Math History Reflection （Duncan）

   Throughout my studies in the field of Mathematics (especially in high school), word problems is used to check if we can “apply” what we learnt in a situation. The interpretation of “practical” changes as I study higher level of Mathematics. With regard to the reading, my interpretation of “practicality” is that it has to be realistic. While the “ abstract” problems are those with unrealistic measurements. An example of that would be the Babylonian grain-pile problem. Today’s definition of “applied” is no longer limited to the possibility of using it in daily life, but the possibility to use it in different fields of study to advance technology. On the other hand, “pure” Mathematics is seen as “invented” math for people who study it for the sake of studying it; which is equivalent to Hoyrup referring Babylonian’s “pure Math” as art pour l’art.   I believe our interpretations on the above definitions are heavily influenced by the Math we have studied since we were a chil...

  The first thing that I find surprising is not a particular point the author made or any events that he mentions. It is the fact there is a discourse around how mathematics has been undergoing a Eurocentric trajectory. Recalling my experience as a high school student leaning mathematics, it never came to my attention that different area of mathematics has its roots. In my undergraduate days, although the origin of different mathematics did came up of which many times where the involvement of the Greek came up. However, never have I ever thought about how Europe has dominated the perception of different roots of Mathematics.     It is amazing by itself how present scholars study the transition of Mathematics knowledge thousands of years ago. It is even more surprising (and amazing) how mathematicians had the dedication to transmit/share mathematics knowledge across continent. Not to mention it was back in the zero technology days. One example of such dedication is the amo...

Speculative: Actually, 60 is used pretty often our daily life. The most common one will be time. We have 60 mins in an hour and 60 seconds in a min. Moreover, 360 (60*6) is also used commonly. A full circle has 360 degree. My guess is that because 60/360 has a lot of factors, therefore it is easy to divide among parties. Especially, when money may not be common or used at all. Also, maybe there wasn't a well developed decimal system, hence a greater need to divide things properly.  I know in French, it has a mix of base-10 and 20 system. I am not aware of any other interesting counting system. Research: Upon my research, many of my predictions are correct. Besides the points I mentioned above, the number 60 is also related to the number of days we have in a year (assuming they didn't know there are 365 days, but they think 300 (30*5) is close enough).  Moreover, the fact that base 60 is divisible by 3, it makes their system more convenient at trigonometry. A tablet was di...

  Despite having completed a Math degree in university, I would say I rarely came in contact with the history of Mathematics. Nevertheless, I have heard of it. However, anything history related was never my cup of tea. One of the reasons I got into math is because I hate memorizing things, all the dates and names drive me crazy. With that being said, a few names do occasionally pop up when I taught in high school – Euler, Pythagoras, Fibonacci…. These names were usually my cue to talk about stories about them and their accomplishments. This was how limited of a role history of Mathematics played in my classroom. If I were to incorporate Mathematics history into my teaching, I would be a preface on a number of topics.     I would like my students to know what kinds of stories led us to what we have to learn. The history of a certain topic can also be researched by the students prior to coming to class.     There are two points the author brought up in the paper t...