Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Fractions: Father's Day Edition

At work today, I was doing a lot of stuff with fractions. There was a treatment in the book of the so-called "Fudge Model" of fractions - the idea being that you think of a pan of fudge and cut it into various pieces and visualize fractions as different parts of this cut-up pan of fudge - that brought to mind something my dad did a very, very long time ago that I still remember with amusement (well amusement now; more like annoyance then).

To wit:

One night, we had brownies (or cake?) for dessert after dinner, and we each got a plate with a piece of brownie on it. Of course, being a greedy sugaraholic from way back, I was dissatisfied with my piece, so I told my dad "I want two pieces." To my surprise, he went for this suggestion and took my plate from me... and promptly cut the piece into two pieces and handed the plate back to me.

I am willing to say this now: good one, Dad.

(Note: under no circumstances should anyone ever take advantage of this confession to start calling me "Sally Two Pieces." You have been warned.)

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

It was just early training in creative problem solving, eh? :)

Sally said...

I suppose one could look at it as a case study in the importance of proper requirement specification... :)