Screaming Penguin - Source Does Matter

Brad DeLong has an interesting post with 100 Interesting Math Problems for students.

I have found myself thinking about this lately. I recently got Stephen Hawking's book On the Shoulders of Giant in which he reprints important astronomy/physics papers through history. Reading Copernicus's "On Revolutions" paper, though, one thing that stood out is how simple his math IS. Any 8th grader could do these problems. I remember thinking how great it would be if for you science/math classes in school, people just started with these papers and worked their way through them. Imagine 8th graders and you tell them "Venus was here at this time and this lattitude, and here at this time and this lattitude. Where will Venus be tonight?" as a problem?

This is what math really seemed to be lacking until I started taking college science classes: context. I know, I know, math is supposed to be beautiful and pure in and of itself, but lets face it: that shit is boring for most kids. If you actually taught kids that the reason we HAVE this math is to solve concrete and interesting problems, I think you would see a much better response to it, and Astronomy is cool. SlackAstro called it "a gateway drug to learning," and it is. You can use the "cool" of astronomy to get kids interested in math, physics, chemistry... even biology... because it touches so much and everything about it is something that can really capture the imagination in the way that..

In a 5 by 12 rectangle, one of the diagonals is drawn and circles are inscribed in both right triangles thus formed. Find the distance between the centers of the two circles.

... never would.