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This is a new section to showcase real math being used by real companies.
Will Wright makes toys that make worlds (TedTalk archives)... This game, Spore, which will not be released until next year, has an amazing amount of science and
mathematics in it. He won't disclose the specifics in the talk, but the constant reference to the mathematical algorithms that "make" the game will sure drive a point to your students.
Jonathan Harris tells the Web's secret stories (TedTalks archives)... This site, We
Feel Fine, is an amazing metadata compilation that takes the "temperature" of the world's feelings at this moment in time by collecting data from all the blog posts that are being added to the web. This is a site that creates an interactive visualization of
the data that it collects. Before you look at the site, it will help to watch Harris explain the site first in
the TedTalk.
Ray Kurzweil on Technology's Accelerating Power (TedTalks archives). This TedTalk is filled with beautiful exponential graphs showing how the progress
of technology is exponential. Graphs on DNA sequencing, the world-wide-web, size of computers, evolution of technology, etc.
EBay's Chaos Theory (Fast Company Magazine, November 2007) I am including this article because it actually discusses how the rate
of growth of eBay is slowing and how their growth has reached an inflection point. I just had to read these paragraphs to my calculus class. The article is available online.
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