I am glad that I could collaborate with Aakriti and Nancy to exhibit our work in front of our classmates and demonstrate Ahmes' Loaves problem both in modern and ancient approaches. For me, as a teacher candidate in the subject of mathematics, the assignment is a process of experiencing the wisdom of ancient mathematicians who was able to solve "pure" mathematical problems without relying on algebra, thus broadening my horizon. By researching into the terminology of false position or regula falsi , we started our journey of exploring how ancient Egyptians solve an arithmetic problem. Ahmes' Loaves Problem [1] It did not take too much time for us to solve the problem by using modern algebraic solution. We let d be the common difference of the arithmetical progression and expressed each term in terms of d . By establishing an equation based on the second condition given by the question, we quickly obtained the common difference which is equal to 55/6. However, it was...
“Among the Greeks computation or reckoning, the arithmetic of business, was called logistic and was considered to be entirely different from the study of numbers as such, which philosophical study was called arithmetic” (page 266). It is interesting to see that ancient Greek scholars have intentionally started to distinguish “applied mathematics” from “pure mathematics” by creating two different subjects called “logistic” and “arithmetic.” According to their standards, Euclid’s work The Elements which we studied in the history class is a representation of “arithmetic” because the content in the book is apparently not dealing with “sensible objects,” but rather a discussion of properties of numbers and proof. “Throughout the Middle Ages, university instruction was based on a lecture-disputation method … There were no examinations in the modern sense of the term… To qualify for a degree, [the student] was required to participate in public disputations, either d...
In the video, the dancer and mathematical choreographer, Samuel J. Milner, provides an insightful thought on why we want to embed aesthetics, especially artistic choreography, into mathematics: “When you see it on the page, it’s all there at once. But when you go through it mentally, you need to go through it step by step. So doing it as a dance, which takes time, somehow makes a little bit more mental sense… [1]” Back to the ancient time, the process of establishing the truth of a mathematical statement is torturous but exciting. Designing the dances to recreate and visualize those hot inventions is a valuable opportunity for our students to dissect the process of proofs step by step. Dances anthropomorphize mathematical ideas and make rigid proofs more vivid and memorable. Moreover, the article written by Samuel J. Milner, Carolina Azul Duque and Suan Gerofsky also bring out an innovative platform on which we can meld land-based learning and decolonization with mathematics ...
Great!
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