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Author: Reuben Hersh Publisher: American Mathematical Soc. ISBN: 082189420X Category : Mathematics Languages : en Pages : 282
Book Description
The question ``What am I doing?'' haunts many creative people, researchers, and teachers. Mathematics, poetry, and philosophy can look from the outside sometimes as ballet en pointe, and at other times as the flight of the bumblebee. Reuben Hersh looks at mathematics from the inside; he collects his papers written over several decades, their edited versions, and new chapters in his book Experiencing Mathematics, which is practical, philosophical, and in some places as intensely personal as Swann's madeleine. --Yuri Manin, Max Planck Institute, Bonn, Germany What happens when mid-career a mathematician unexpectedly becomes philosophical? These lively and eloquent essays address the questions that arise from a crisis of reflectiveness: What is a mathematical proof and why does it come after, not before, mathematical revelation? Can mathematics be both real and a human artifact? Do mathematicians produce eternal truths, or are the judgments of the mathematical community quasi-empirical and historically framed? How can we be sure that an infinite series that seems to converge really does converge? This collection of essays by Reuben Hersh makes an important contribution. His lively and eloquent essays bring the reality of mathematical research to the page. He argues that the search for foundations is misleading, and that philosophers should shift from focusing narrowly on the deductive structure of proof, to tracing the broader forms of quasi-empirical reasoning that star the history of mathematics, as well as examining the nature of mathematical communities and how and why their collective judgments evolve from one generation to the next. If these questions keep you up at night, then you should read this book. And if they don't, then you should read this book anyway, because afterwards, they will! --Emily Grosholz, Department of Philosophy, Penn State, Pennsylvania, USA Most mathematicians, when asked about the nature and meaning of mathematics, vacillate between the two unrealistic poles of Platonism and formalism. By looking carefully at what mathematicians really do when they are doing mathematics, Reuben Hersh offers an escape from this trap. This book of selected articles and essays provides an honest, coherent, and clearly understandable account of mathematicians' proof as it really is, and of the existence and reality of mathematical entities. It follows in the footsteps of Poincare, Hadamard, and Polya. The pragmatism of John Dewey is a better fit for mathematical practice than the dominant ``analytic philosophy''. Dialogue, satire, and fantasy enliven the philosophical and methodological analysis. Reuben Hersh has written extensively on mathematics, often from the point of view of a philosopher of science. His book with Philip Davis, The Mathematical Experience, won the National Book Award in science. Hersh is emeritus professor of mathematics at the University of New Mexico.
Author: Reuben Hersh Publisher: American Mathematical Soc. ISBN: 082189420X Category : Mathematics Languages : en Pages : 282
Book Description
The question ``What am I doing?'' haunts many creative people, researchers, and teachers. Mathematics, poetry, and philosophy can look from the outside sometimes as ballet en pointe, and at other times as the flight of the bumblebee. Reuben Hersh looks at mathematics from the inside; he collects his papers written over several decades, their edited versions, and new chapters in his book Experiencing Mathematics, which is practical, philosophical, and in some places as intensely personal as Swann's madeleine. --Yuri Manin, Max Planck Institute, Bonn, Germany What happens when mid-career a mathematician unexpectedly becomes philosophical? These lively and eloquent essays address the questions that arise from a crisis of reflectiveness: What is a mathematical proof and why does it come after, not before, mathematical revelation? Can mathematics be both real and a human artifact? Do mathematicians produce eternal truths, or are the judgments of the mathematical community quasi-empirical and historically framed? How can we be sure that an infinite series that seems to converge really does converge? This collection of essays by Reuben Hersh makes an important contribution. His lively and eloquent essays bring the reality of mathematical research to the page. He argues that the search for foundations is misleading, and that philosophers should shift from focusing narrowly on the deductive structure of proof, to tracing the broader forms of quasi-empirical reasoning that star the history of mathematics, as well as examining the nature of mathematical communities and how and why their collective judgments evolve from one generation to the next. If these questions keep you up at night, then you should read this book. And if they don't, then you should read this book anyway, because afterwards, they will! --Emily Grosholz, Department of Philosophy, Penn State, Pennsylvania, USA Most mathematicians, when asked about the nature and meaning of mathematics, vacillate between the two unrealistic poles of Platonism and formalism. By looking carefully at what mathematicians really do when they are doing mathematics, Reuben Hersh offers an escape from this trap. This book of selected articles and essays provides an honest, coherent, and clearly understandable account of mathematicians' proof as it really is, and of the existence and reality of mathematical entities. It follows in the footsteps of Poincare, Hadamard, and Polya. The pragmatism of John Dewey is a better fit for mathematical practice than the dominant ``analytic philosophy''. Dialogue, satire, and fantasy enliven the philosophical and methodological analysis. Reuben Hersh has written extensively on mathematics, often from the point of view of a philosopher of science. His book with Philip Davis, The Mathematical Experience, won the National Book Award in science. Hersh is emeritus professor of mathematics at the University of New Mexico.
Author: Philip Davis Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media ISBN: 0817682945 Category : Mathematics Languages : en Pages : 522
Book Description
Winner of the 1983 National Book Award! "...a perfectly marvelous book about the Queen of Sciences, from which one will get a real feeling for what mathematicians do and who they are. The exposition is clear and full of wit and humor..." - The New Yorker (1983 National Book Award edition) Mathematics has been a human activity for thousands of years. Yet only a few people from the vast population of users are professional mathematicians, who create, teach, foster, and apply it in a variety of situations. The authors of this book believe that it should be possible for these professional mathematicians to explain to non-professionals what they do, what they say they are doing, and why the world should support them at it. They also believe that mathematics should be taught to non-mathematics majors in such a way as to instill an appreciation of the power and beauty of mathematics. Many people from around the world have told the authors that they have done precisely that with the first edition and they have encouraged publication of this revised edition complete with exercises for helping students to demonstrate their understanding. This edition of the book should find a new generation of general readers and students who would like to know what mathematics is all about. It will prove invaluable as a course text for a general mathematics appreciation course, one in which the student can combine an appreciation for the esthetics with some satisfying and revealing applications. The text is ideal for 1) a GE course for Liberal Arts students 2) a Capstone course for perspective teachers 3) a writing course for mathematics teachers. A wealth of customizable online course materials for the book can be obtained from Elena Anne Marchisotto ([email protected]) upon request.
Author: Jo Boaler Publisher: ISBN: Category : Education Languages : en Pages : 180
Book Description
This is the first book of its kind to provide direct evidence for the effectiveness of traditional and progressive teaching methods. It reports on careful and extensive case studies of two schools which taught mathematics in totally different ways. Three hundred students were followed over three years and the interviews that are reproduced in the book give compelling insights into what it meant to be a student in the classrooms of the two schools. The different school approaches are compared and analyzed using student interviews, lesson observations, questionnaires given to students and staff and a range of different assessments, including GCSE examinations. Questions are raised about the effectiveness of different teaching methods in preparing students for the demands of the 'real world' and the 21st century, the impact of setted and mixed ability teaching upon student attitude and achievement, and gender and learning styles. New evidence is provided for each of these issues. The book draws some radical new conclusions about the ways that traditional teaching methods lead to limited forms of knowledge that are ineffective in non-school settings. The book will be essential reading for math teachers, parents, and policy makers in education.
Author: James R. Breunlin Publisher: R & L Education ISBN: 9781578864997 Category : Education Languages : en Pages : 286
Book Description
Experiencing Mathematics: Activities to Engage the High School Student is the result of the collaborative effort of nine Adolescent Young Adult (AYA) National Board Certified Teachers in mathematics. This teacher edition is a compilation of successful activities that prompt high school students to explore, conjecture, and reflect on their mathematical adventures--thus "experience" mathematics. The relevant nature of the activities will motivate students to pursue their investigations with vigor and take the intellectual risk necessary to construct knowledge and improve problem-solving competence. This edition will educate teachers regarding tenets of cognitive science, motivation theory, and the NCTM/NBCT standards. It will dispel the myth that the crowded curriculum does not have room for such activities and, in fact, will convince teachers that using such activities increases teacher and student motivation and achievement. The resources provide detailed instructions for each activity, along with student prompts and reflective questions for the teacher.
Author: Jordan Ellenberg Publisher: Penguin ISBN: 0143127535 Category : Mathematics Languages : en Pages : 482
Book Description
“Witty, compelling, and just plain fun to read . . ." —Evelyn Lamb, Scientific American The Freakonomics of math—a math-world superstar unveils the hidden beauty and logic of the world and puts its power in our hands The math we learn in school can seem like a dull set of rules, laid down by the ancients and not to be questioned. In How Not to Be Wrong, Jordan Ellenberg shows us how terribly limiting this view is: Math isn’t confined to abstract incidents that never occur in real life, but rather touches everything we do—the whole world is shot through with it. Math allows us to see the hidden structures underneath the messy and chaotic surface of our world. It’s a science of not being wrong, hammered out by centuries of hard work and argument. Armed with the tools of mathematics, we can see through to the true meaning of information we take for granted: How early should you get to the airport? What does “public opinion” really represent? Why do tall parents have shorter children? Who really won Florida in 2000? And how likely are you, really, to develop cancer? How Not to Be Wrong presents the surprising revelations behind all of these questions and many more, using the mathematician’s method of analyzing life and exposing the hard-won insights of the academic community to the layman—minus the jargon. Ellenberg chases mathematical threads through a vast range of time and space, from the everyday to the cosmic, encountering, among other things, baseball, Reaganomics, daring lottery schemes, Voltaire, the replicability crisis in psychology, Italian Renaissance painting, artificial languages, the development of non-Euclidean geometry, the coming obesity apocalypse, Antonin Scalia’s views on crime and punishment, the psychology of slime molds, what Facebook can and can’t figure out about you, and the existence of God. Ellenberg pulls from history as well as from the latest theoretical developments to provide those not trained in math with the knowledge they need. Math, as Ellenberg says, is “an atomic-powered prosthesis that you attach to your common sense, vastly multiplying its reach and strength.” With the tools of mathematics in hand, you can understand the world in a deeper, more meaningful way. How Not to Be Wrong will show you how.
Author: Martin Aigner Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media ISBN: 3662223430 Category : Mathematics Languages : en Pages : 194
Book Description
According to the great mathematician Paul Erdös, God maintains perfect mathematical proofs in The Book. This book presents the authors candidates for such "perfect proofs," those which contain brilliant ideas, clever connections, and wonderful observations, bringing new insight and surprising perspectives to problems from number theory, geometry, analysis, combinatorics, and graph theory. As a result, this book will be fun reading for anyone with an interest in mathematics.
Author: Alexander Karp Publisher: Springer ISBN: 9462097194 Category : Education Languages : en Pages : 218
Book Description
This book consists of interviews with the most important mathematics educators of our time. These interviews were originally published in the International Journal for the History of Mathematics Education and are now being offered to a wider readership for the first time, collected in a single volume. Among the individuals interviewed are scholars from Brazil, France, Germany, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States who have made a significant impact on the development of mathematics education in their countries and internationally. The interviews cover their biographies, including their memories of their own studies in mathematics and their intellectual formation, their experience as researchers and teachers, and their visions of the history and future development of mathematics education. The book will be of interest to anyone involved in research in mathematics education, and anyone interested in the history of mathematics education.
Author: Francis Su Publisher: Yale University Press ISBN: 0300237138 Category : Mathematics Languages : en Pages : 287
Book Description
"The ancient Greeks argued that the best life was filled with beauty, truth, justice, play and love. The mathematician Francis Su knows just where to find them."--Kevin Hartnett, Quanta Magazine" This is perhaps the most important mathematics book of our time. Francis Su shows mathematics is an experience of the mind and, most important, of the heart."--James Tanton, Global Math Project For mathematician Francis Su, a society without mathematical affection is like a city without concerts, parks, or museums. To miss out on mathematics is to live without experiencing some of humanity's most beautiful ideas. In this profound book, written for a wide audience but especially for those disenchanted by their past experiences, an award-winning mathematician and educator weaves parables, puzzles, and personal reflections to show how mathematics meets basic human desires--such as for play, beauty, freedom, justice, and love--and cultivates virtues essential for human flourishing. These desires and virtues, and the stories told here, reveal how mathematics is intimately tied to being human. Some lessons emerge from those who have struggled, including philosopher Simone Weil, whose own mathematical contributions were overshadowed by her brother's, and Christopher Jackson, who discovered mathematics as an inmate in a federal prison. Christopher's letters to the author appear throughout the book and show how this intellectual pursuit can--and must--be open to all.
Author: Diana Davis Publisher: American Mathematical Soc. ISBN: 1470461226 Category : Education Languages : en Pages : 171
Book Description
This book is for anyone who wishes to illustrate their mathematical ideas, which in our experience means everyone. It is organized by material, rather than by subject area, and purposefully emphasizes the process of creating things, including discussions of failures that occurred along the way. As a result, the reader can learn from the experiences of those who came before, and will be inspired to create their own illustrations. Topics illustrated within include prime numbers, fractals, the Klein bottle, Borromean rings, tilings, space-filling curves, knot theory, billiards, complex dynamics, algebraic surfaces, groups and prime ideals, the Riemann zeta function, quadratic fields, hyperbolic space, and hyperbolic 3-manifolds. Everyone who opens this book should find a type of mathematics with which they identify. Each contributor explains the mathematics behind their illustration at an accessible level, so that all readers can appreciate the beauty of both the object itself and the mathematics behind it.
Author: Reuben Hersh
Author: Reuben Hersh
Author: Philip Davis
Author: Jo Boaler
Author: Jo Boaler
Author: James R. Breunlin
Author: Jordan Ellenberg
Author: Martin Aigner
Author: Alexander Karp
Author: Francis Su
Author: Diana Davis