you to send in solutions and your own 'tough fractions' problems for them to try. Send these to:

madrascollege.maths@fife.gov.uk

Thanks to Matt H for his solution to question 7 (created by Bryony) received on 17/4/07. Bryony has checked your work.

Our Madras College team achieved a magnificent 3rd place in this National Final and was ranked as the top State Secondary school out of 63 teams . Congratulations go to Holly Fleming (S4), Jonathan Cameron (S4), Paddy Davies (S3) and Ian Johnston (S3) for gaining their 3rd place medals.

More details here.

Try the June Problems. We would suggest that...

Second Tier is suitable for S1-S2

Third Tier is suitable for S3-S4

Fourth Tier is suitable for S5-S6

Also remember to try the unsolved Tough Nuts.

Gordon Hill and Alina Popa of class 2ZP have been working recently on Self-descriptive Numbers.

Mathematics Guide This section of the Official String Theory Site provides a fascinating insight into the sheer power and the immense importance of Mathematics in our current attempts to describe all that there is!

Thanks to Elliot Husband-Powton (S6) for pointing our attention towards the recently opened architectural homage to sinusoidal curves in Edinburgh. The new Leith Street Bridge boasts possibly the largest Sine (or Cosine) Curve in Scotland. Suppose the cylindrical walkway has diameter 2 units. Now imagine a circular disk (same diameter) traveling steadily along the inside of the cylinder. The end of a unit radius line that rotates steadily around the disk will trace out one of the patterns on the walkway. Seen from the side this will create a perfect Sine Curve. We need better photographs... any offers? E-mail them to us.

Craig Munro in class 1B added 10 randomly generated 2-digit numbers in 20·35 seconds. Can anyone beat this?

Why not join in our new 'Make up a Cheese Question' contest. All you have to do is submit a mathematical question which uses Hamish Hepburn's Cheese Graph. Follow the link for further details.

Thanks to L Watson and Hayley Peace of Kelso High School (excellent Biology pages!) for their Cheese Graph Questions.

Maths in The News

Our Maths in the News has a recent feature on the work of Dr. Suffern who creates award-winning mathematical works of art. You can also read about some fascinating new discoveries concerning Fibonacci-type numbers.

Now available: Cross-Sums No1 and Number Snake No1.

We are pleased to present our new Web-Based Activity Sheets. These make use of a few of the wonderful applets available from WisWeb

We have the description and rules of the amazing GAME OF SET and have also provided you with instant templates to print your own pack of cards. This game is played in a huge number of schools in the US. Enjoy!

Paul McCartney's Jotter was auctioned a few years ago in Japan. We have obtained a scan of two pages from this jotter and can now reveal the trouble he had with his Maths. Would his Mathematics teacher agree with him when he sings: 'Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away'? Visit McCartney's Jotter to find out!