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Chapter 9. The Great Math Adventure

“For some reason, when I’m doing my arithmetic

homework, it seems more like a pain in the neck than a

math adventure.”

True enough!

But think about this for a moment…

What part of your life does not involve

mathematics…some form of counting

or measurement?

What about time…the counting and

measurement of seconds and hours? Or

distance…the measurement of space in

inches and feet…or centimeters and

meters? What about music…measured

in frequencies?

Think about Logo and the computer for

a moment. Everything you do on the

computer is translated into electrical

signals that are counted as zeros and

ones.

Everything we have been doing so far in our Great

Logo Adventure has been part of turtle geometry, right?

I hate to tell you this, but that’s mathematics.

Come on…let’s take a look.

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Logo Arithmetic

Remember back in the first Rabbit Trail where you

took a Turtle Walk. You used the multiplication symbol

then…

FD 10 * 5

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What would happen if that line said…

FD 10 + 5 or

FD 10 - 5 or

FD 10 / 5

Try these commands using variables…

MAKE “A 50

MAKE “B 100

MAKE “C :A + :B

FD :A + :B or FD 100 + 50

FD :C / :A * 10

This one’s a bit more interesting.

FD 150 / 50 * 10

That’s FD 150 divided by 50 = 3. 3 * 10 = 30 or FD 30.

FD :C / (:A * 3)

Does this command do the same thing? Why? Or why

not?

When Logo looks at a command that uses arithmetic,

it does the arithmetic in the standard mathematical

order…multiplication and division followed by addition

and subtraction.

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So…when Logo reads that line, it says FD 150. This

is divided by 50 * 3 or 150. So we have FD 150 / 150 or FD

1. Looks like the parentheses change things.

Parentheses are among the Logo delimiters that can

be used to change the order of operations.

“Delimiters…that’s a funny word!”

It may seem a bit strange. But when you think about

it, that’s just what they do. Delimiters define the limits of

an operation. Take a look…

The commands listed below use arithmetic signs to tell

the turtle to go FD 200.

FD 100 + 1000 / 10

FD 10 * (5 + 15)

FD (20 - 10) * (18 + 2)

Write down some other commands that will take the

turtle FD 200. Make sure you use parentheses in your

examples. Then test them out.

FD _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____

FD _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____

FD _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____

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Mathematical

Operations

There’s lots of other ways you can use arithmetic with

Logo. Here are the operations included with MSW Logo.

SUM DIFFERENCE MINUS

PRODUCT QUOTIENT REMAINDER

INT ROUND SQRT

POWER EXP LOG10

LN SIN RADSIN

COS RADCOS ARCTAN

RADARCTAN

Some of these are a bit advanced. But some are very

useful for all users.

FD SUM 50 50

What do you think that means? You’re right…FD 100.

Forward the sum of 50 and 50 or 50 + 50. How about…

FD DIFFERENCE 300 200

Forward the difference between 300 and 200 or

300 - 200.

FD PRODUCT 10 10

Forward the product of 10 times 10 or 10 * 10.

FD QUOTIENT 1000 10

Forward the quotient of 1000 divided by 10 or

1000 / 10.

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FD REMAINDER 1000 300

Forward the remainder of 1000 divided by 300. How

much is that?

FD INT (121.8 - 21.1)

Forward the integer of 121.8 - 21.1. That equals 100.7.

But, since the command is FD INTeger, or whole number,

the decimal is dropped.

FD ROUND (121.8 - 21.5)

Forward 121.8 - 21.5 rounded off. The answer is 100.3,

which rounds to 100.

All these examples would be much simpler if they just

said FD 100. After all the arithmetic is done, they each tell

Ernestine, the turtle, to go FD 100.

So what?

Well, what if you want to add or multiply a bunch of

variables?

FD SUM (PRODUCT :A :X)(QUOTIENT :B :Y)

REPEAT (PRODUCT :A :B) [FD SUM :C :D RT 90]

You’ll see some examples of this type of thing later on.

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The Tangram Procedures

First let’s take a look at the procedures to draw the

Tangram Puzzle pieces you saw earlier.

TO TRIANGLE.RT :SIDE

FD :SIDE RT 135

FD :SIDE / SQRT 2 RT 90

FD :SIDE / SQRT 2 RT 135

END

TO TRIANGLE.LT :SIDE

FD :SIDE LT 135

FD :SIDE / SQRT 2 LT 90

FD :SIDE / SQRT 2 LT 135

END

TO SQUARE.LT :SIDE

MAKE “SIDE1 :SIDE / ( 2 * SQRT 2 )

REPEAT 4 [ FD :SIDE1 LT 90 ]

END

TO SQUARE.RT :SIDE
MAKE “SIDE1 :SIDE / ( 2 * SQRT 2 )

REPEAT 4 [ FD :SIDE1 RT 90 ]

END

TO MED.TRI.RT :SIDE

FD 2 * ( :SIDE / ( 2 * SQRT 2 ) ) RT 135

FD :SIDE / 2 RT 90

FD :SIDE / 2 RT 135

END

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TO MED.TRI.LT :SIDE

FD 2 * ( :SIDE / ( 2 * SQRT 2 ) ) LT 135

FD :SIDE / 2 LT 90

FD :SIDE / 2 LT 135

END

TO SMALL.TRI.RT :SIDE

FD :SIDE / 2 RT 135

FD ( :SIDE / SQRT 2 ) / 2 RT 90

FD ( :SIDE / SQRT 2 ) / 2 RT 135

END

TO SMALL.TRI.LT :SIDE

FD :SIDE / 2 LT 135

FD ( :SIDE / SQRT 2 ) / 2 LT 90

FD ( :SIDE / SQRT 2 ) / 2 LT 135

END

TO PARGRAM.LT :SIDE

REPEAT 2 [ FD :SIDE / ( 2 * SQRT 2 ) LT 45 ~

FD :SIDE / 2 LT 135 ]

END
TO PARGRAM.RT :SIDE

REPEAT 2 [ FD :SIDE / ( 2 * SQRT 2 ) RT 45 ~

FD :SIDE / 2 RT 135]

END

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To give you an idea of what you can do with tangram

shapes, try this procedure.

TO TANGRAM :SIDE

SETH 90 TRIANGLE.LT :SIDE

FD :SIDE SETH 0

TRIANGLE.LT :SIDE

FD :SIDE SETH 270

SMALL.TRI.LT :SIDE

FD :SIDE / 2 SETH 225

MED.TRI.RT :SIDE

SQUARE.LT :SIDE FD :SIDE1

PARGRAM.LT :SIDE

END

This procedure uses the different shape procedures to

make one big shape. Which one?

You'll have to run the procedure to see.

Remember, when you run the TANGRAM procedure,

you have to type a value for :SIDE…

TANGRAM 200

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What’s a

Parallelogram

“Logy, there’s something strange here? You’ve got a

rectangle that looks like it’s falling over.”

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“You’re right, you know. I never thought of a

parallelogram like that,” said Logy.

“Para-who?”

“That’s another shape, a parallelogram. You might

call that the granddaddy of a square,” Logy answered.

“I don’t get it? What do you mean, granddaddy?”

“Take a look at this procedure. It’s called PARGRAM

for short.”

TO PARGRAM :SIDE

REPEAT 2 [ FD :SIDE RT 45 FD :SIDE / 2 RT 135]

END

“What would happen if I changed the angles from RT

45 and RT 135 to RT 90?”

“Hey, that would be a rectangle,” said Morf, jumping

up and down excitedly.

“So, you can say that a rectangle is like the ’child’ of

a parallelogram.

“Now look at the sides. You’ve got two that are the

length of :SIDE and two that are the length of :SIDE

divided by 2. What would happen if I took away the

’divided by 2?”

“Well, let’s see. You’d have two sets of sides that all

use the same variable. That means they’d all be the same.”

“And if all the angles are RT 90, what’s that?”

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“Hey, that’s a square!”

“OK, then. Is it fair to say that a square is the child of

a rectangle?"

“Seems that way.”

“Right! So now we can add a new rule.”

A square has four equal sides and four equal angles.

A rectangle has two sets of equal sides and four equal

angles.

A parallelogram has two sets of equal sides and two

sets of equal angles.

____________________________________________________________________

Fun With

Tangrams

Enough of this stuff. Let’s have some more fun with

tangrams?

Put two small triangles together. What shape do you

get? Can you make a square from the two small triangles?

How about a larger triangle? A parallelogram?

Put the parallelogram and two small triangles

together. What shape is that? Can you make a square?

What about a trapezoid?

“A what?”

“A Trap-e-zoid! That’s another shape, Morf. It’s like

a parallelogram but it only has one set of parallel sides

instead of two.”

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“That‘s no trap-e-whatever. That’s a picture of the

pup tent we use out in the back yard!”

“Get serious, Morf. Can you make a triangle using

five pieces of the puzzle?

You'll find lots of puzzle books that have tangrams in

them. But you don't really need those books, do you? I’ll

bet you can think up all sorts of shapes on your own.

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Making Crazy

Shapes

Why not have the computer think up some shapes for

you?

These might come out a bit crazy. But who cares?

That's the fun of having the turtle do things for you.

CRAZY.SHAPES is included in the TANGRAM.LGO

procedure.

TO CRAZY.SHAPES :SIDE

SHAPES :SIDE

MOVE :SIDE

CRAZY.SHAPES :SIDE

END

TO SHAPES :SIDE

MAKE “SHAPE INT RANDOM 10

IF :SHAPE = 0 [TRIANGLE.RT :SIDE]

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IF :SHAPE = 1 [TRIANGLE.LT :SIDE]

IF :SHAPE = 2 [MED.TRI.RT :SIDE]

IF :SHAPE = 3 [MED.TRI.LT :SIDE]

IF :SHAPE = 4 [SMALL.TRI.RT :SIDE]

IF :SHAPE = 5 [SMALL.TRI.LT :SIDE]

IF :SHAPE = 6 [SQUARE.RT :SIDE]

IF :SHAPE = 7 [SQUARE.LT :SIDE]

IF :SHAPE = 8 [PARGRAM.RT :SIDE]

IF :SHAPE = 9 [PARGRAM.LT :SIDE]

END

TO MOVE :SIDE

MAKE “MOVE INT RANDOM 5

IF :MOVE = 0 [SETH HEADING + 45]

IF :MOVE = 1 [SETH HEADING + 90]

IF :MOVE = 2 [FD :SIDE]

IF :MOVE = 3 [FD :SIDE / 2]

IF :MOVE = 4 [FD ( :SIDE / SQRT 2 ) / 2]

END

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Squares and

Square Roots

Look back at the TRIANGLE.RT procedure. Got any

idea what the SQRT 2 means?

That number is used to figure out how long the two

short sides of the triangle are. The left side is the longest

side, right? And we know that we have two equal sides

connected by an angle of 90 turtle turns, or 90 degrees.

A long time ago, some mathematician figured out that

when you know the long side of a triangle that has two equal

sides and a right angle, then the short sides equal…

<Long side> / SQRT 2

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There’s lots of rules like this for triangles and other

shapes. We’ve already figured out a bunch of them.

“But what does SQRT 2 mean?”

Actually, it stands for the square root of 2. That sounds

a lot worse than it really is. It doesn’t have anything to do

with the square shape. It’s part of an arithmetic problem

that asks what number, multiplied by itself, gives you the

answer of 2.

What’s SQRT 100? SQRT 9? SQRT 16?

Think about it for a minute. What number multiplied

by itself equals 100?

10 * 10 = 100

What number multiplied by itself equals 9?

3*3=9

What number multiplied by itself equals 16?

4 * 4 = 16.

Now let’s turn the square root around. Square roots

are like saying, “Here’s the answer. Tell me what the

question is…here’s 16, tell me how I got that?”

So let’s look at the question…4 multiplied by itself

equals what? In the list of Logo arithmetic operations,

there is a POWER command.

FD POWER 4 2

That’s like saying forward 4 to the power of 2, or 4-

squared, or 4 times 4.

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FD POWER 10 3

This is like saying forward 10-cubed or 10 * 10 * 10 or

10 to the power of 3. The 2 and the 3 are called “exponents.”

“What about that thing called RANDOM?”

“Wait a bit. There’s a really great example of that

coming up.”

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Counting

Numbers and

Stuff

COUNT is another very useful Logo command. It

outputs the number of elements in its input. That input

can be a word or a list.

SHOW COUNT “LOGO

SHOW COUNT [LOGY AND MORF]

Here’s a line from a procedure we talk about in chapter

14. There’s a lot in this example. But you’re only interested

in that first line…the one with COUNT in it. Let’s see if

we could use that line to help make some sense out of

COUNT.

REPEAT ( ( COUNT :NU