Memoirs of a Maverick Mathematician

Memoirs of a Maverick Mathematician PDF Author: Zoltan Paul Dienes
Publisher: Upfront Publishing
ISBN: 9781844261925
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 580

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Book Description
Dr Zoltan Dienes is a world-famous theorist and tireless practitioner of the 'new mathematics' - an approach to mathematics learning which uses games, songs and dance to make it more appealing to children. Holder of numerous honorary degrees, Dr Dienes has had a long and fruitful career, breaking new ground and gaining many followers with his revolutionary ideas of learning often complex mathematical concepts in such fun ways that children are often unaware that they are learning anything.This is an honest account of an academic radical, covering his sometimes unconventional childhood in Hungary, France, Germany and Britain, his peripatetic academic career, his successes and failures and his personal affairs. Occasionally sad or moving, frequently amusing and always fascinating, this autobiography shares some of the intelligence, spirit and humanity that have made Dr Dienes such a landmark figure in mathematics education. A 'must-read' for anyone with a professional interest in the field, this is also an absorbing and frank book for anyone interested in the life of a man of ideas who was not afraid to take on the might of the traditionalist educational establishment.

Memoirs of a Maverick Mathematician

Memoirs of a Maverick Mathematician PDF Author: Zoltan Paul Dienes
Publisher: Upfront Publishing
ISBN: 9781844261925
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 580

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Book Description
Dr Zoltan Dienes is a world-famous theorist and tireless practitioner of the 'new mathematics' - an approach to mathematics learning which uses games, songs and dance to make it more appealing to children. Holder of numerous honorary degrees, Dr Dienes has had a long and fruitful career, breaking new ground and gaining many followers with his revolutionary ideas of learning often complex mathematical concepts in such fun ways that children are often unaware that they are learning anything.This is an honest account of an academic radical, covering his sometimes unconventional childhood in Hungary, France, Germany and Britain, his peripatetic academic career, his successes and failures and his personal affairs. Occasionally sad or moving, frequently amusing and always fascinating, this autobiography shares some of the intelligence, spirit and humanity that have made Dr Dienes such a landmark figure in mathematics education. A 'must-read' for anyone with a professional interest in the field, this is also an absorbing and frank book for anyone interested in the life of a man of ideas who was not afraid to take on the might of the traditionalist educational establishment.

The Fractalist

The Fractalist PDF Author: Benoit Mandelbrot
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 030738991X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 362

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Book Description
Here is the remarkable life story of Benoit Mandelbrot, the creator of fractal geometry, and his unparalleled contributions to science mathematics, the financial world, and the arts. Mandelbrot recounts his early years in Warsaw and in Paris, where he was mentored by an eminent mathematician uncle, through his days evading the Nazis in occupied France, to his education at Caltech, Princeton, and MIT, and his illustrious career at the IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center. An outside to mainstream scientific research, he managed to do what others had thought impossible: develop a new geometry that combines revelatory beauty with a radical way of unfolding formerly hidden scientific laws. In the process he was able to use geometry to solve fresh, real-world problems. With exuberance and an eloquent fluency, Benoit Mandelbrot recounts the high points of his fascinating life, offering us a glimpse into the evolution of his extraordinary mind. With full-color inserts and black-and-white photographs throughout.

Pushing Limits: Memoir of a Maverick from Soldier to Scholar

Pushing Limits: Memoir of a Maverick from Soldier to Scholar PDF Author: Ted Hill
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781634893510
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 496

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Book Description


Maverick Mathematician

Maverick Mathematician PDF Author: Ann Moyal
Publisher: ANU E Press
ISBN: 1920942599
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 212

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Book Description
"J.E. Moyal has been pronounced 'one of Australia's most remarkable thinkers'. Yet, he was, essentially, a scientific maverick. Educated in a modest high school in Tel Aviv, he took himself to France to train as an engineer, statistician and mathematician and escaped to England as France fell. It was from outside academia that he entered into communication with the 'high priest' of British theoretical physics, P.A.M. Dirac, challenging him with the idea of a statistical basis of quantum mechanics. Their correspondence forms the core of this book and opens up an important and hitherto unknown chapter for physicists, mathematicians and historians of science. Moyal's classic paper, 'A statistical basis for quantum mechanics', also reproduced here in full, has come to underlie an explosion of research and to underpin an array of major technological developments."--Publisher's description.

Modern Mathematics

Modern Mathematics PDF Author: Dirk De Bock
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3031111664
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 615

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Book Description
The international New Math developments between about 1950 through 1980, are regarded by many mathematics educators and education historians as the most historically important development in curricula of the twentieth century. It attracted the attention of local and international politicians, of teachers, and of parents, and influenced the teaching and learning of mathematics at all levels—kindergarten to college graduate—in many nations. After garnering much initial support it began to attract criticism. But, as Bill Jacob and the late Jerry Becker show in Chapter 17, some of the effects became entrenched. This volume, edited by Professor Dirk De Bock, of Belgium, provides an outstanding overview of the New Math/modern mathematics movement. Chapter authors provide exceptionally high-quality analyses of the rise of the movement, and of subsequent developments, within a range of nations. The first few chapters show how the initial leadership came from mathematicians in European nations and in the United States of America. The background leaders in Europe were Caleb Gattegno and members of a mysterious group of mainly French pure mathematicians, who since the 1930s had published under the name of (a fictitious) “Nicolas Bourbaki.” In the United States, there emerged, during the 1950s various attempts to improve U.S. mathematics curricula and teaching, especially in secondary schools and colleges. This side of the story climaxed in 1957 when the Soviet Union succeeded in launching “Sputnik,” the first satellite. Undoubtedly, this is a landmark publication in education. The foreword was written by Professor Bob Moon, one of a few other scholars to have written on the New Math from an international perspective. The final “epilogue” chapter, by Professor Geert Vanpaemel, a historian, draws together the overall thrust of the volume, and makes links with the general history of curriculum development, especially in science education, including recent globalization trends.

Mathematics Education and the Legacy of Zoltan Paul Dienes

Mathematics Education and the Legacy of Zoltan Paul Dienes PDF Author: Bharath Sriraman
Publisher: IAP
ISBN: 1607529106
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 125

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Book Description
The name of Zoltan P. Dienes (1916-) stands with those of Jean Piaget and Jerome Bruner as a legendary figure whose theories of learning have left a lasting impression on the field of mathematics education. Dienes' name is synonymous with the Multi-base blocks (also known as Dienes blocks) which he invented for the teaching of place value. He also is the inventor of Algebraic materials and logic blocks, which sowed the seeds of contemporary uses of manipulative materials in mathematics instruction. Dienes' place is unique in the field of mathematics education because of his theories on how mathematical structures can be taught from the early grades onwards using multiple embodiments through manipulatives, games, stories and dance. Dienes' notion of embodied knowledge presaged other cognitive scientists who eventually came to recognize the importance of embodied knowledge and situated cognition - where knowledge and abilities are organized around experience as much as they are organized around abstractions. Dienes was an early pioneer in what was later to be called sociocultural perspectives and democratization of learning. This monograph compiled and edited by Bharath Sriraman honors the seminal contributions of Dienes to mathematics education and includes several recent unpublished articles written by Dienes himself. These articles exemplify his principles of guided discovery learning and reveal the non-trivial mathematical structures that can be made accessible to any student. The monograph also includes a rare interview with Dienes in which he reflects on his life, his work, the role of context, language and technology in mathematics teaching and learning today. The book finds an important place in any mathematics education library and is vital reading for mathematics education researchers, cognitive scientists, prospective teachers, graduate students and teachers of mathematics.

Calls from the Past

Calls from the Past PDF Author: Zoltan Paul Dienes
Publisher: Upfront
ISBN: 9781844261901
Category : Poetry
Languages : en
Pages : 180

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Book Description
This collection of poems describes events that have taken place during the author's life. The first group of autobiographical poems includes the author's experiences as a refugee in Austria and Hungary, his move to England, and his schooldays and holidays. The second section provides some insights into the author's feelings for his beloved wife, Tessa. There are a number of poems that are intended to make the reader laugh at some of the absurd things that we take for granted. A few poems refer to the difficulties that some children have in trying to understand mathematics because of the way that it is taught, and give examples of fun ways of teaching it. Finally, there are poems that aim to make the reader think more deeply about the world in which we live; the beauty of the ever-changing seasons; reason and spirit; the meaning of life; hearing God's voice; and walking with God.

Zetetics and the Art of Mathematical Enquiry

Zetetics and the Art of Mathematical Enquiry PDF Author: Peter Merrotsy
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 144385722X
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 261

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Book Description
Mathematics has a rich history from cultures around the world, which can extend and enrich the appreciation and learning of mathematical concepts. This book provides inspiration for mathematics educators by exploring the development of mathematical concepts from historical and cultural perspectives. It will also be of interest to general readers with an interest in mathematics. Each chapter uses original historical material to introduce a mathematical concept that is then explored through new and unusual perspectives. The book presents several new mathematical “discoveries and inventions”, and offers a re-interpretation of traditional approaches to a range of mathematical problems, doing so in a rigorous way. Topics discussed here include numeracy, the abacus, Mesopotamian mathematics, public-key cryptography, Pythagoras’ theorem, the holistic nature of trigonometry, and an introduction to integral calculus, among many others. Throughout is reflected the author’s enthusiastic style of teaching and his entertaining approach to mathematics, serving to highlight active engagement with significant mathematical problems and hands-on modelling to build deep understanding of the concepts.

The International Commission on Mathematical Instruction, 1908-2008: People, Events, and Challenges in Mathematics Education

The International Commission on Mathematical Instruction, 1908-2008: People, Events, and Challenges in Mathematics Education PDF Author: Fulvia Furinghetti
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3031043138
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 754

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Book Description
The book presents the history of ICMI trough a prosopographical approach. In other words, it pays a lot of attention to the actors of the International movement. The portraits of the members of the ICMI Central Committees (1908-1936) and ICMI Executive Committees (1952-2008), and other eminent figures in ICMI history, who have passed away in the first 100 years of its life, are the guiding thread of the volume. Each portrait includes: · Biographical information · An outline of the various contributions made by the individual in question to the study of problems pertaining to mathematics teaching/education · Primary bibliography · Secondary with particular attention to the publications concerning the teaching of mathematics · Images: photos, book frontispieces, relevant manuscripts The authors of the portraits (30 altogether) are researchers in the history of mathematics, mathematics, and mathematics education. The focus on the officer’s role within ICMI and on his/her contributions to mathematics education, make the portraits different from usual biographies. In particular, since most officers were active mathematicians, the portraits shed light on aspects of their lesser-known activity. Connecting chapters place the action of these figures in the historical context and in the different phases of ICMI history.

I Will Tell You Algebra Stories You've Never Heard Before

I Will Tell You Algebra Stories You've Never Heard Before PDF Author: Zoltan Paul Dienes
Publisher: Upfront
ISBN: 9781844261918
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 280

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Book Description
In this work Zoltan Paul Dienes enlivens the world of algebra and examines some of the mysteries of mathematical constructions in a new and exciting fashion. Step by step, equation by equation, diagram by diagram, he strips away all the unintelligible jar