Margot's EDCP 442 Blog

  I found this activity rather fun as it reminded me of Sodoku! I used to play Soduku all the time when I was younger to be able to train my brain to problem solve and expand my brain capacity. I was able to solve the problem above rather quickly using a trial and error method and I think this speaks to how memorization and muscle memory of my Sodoku hobby aided this. Again, this might be an example of how muscle memory from doing repetitive problems in school allows us as students to be able to fully execute problems without hesitation and therefore might be the reason that understanding where math ideas and theories came from and the history behind them is not incorporated into math cirriculums.   When doing some additional research into the magic square, I also came across this musical violin piece from  Šarūnas Nakas Ziqquratu (1998) that incorporated the magic square of 5. I think that it is interesting to see how rhythm and mathematics go hand in hand together....

For assignment #3 I will be working with Jennah and we will be exploring the world of Indian Mathematics, specifically looking at the history of the mathematician, Brahmagupta.  We will touch upon his insights and what he discovered during his lifetime and try to see if we can tie it with the European and Arabic time periods which we already learnt about in class. Our creative aspect of the presentation and findings will be expressed of a painting. Therefore we will have a visual piece to bring all our ideas together.  Painting / Drawing:  Since Brahmagupta was an astronomer, we decided to portray his main ideas and theories on a space-like looking background. Attempted stars and planets were drawn to emphasize this creative idea. On the left, I drew a painting of what historians believed Bhrahmagupta looked like during 598 CE - 668 CE. His main two books that he had written; the Khandakhadyaka and Brahmasphutasiddhanta are listed on the green pot that he is holding ...

Firstly, I think that the use of our bodies as a form of expressing mathematical proofs and theories is well justified. The report and video did a great job at portraying the different benefits this visual and kinesthetic learning style can have on understanding the content better. Milner and Duque's mentioned that by going through each part of the dance, creating a flow of movements they are able to mimic how "proof's unfold over time". This was interesting to me as I had forgotten that proofs were solved through different interpretations, trial and error alongside, piecing together the different axioms.  Moreover, I enjoyed how they were able to explain that with expressive content there is a certain level of intuition and reasoning that you have to consider in order for the rest of the audience to understand where you are coming from. They did this by listing their different assumptions that they had thought of before videoing the different proofs. As seen in the s...

It was a beautiful yet confusing poem for me at first as part of the poem uses biblical allusions such as "O Holy". It wasn't until I dug deeper into the history of Euclid to understand where this background and purpose of the biblical ties came from.  As mentioned in the title of the poem: Euclid or otherwise known and Euclid of Alexandria was a Greek mathemetician that was given the title: The Father of Geometry. Many of his geometric theories stemmed from a series of axioms. This implied that, given an assumption that a statement is true, it is a starting point for exploration and rational thinking. I believe that this poem written by Edna St. Vincent Millay truly captivated the nature of geometry that Euclid was known for by adopting the use of an iambic pentameter structure with the occasional " strategically placed occurrences of dactylic meter, which successfully slow down the poem where new ideas begin or old ones end." (McGee, n.d.). This musical meter ...

Upon visiting various different Egyptian exhibitions, I had always come across the Horus eye symbol but never looked much into the meaning behind it. I had assumed that the eye carried some sort of importance in keeping spirits away similar to the Greek's however, I had never imagined it to carry the importance of such rich history and mathematical properties.  Interestingly enough, not only does each part of the eye symbolize a different fraction, but it also portrays different senses in which the Egyptians believed there to be six; Hear, Taste, Smell, Touch, See and Thought as seen below.  The egyptians believed that this eye was considered the 'whole' eye. However, it is important to note that the sum of each of the fractions, which can be seen as a geometric series today, only adds up to 63/64. When researching I found that some academics believed that the 1/64 missing from the 'whole' eye could be intentional as no mortal human being can re-create something so ...

Upon reading this paper, it is clear that both the Greeks and Chinese had their own mathematical discovery triumphs despite the lack of communication between both civilizations. As noted by Ross Gustafson, the Greeks were more focused on the understanding of the different proofs and how they were able to solve the different problems such as the right-angle triangle or the verification of the square root of 2 to be an irrational number.  Even though my career doesn't involve traditional teaching, from a students perspective who has has to learn about mathematics, I will say that learning the methodology has more emphasis in school cirriculums than understanding where the actual math came from. Therefore I would make the slight comparison that the way in which we teach students mathematics today follows a similar sturcture to those of the Chinese. The texts states that the  Jiu Zhang suahshu "was not to prove beyond argument the material but to guide the reader (student) on the ...

A SaveOnFoods supply manager counted a total of 32 apples in stock delivered from apple farmers based in Yakima, Washington.  They noted that they had received 1/7 of the order four days post the expected delivery date. What was the original quantity that was delivered?  Solution:  1) We need to find a convenient integer answer that has been obtained through multiplying it by 1/7. Therefore we can choose the number 7.  2) (1 + 1/7) * 7 = 8  3) Therefore 8 = 32  4) The number 4 is used to multiple 8 giving us an answer of 32.  5) Therefore we can use 4 to multiply by 7 to allow us to gain the answer of the unknown quantity.  4 * 7 = 28  --> Therefore 28 is the quantity that was delivered  6) Checking if this is the correct answer: 1/7 of 28 is 4:  (1/7)*(28) = 4 --> 28 + 4 = 32