HOCKEY PUCK MATH: For Radius, Diameter, Area, Circumference, and Volume

OPENING STATEMENT

I’m a journalism student in college, and math is one of the requirements for not only graduation, but also to help me transfer to a four-year school. There are going to be some situations coming my way involving math, so I had better learn about it now.

Math is all around us, especially in sports. I’m a sports fan, and I especially enjoy watching hockey. I’m curious about how a hockey puck is measured in advanced mathematical terms (Volume, Area and Circumference).

Face it, very few people like math. Math is almost everybody's least-favorite subject in school and in life. But math is all around us.

With this illustrative piece, you will first learn how a puck is measured in area and circumference . Second, you will learn how to measure the ­diameter , so you will know how to determine the radius . Lastly, you will measure the puck by its volume .

KNOWING ITS RADIUS BY KNOWING THE DIAMETER

The diameter of a hockey puck is three inches (stickshack website). You divide the diameter of three inches by two, and you get a radius of 1.5 inches .

KNOWING THE FORMULA FOR AREA AND CIRCUMFERENCE

In the book Elementary Algebra for College Students , Allen R. Angel discusses the formula for area and circumference, which you can use to measure a hockey puck (144).

Area =

r ^(squared)                        Circumference = 2

r

Keep in mind that 

KNOWING HOW TO MEASURE THE PUCK BY VOLUME

In the same math textbook, Allen talks about the formula for right circular cylinder , which is used to measure volume (145). And you use that formula to measure the volume of the hockey puck.

Volume = 

r h

Hockey Puck – Stickshack website

<http://www.stickshack.com/Hockey-Pucks.htm >

Angel, Allen R. –  Elementary Algebra for College Students – 7^th Edition

New York, et. Al – Custom Publishing, 2010.  Chapter 2 (Pages 144).

Angel, Allen R. –  Elementary Algebra for College Students – 7^th Edition

New York, et. Al – Custom Publishing, 2010.  Chapter 2 (Pages 145).

 

For a visual illustration via PowerPoint slideshow, click on this link

http://www.4shared.com/document/4IMmBalc/Hockey_Puck_Math.html