Using Mathematics to Understand the World

Using Mathematics to Understand the World PDF Author: Terezinha Nunes
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 042956080X
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 140

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Book Description
Using Mathematics to Understand the World: How Culture Promotes Children's Mathematics offers fundamental insight into how mathematics permeates our lives as a way of representing and thinking about the world. Internationally renowned experts Terezinha Nunes and Peter Bryant examine research into children’s mathematical development to show why it is important to distinguish between quantities, relations and numbers. Using Mathematics to Understand the World presents a theory about the development of children’s quantitative reasoning and reveals why and how teaching about quantitative reasoning can be used to improve children’s mathematical attainment in school. It describes how learning about the analytical meaning of numbers is established as part of mathematics at school but quantitative reasoning is emphasized less even though it is increasingly acclaimed as essential for thinking mathematically and for using mathematics to understand the world. This essential text is for all students of mathematics education, developmental psychology and cognitive psychology. By including activities for parents and professionals to try themselves, it may help you to recognize your own quantitative reasoning.

Using Mathematics to Understand the World

Using Mathematics to Understand the World PDF Author: Terezinha Nunes
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 042956080X
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 140

Get Book

Book Description
Using Mathematics to Understand the World: How Culture Promotes Children's Mathematics offers fundamental insight into how mathematics permeates our lives as a way of representing and thinking about the world. Internationally renowned experts Terezinha Nunes and Peter Bryant examine research into children’s mathematical development to show why it is important to distinguish between quantities, relations and numbers. Using Mathematics to Understand the World presents a theory about the development of children’s quantitative reasoning and reveals why and how teaching about quantitative reasoning can be used to improve children’s mathematical attainment in school. It describes how learning about the analytical meaning of numbers is established as part of mathematics at school but quantitative reasoning is emphasized less even though it is increasingly acclaimed as essential for thinking mathematically and for using mathematics to understand the world. This essential text is for all students of mathematics education, developmental psychology and cognitive psychology. By including activities for parents and professionals to try themselves, it may help you to recognize your own quantitative reasoning.

Man vs Maths

Man vs Maths PDF Author: Timothy Revell
Publisher: Aurum
ISBN: 178131621X
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
Could we solve queuing with an equation? How do algorithms control our news? What is the secret behind encryption codes? Mathematics is inescapable. Wherever you go, whatever you do, however you live your life, mathematics plays a role. From controlling a city’s traffic to finding love, spending money online to building a skyscraper, the mathematics at play in our world is fascinating. Yet despite its ubiquity, for many of us, how the maths of today really works remains complex. Timothy Revell distils these complexities in this essential guide to modern-day mathematics. Along the way we discover how social media trends work, why the universe has a favourite number and what this means for you. Man vs Maths shows you how understanding a little more mathematics can help improve your life.

Beautiful, Simple, Exact, Crazy

Beautiful, Simple, Exact, Crazy PDF Author: Apoorva Khare
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300190891
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 480

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Book Description
In this vibrant work, which is ideal for both teaching and learning, Apoorva Khare and Anna Lachowska explain the mathematics essential for understanding and appreciating our quantitative world. They show with examples that mathematics is a key tool in the creation and appreciation of art, music, and literature, not just science and technology. The book covers basic mathematical topics from logarithms to statistics, but the authors eschew mundane finance and probability problems. Instead, they explain how modular arithmetic helps keep our online transactions safe, how logarithms justify the twelve-tone scale commonly used in music, and how transmissions by deep space probes are similar to knights serving as messengers for their traveling prince. Ideal for coursework in introductory mathematics and requiring no knowledge of calculus, Khare and Lachowska's enlightening mathematics tour will appeal to a wide audience.

How Not to Be Wrong

How Not to Be Wrong PDF Author: Jordan Ellenberg
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0143127535
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 482

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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.

Mathematics and the Real World

Mathematics and the Real World PDF Author: Zvi Artstein
Publisher: Prometheus Books
ISBN: 1616145463
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 368

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Book Description
In this accessible and illuminating study of how the science of mathematics developed, a veteran math researcher and educator looks at the ways in which our evolutionary makeup is both a help and a hindrance to the study of math. Artstein chronicles the discovery of important mathematical connections between mathematics and the real world from ancient times to the present. The author then describes some of the contemporary applications of mathematics—in probability theory, in the study of human behavior, and in combination with computers, which give mathematics unprecedented power. The author concludes with an insightful discussion of why mathematics, for most people, is so frustrating. He argues that the rigorous logical structure of math goes against the grain of our predisposed ways of thinking as shaped by evolution, presumably because the talent needed to cope with logical mathematics gave the human race as a whole no evolutionary advantage. With this in mind, he offers ways to overcome these innate impediments in the teaching of math.

Mathematics for Human Flourishing

Mathematics for Human Flourishing PDF Author: Francis Su
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300237138
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 287

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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.

How Students (mis-) Understand Science and Mathematics

How Students (mis-) Understand Science and Mathematics PDF Author: Ruth Stavy
Publisher: Teachers College Press
ISBN: 9780807770412
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 148

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Book Description
In this long-awaited book, Timothy J. Lensmire examines the problems and promise of progressive literacy education. He does this by developing a series of striking metaphors in which, for example, he imagines the writing workshop as a carnival or popular festival and the teacher as a novelist who writes her student-characters into more and less desirable classroom stories. Grounded in Lensmire's own and others' work in schools, Powerful Writing, Responsible Teaching makes powerful use of Bakhtin's theories of language and writing and Dewey's vision of schooling and democracy. Lensmire's book is, at once, a defense, a criticism, and a reconstruction of progressive and critical literacy approaches.

All the Mathematics You Missed

All the Mathematics You Missed PDF Author: Thomas A. Garrity
Publisher: 清华大学出版社有限公司
ISBN: 9787302090854
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 380

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Book Description


Exploring the World of Mathematics

Exploring the World of Mathematics PDF Author: John Hudson Tiner
Publisher: New Leaf Publishing Group
ISBN: 161458155X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 159

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Book Description
Numbers surround us. Just try to make it through a day without using any. It's impossible: telephone numbers, calendars, volume settings, shoe sizes, speed limits, weights, street numbers, microwave timers, TV channels, and the list goes on and on. The many advancements and branches of mathematics were developed through the centuries as people encountered problems and relied upon math to solve them. For instance: What timely invention was tampered with by the Caesars and almost perfected by a pope? Why did ten days vanish in September of 1752? How did Queen Victoria shorten the Sunday sermons at chapel? What important invention caused the world to be divided into time zones? What simple math problem caused the Mars Climate Orbiter to burn up in the Martian atmosphere? What common unit of measurement was originally based on the distance from the equator to the North Pole? Does water always boil at 212? Fahrenheit? What do Da Vinci's Last Supper and the Parthenon have in common? Why is a computer glitch called a "bug"? It's amazing how ten simple digits can be used in an endless number of ways to benefit man. The development of these ten digits and their many uses is the fascinating story you hold in your hands: Exploring the World of Mathematics.

Mathematics in Nature

Mathematics in Nature PDF Author: John A. Adam
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400841011
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 408

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Book Description
From rainbows, river meanders, and shadows to spider webs, honeycombs, and the markings on animal coats, the visible world is full of patterns that can be described mathematically. Examining such readily observable phenomena, this book introduces readers to the beauty of nature as revealed by mathematics and the beauty of mathematics as revealed in nature. Generously illustrated, written in an informal style, and replete with examples from everyday life, Mathematics in Nature is an excellent and undaunting introduction to the ideas and methods of mathematical modeling. It illustrates how mathematics can be used to formulate and solve puzzles observed in nature and to interpret the solutions. In the process, it teaches such topics as the art of estimation and the effects of scale, particularly what happens as things get bigger. Readers will develop an understanding of the symbiosis that exists between basic scientific principles and their mathematical expressions as well as a deeper appreciation for such natural phenomena as cloud formations, halos and glories, tree heights and leaf patterns, butterfly and moth wings, and even puddles and mud cracks. Developed out of a university course, this book makes an ideal supplemental text for courses in applied mathematics and mathematical modeling. It will also appeal to mathematics educators and enthusiasts at all levels, and is designed so that it can be dipped into at leisure.