Catching Practice

Wednesday, August 29, 2012 11:08 AM

Problem: 12 people are standing in a circle; one has a ball. The one with the ball passes it to the person 3 away to the left, and that person passes it to the next one 3 away to the left, and so on. Does every person get the ball? What if it is passed 4 to the left? Exploration

Very well laid out plan. :) The "I will continue" part shows good forethought.

Why did you change your wording? What does it meant to say the same people will get the ball? Do you have some reasoning behind this prediction?

Good citation!

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What about 8? Or 9? So far you have 3 failures (2, 3, 4) and 2 successes (5, 7). Is that enough to establish the pattern?

Extension with a plan. :) Good.

You found one example to support your rule extending to other scenarios. Is that enough to establish that pattern?

Not proven. Rather, supported. Proven means you have use the rules of logic to explain why that will happen every time. You showed it work one more time.

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you have use the rules of logic to explain why that will happen every time. You showed it work one more time.

What does "if and only if" mean in math? It is very specific, so be sure it means what you think it does!

Clever.

But that only works if you know s & r are factors of T. Otherwise, you could end up with 5 * 12 = 60 So in your "let" statements, you need to specify that s and r are factors of T.
Share/conclusion: When 12 people are standing in a circle, one starts with the ball and passes it to the person 3 to her left and this pattern continues, not everyone will get the ball. The number of people who will get the ball is equal to the total number in the circle (12) divided by the spots it is passed (3), which is 12/3=4 people. Algebraically, this can be described as T/s=r, where T is the total number of people, s is the spots it is passed, and r is the number of people who get the ball. This can be applied to any number of people in the circle, and when s is a factor of T. If the ball moves a number of spaces that is not a factor of the total number, it will reach everyone exactly once before repeating itself.

I'd say something here about it holding when T is any whole number. Make your "share" a different section from your summary. You might want to include specific examples in the share you don't in the summary. Did you try to find a counterexample to your rule? What numbers haven't you considered? (You looked at factors and non-factors is there a special subgroup of one of those?)

TY for the color change. :) Are these notes detailed

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TY for the color change. :) Are these notes detailed enough for you to look back at later and understand easily?

No wrap-up summary of what you discovered. :(

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