Math Field Trip to UBC!

So on Thursday, October 21, we went to UBC to watch a game show called, Who Wants to be a Mathematician. It was a lot of fun cheering on Kathleen as she did a lot of very hard math questions, and even though she didn't win, it was still awesome to root for her and watch her do these mind-boggling problems. We also attended a seminar and a workshop teaching us more about the world of mathematics. Ten things that I learned about math are:
1. Math is a lot harder than I thought.
2. Math has a lot of practical applications in everyday life.
3. Math can make you a millionaire.
4. Doing math all day is actually a job.
5. Math is more than just calculations and numbers.
6. Math can be a lot of fun when you work with others.
7. A lot of people like math.
8. Watching people do math is entertaining!
9. People did complicated math thousands of years ago.
10. Math can bring people together.

The seminar, "And a Millionaire, too..." was really interesting. The speaker was humorous and knew a lot about math. He showed us how to prove the Pythagorean Theorem and told us that this theorem was probably already discovered by Chinese people. He also did a whole bunch of other complicated equations that I didn't quite understand, but it was still fun to see all those numbers being put together into something that made sense. The speaker explained how you could become a millionaire by solving one of the Seven Millenium Questions, and that it is better to be a mathematician than a millionaire, because a millionaire is just someone with a lot of money, and a million isn't that much, really.

During the last part of the day, we went to a university classroom and took part in a math workshop where we worked with each other on some math questions while UBC students helped us. It was a lot of fun working with my friends on the problems, although some of them were quite difficult and took more than 10 minutes to solve. The UBC students were very helpful and friendly and gave us a lot of help whever we needed it. This workshop helped me with my future learning by showing me that it is easier to learn with other people around you and that with a little patience and perseverance, you can do solve almost any math problem!