A challenge for you math wizzes and Civil War buffs...

[demtenjeep]

I need some Math word problems for a project.

They need to be centered around the Civil War and preferably two or three steps.

Anyone want to give it a try?

[muddrunner17]

1. Can you give some more background on the project?

Who will be solving the problems? What functions and how difficult do you want it to be?

[demtenjeep]

2. It is for a Freshman level quiz bowl

I could use varying difficulty levels

[ixion]

3. there are two weevils in your hard-tack... which one do you choose?

Answer:
The Lesser of Two Weevils. :+

[XemaSab]

6. That is the worst joke I ever heard

:o

[ixion]

7. It's actually from the movie Master and Commander

so you can blame Peter Weir. :)

[XemaSab]

10. I do

:P

[XemaSab]

4. Can you throw out an example of what you're looking for?

:shrug:

[phaseolus]

5. lead, bullets, powder, etc

Find out some facts about a particular battle -- number of infantry on either side, ignore artillery to make the problem simpler. Find out how much a bullet weighed for a typical firearm, and how fast they could be reloaded. Learn how long the battle lasted, and how many casualties each side had.

From those facts, a kid oughtta be able to calculate how much lead is required to make all those bullets for that particular battle, and calculate how many bullets needed to be fired to result in a casualty on the other side.

Unfortunately my calculus is a little rusty, but this problem kinda needs a calculus treatment to be precise -- since both armies are getting smaller as the battle wears on, the rate of bullet consumption's going to change... a fact which can be ignored, or treated by breaking the battle up into hour-long chunks as an approximation, at the teacher's discretion.

[Hippo_Tron]

8. You'd need the first derivative for the bullet consumption function, I believe

That would give you the marginal rate of bullet consumption.

[ThoughtCriminal]

9. If one Reb can whoop three Yankees...

I think there may have actually been Confederate textbooks like that.

[demtenjeep]

11. I think they want more like percentages of soldiers killed or wounded

in battles. Maybe 40,000 Black soldiers were killed or wounded out of 200,000 ect...