[Edu-sig] more card play

[kirby urner]

On Wed, Nov 4, 2009 at 12:06 AM, kirby urner <kirby.urner at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Tue, Nov 3, 2009 at 6:37 PM, Edward Cherlin <echerlin at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Mon, Nov 2, 2009 at 22:20, Laura Creighton <lac at openend.se> wrote:
>>> In a message of Mon, 02 Nov 2009 20:27:35 PST, Edward Cherlin writes:
>>>>Cards: You are right on the merits for combinatory math, but you will
>>>>run into strong cultural aversions.
>>>
>>> Why?  Especially when _dice_ seem to be the preferred way to teach
>>> this stuff?  (Or is this only here?)
>>
>> I'm including the rest of the world, not just the US. I expect issues
>> to be raised by Evangelical Christians, Muslims and others in various
>> countries. Dice might be easier, because casting lots is mentioned
>> with approval in the Bible. Certainly we can come up with equipment
>> that is not associated with common taboos.
>>
>
> The goal is not just to teach combinatorics but an object oriented way
> of modeling stuff.
>
> What's attractive about using a deck of playing cards, per my recent
> examples, is you might have a Card class, a Deck class, and a Hand
> class (i.e. what each player has in her or his possession).
>

Just to follow up on this theme, today I was shown one of those books
from the LIFE series in the 1960s that were so influential at the
time, in just about every school library, or at least in mine.  I'd
spent hours with this book in my boyhood:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/17157315@N00/4126467006/

So here's some of the playing card imagery prominent in the
combinatorics and probably section.  I have to think this material was
influential, given how much time I spent with this book:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/17157315@N00/4126468504/in/photostream/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/17157315@N00/4125698421/in/photostream/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/17157315@N00/4125698093/in/photostream/

I had a suggestion from Carl T. to help promulgate Pycons and pointed
him to my post here passing on Catherine's news of poster sessions,
including virtual.  Also, I'm back on math-thinking-l:

http://mail.geneseo.edu/pipermail/math-thinking-l/2009-November/001327.html

Kirby