The Elliptical Pool Table: A Mathematician's Dream

Never play pool against a mathematician! An entertaining and informative video demonstrate the real-world application of ellipses and the angle of incidence with an elliptical pool table.

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CCSS: Adaptable

Concepts

Additional Tags

Instructional Ideas

• Recreate an elliptical pool table or miniature golf station to reflect the conditions in the video
• Have learners watch the video before returning to class the next day to discuss what they have learned
• Use to open a lesson on ellipses

Classroom Considerations

• Assessment comes up right after the video ends, and it's difficult to return to the original viewing without going into fullscreen mode

Pros

• Provides discussion questions and a short assessment to check for understanding
• Fun to watch for both billiard enthusiasts and eager math students alike
• An amusing moment laments "annoying physics" as possibly impeding the mathematical experiment