Assignment 1 Reflection

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 presentation style and being very interactive with the class throughout our presentation.

This was a very unique learning experience for Arvind and myself. We had a fun time looking into ancient Egyptian math and learned many interesting facts and patterns on the way that they thought and worked. I enjoyed the presentation and was very interested in learning all of this!

I have attached images of our presentation below:














Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Word Problem using Unit Fractions

A man who had 12 horses and 3 children wrote in his will to leave 1/2 of his horses to Pat, 1/3 to Chris, and 1/12 to Sam. However, just after he died, one of his horses died too. How will the children divide the 11 remaining horses in order to follow the instructions of the will? There were twelve horses that should be given to the man’s children; one half of twelve horses, that is six, to Pat, one third of twelve horses, that is four, to Chris, and one twelfth of twelve horses to Sam. The total number of horses distributed to the children is eleven, because 6 + 4 + 1 = 11. Therefore, although one horse died, the children will have no issue inheriting horses to follow the instruction of the will. We can use unit fractions when dividing up things that don’t divide cleanly (ie. have lots of decimals). We can use fractions to avoid these long numbers. I do think that the benefits havent changed much from back then, the outcome is the same we just have different ways of reac...
Read more

Why Babylon used the 60 number base system

Image
When doing the in-class exercise analyzing the Babylonian mathematics system, I was initially very confused about what the different symbols they used represented. However, after spending some time looking at the symbols and comparing them to the next multiple, I found out that they used a base-60 system. I wondered why they did this, as a base 10 system seemed much simpler to me, so I decided to do some research on it. I found out that this was likely due to the fact that there are 5 fingers on one hand and five multiplied by twelve equals sixty. I think that the number sixty is special because it has twelve factors compared to ten which has 3, therefore it has more divisors. Sixty is significant for many things in our daily lives, but especially for how we keep time. It is a good number to use for time-keeping and many other things because of the number of divisors it has. I never really noticed our usage of the number 60, but doing this exercise has opened my eyes to exactly how m...
Read more

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...
Read more