[math-fun] Article on math education

I wonder how those prospective teachers would have fared

comparing 7^sqrt(8) vs. 8^sqrt(7) instead of 1/13 vs. 0.13

I originally misread this as "comparing 7*sqrt(8) vs. 8*sqrt(7)", which is actually a pretty good question for diagnosing underlying math knowledge. (I'm afraid that many of them, if told "You can do this in your head", would object "You can't expect us to compute square roots without a calculator!") Jim Propp