Posts

Course Reflection

When looking back at my time in this class, I can genuinely say that it was one of the best, most interesting courses that I have taken during my undergraduate degree. I thoroughly enjoyed every lecture and learned new things that I hadn't ever studied or looked into deeply before. As a finance student, we use math quite a bit (albeit not in the most traditional sense) however I have never really thought about the origins and history of mathematics. I found the Mayan history of mathematics to be one of the most interesting things that we learned about during the semester. I found this to be especially interesting to me as I have traveled and seen the Mayan ruins in Mexico as a child, and I can recall this being quite interesting to me. My family travels to Mexico every Christmas, and it was incredibly interesting to learn about how advanced they were, with seemingly no outside information. I think that one of the best parts about this class was how diverse our classroom was. Th...

Numbers with Personality

In terms of numbers having personality, I definitely think that this is something that would be interesting to introduce to my students. Personally, the only times that I have ever really associated numbers with anything would be by jersey numbers in sports. Whether it be my own numbers that I personally wore while playing basketball or hockey, or favourite professional players of mine. I will sometimes see a number, 23 for example, and associate it with a player, in this case Michael Jordan. When choosing a jersey number back when I played sports, I would tend to lean towards numbers that had a significant meaning to who I was. I was born on the 11th month (November), on the 21st day, in 1998. So the numbers 11, 21, and 98 had always been ones that I would lean towards. In the Mayan culture numbers had significance as well. Each number had a specific meaning associated with it. I found this to be very interesting and I ended up spending about a half an hour looking into the differen...

Arithmetic of the Medieval Universities

The first thing that I thought was interesting after reading this article was how much math has progressed from medieval times to now. With the way that technology has progressed from medieval times it is quite understandable how rapidly mathematics would have changed. One thing that is interesting is that the foundations of these calculations are still the same. It is quite interesting that these calculations have gotten so complex since that time. The second thing that I found interesting was the wide array of mathematics subjects taught by many of the universities in medieval times. Prior to reading this article, I didn't even know that universities were that complex during those times! I found it really interesting that universities all over Europe and around the world taught such complex topics, and that they had professors who taught at various universities and were actually quite experienced. Lastly, I found it very interesting that the date of Easter had to be calculate...

Dancing Euclidean Proofs reading response

Although I was unable to attend class due to an illness, I was able to watch the video. I found it very entertaining and enjoyable to watch. I found it incredibly interesting to see their dances and the different shapes that they represented. I think that the cinematics and presentation took this video to the next level in terms of my enjoyment. The ariel view that was presented to me showcased all of the different shapes very well. I found it especially interesting when finding out that this was done by high school students, as the production quality was incredible.  I found the live presentation to be a very interesting way to showcase mathematics. I think that dance and art are not traditional methods that we think of to teach mathematics, but after watching this video I can definitely see how it could be useful.  The second thing that made this video especially interesting was the amount of flexibility involved in these dances. There is no one specific way to do the dances...

Euclid's Importance Throughout History

A)      Euclid is one of the most well-known mathematicians in the history of the world. Not much is known about his life, but know that his book, The Elements is a vital piece for the evolution of mathematics. He is studied today because is book is world-renowned and used by mathematicians around the world. They give Euclid credit combining many of these ideas and concepts. Euclid is often mistaken for Euclid of Megera, as many people thought that he was from here, but they were later corrected. Euclid of Megera was actually a philosopher who lived approximately 100 years before Euclid. He was also one of the first to study geometry. The Elements is divided into 13 different books, and the first six touch on plane geometry whereas books seven to nine look at number theory. Book 10 deals with irrational numbers and books 11-13 look into 3-dimensional geometry. Mathematicians say it is the greatest math book ever, and its concepts are timeless, one of the main rea...

Assignment 1 Reflection

Image
Assignment 1 was a great learning experience for both myself and my partner Arvind, as we had never really looked into mathematics history. We were able to look at ancient Egyptian word problems, as well as learn about Fibonacci and his methods of calculation. Specifically, we did a lot of research about the evolution of these word problems and how they changed over the course of multiple centuries. We researched and found some different methods and ways that these different groups of people calculated these problems, and learned about the Liber Abaci. As for the presentation itself, I think Arvind and I did a good job informing the class about our word problem. We presented the different versions of the problem and then had the class try it for themselves. I think at the end of the presentation the class had a good understanding on how this problem was passed through the centuries, and had a better understanding on Fibonacci and his methods of calculations. This was a result of our...

Was Pythagoras Chinese

I believe that it makes a large difference in students learning if non-European sources of mathematics are not acknowledged. I believe that it is important in any form of teaching to not skim over history and miss out on important facts. The reality is, that many students are inspired by history, and a source of inspiration is what fuels them to continue learning. Many of the world’s greatest innovators and creatives were inspired by people throughout history, and this caused them to want to further their respective fields of expertise. I have a couple of issues when it comes to the naming of historic math theorems. This stems from my concern with knowing who actually came up with these ideas and whether or not the ones taking credit for it are the ones who actually created them. The Pythagorean Theorem may have been created by other people such as Zhoubi, but it is credited to Pythagoras because that’s what others said throughout history. I believe that the ones...