EDCP442 301 2022W1 Juyoung

     The reading has gave me some valuable insight. When we think about the word "practicality", it reminds of math in high school because we barely focused on the theory. It was more of us focusing on the computational aspect and not really understanding why it works the way it does. Furthermore, Babylonians word problems focused more or less on the same topic and there weren't a lot of diversified problems. That being said, I do think our interpretations rely on our familiarity with contemporary algebra. Normally, we are given the formulas and expressions to already work with. Additionally, by knowing algebra, we can work out the problems much differently than ancient times when using formulas weren't of the norm.      My idea of "abstract" math is something that cannot be easily envisioned and solving without some understanding of the material. I have noticed modern problems today involves some semi-realistic problems that apply to the real world. Howeve...

     I really found it interesting to see the stages of mathematical development throughout the years; way before I was born. In fact, Joseph (1991) mentions "a concise and meaningful definition of mathematics is virtually impossible" (p.3). It made me realize what does Mathematics really mean in the current sense and would that definition be different from the earlier days? In my personal views, I would view mathematics in the financial sense because everything we do involves the usage of money. Some examples include purchasing goods from a store, investing in stocks and purchasing a house. The most notable work is from the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. In fact, most work from centuries ago are not really learned in school and I am also guilty of that.      I also found it interesting that Mathematics is mostly credited to the Europeans and work outside of Europe was barely acknowledged. Most notably, the neglect of early Indian ma...

  My main theory on why Babylonians used base 60 is because of the shape of the circle. We have learned circles have an angle of 360 degrees which is conveniently divisible by 60. I would imagine during that time frame, concepts of different shapes like circles, triangles, etc were being discovered and a possible hypothesis I have is that everything revolves around a circle. To elaborate, I mean going from a starting point and going to the end point (back to the starting point). Another reason why I think base 60 is used is because 60 can be divided into different interevals and can be used to represent repeating decimals. (i.e 20/60, 34/60, etc)  Maybe they did not have a concept on how to represent decimals so I think base 60 helped solved that problem.  Today, we see base 60 used in mostly in the telling of time. (seconds, minutes, hours) I imagine that our calendar system is also based on this system. After some research, I found that base 60 was used by the Babylonia...

     Through the years of learning math through the ages, it is abundantly clear that the history of Mathematics is rarely if not at all discussed in the classroom. During my years of learning math particularly in high school, I remember being given these formulas, symbols, and theorems. I was told to universally accept these concepts and not question it at all. By incorporating some history behind these notions, I think this will spark people’s curiosity and will help these students make connections to these materials. In this way, I strongly believe students are able to retain this knowledge for a long time and understand that Math is a very long process.      I was surprised to see that Non-Euclidean geometry was mentioned and as I previously mentioned in my pre-reading thoughts, ideas were generally universally accepted especially during high school. What we normally learn is how Euclid is a very talented Mathematician and how he is the founder of Eucli...