Blogging for Eye of Horus and Unit Fractions in Ancient Egypt

 

The most interesting finding is that people still use the Eye of Horus today. In Mediterranean countries, fishermen would paint this symbol on boats and vessels for protection. People would also make this symbol into jewelry to wear daily for protection against illness. It is also a symbol of power, knowledge and illusion. 

Chinese people dislike the number "4" because its articulation sounds very similar to "death" in Mandarin and Cantonese. In most buildings, floor and unit numbers do not have the number 4, so there are no 4th,14th,24th ..(so on) floors, and no unit numbers such as 104, 114, 204.. etc.  Contrarily, Chinese people favor the number 8 because it sounds very similar to "make a fortune" and "become rich". 

Constructing a magic square

 

Rule: each number from 1 to 9 is used once, and where all the rows, columns and diagonals add to 15 

I also tried to make a 3x3 magic square with different numbers, but I failed. 

Oct13 Response to Was Pythagoras Chinese?

Does it make a difference to our students' learning if we acknowledge (or don't acknowledge) non-European sources of mathematics? Why, or how?

If we do or do not acknowledge the non-European sources of mathematics, for most of our students, I don’t think it will make a difference as long as they learn what they are suppose to learn as prescribed on the curriculum. I think it will only make a difference to those who are interested in knowing more about mathematic history. For example, if we acknowledge the Greek and Chinese sources of mathematics, students who are interested in the Chinese or Greek culture may be more attracted to the information presented. However, as teachers, it is worth noting other non-European sources of matematics so their students recognize that there are other people in the worlds who also contributed to the knowledge we are learning today. Nobody's contribution should not be ignored. 

What are your thoughts about the naming of the Pythagorean Theorem, and other named mathematical theorems and concepts (for example, Pascal's Triangle...check out its history.)

It is interesting to see that most mathematical theorems and concepts are named after the main contributor who discovered or proved the theorems in the Western culture. Whereas the Chiense had named their theorems and concepts differently.  For example, the Pythagorean Theorem is named Gougu Theorem in Chinese because ancient Chinese called the right triangle "gougu". I like the idea to have theorems and conpcets named after the contributors/founders because it show apprecitaion and acknowledgement to their hard work.

The method of False Position

 

Oct 7 Blogging on History of Babylonian math word problems

Based on the examples of word problems in Babylonian mathematics, it seems like they are created from real life examples. The contents are based on everyday life situations such as calculating grain-pile, bequest, and how much you can buy with a given amount of money. They seem to be practical and general. However, the article also addresses some Babylonian mathematics words problems were beyond real life applications. Old Babylonians might have purposed designed those abstract word problems in a way to test how much they could do with the mathematical knowledge they had at that time. 

In contemporary algebra, we tend to follow the two levels from Babylonian mathematics. First level being practical and general mathematics that can be applied in real life. Second level being extended word problems that are more abstract, and aim to practice the mathematical concepts learned at a higher level. These second level word problems are often the ones we hear students complaining about, "When do we ever get to use this in real life?". I think it is important for students to be able to solve word problems at the first level, but also understand word problems at the second level. It is true that we may not encounter these higher level abstract problems in real life, but this pureness in mathematics is what we need for developments in learning about mathematics. If mathematics were only at the practical and general level, how do we move forward to learn more about mathematics?  If mathematics had remain at the everyday life examples level in the Babylonian era, would we still have the mathematical knowledge in today's world?