Math from My Little Pony

Dr. Christine Alvarado, a science professor at UC San Diego, on how playing with My Little Ponies moved her toward math and engineering:

When I started, I took the hair on the Pony's tail and divided it into three pieces for braiding. Soon I became bored with a single braid. I then divided the tail into nine pieces and made three groups. I braided each group of three until I had three braids, then took these three braids and braided them together.

Soon I was up to starting with twenty-seven pieces (nested down to nine braids, then to three and then one) and then on to eighty-one. All the while I was learning about math: I saw that division is the process of taking a large number of things and grouping them into a smaller number of groups. In order to end up with one even braid at the end, I had to be able to divide the initial number evenly by three, then by three, and then by three again, until I ended up with just one braid.

The day after that page was made, I took a photo of some of my daughter's ponies, to use as an illustration at an announcement post, Sleep, Teens, My Little Pony & Science.

Holly, 18, had been away from the house. She came in and saw the ponies out, so I showed her the photo and read her a bit of the Christine Alvarado article. Holly got another pony to show me, told me about the plan of the braids and the angles to get them to cross and stay crossed, and what could be done with those braids, but that she usually twists them into a bun, and had left some unbraided hair out at the bottom of the mane to fasten that bun up with.

I couldn't even keep up with the explanation. Just sayin'... 🙂

There's more of what Christine Alvarado wrote here:
SandraDodd.com/mylittlepony
photos by Sandra Dodd, but Holly did all the braiding