Jackson's Math History Blog

This week's reading presents several interesting topics that I could potentially introduce to my future students, in particular the part about how numbers can be interpreted in terms of qualities and emotions. However, I think these ideas are to be presented as a side note to the main teaching topics because of time constraints within the classroom as well as information overflow. Since most students probably have heard about the association between numbers and fortune/misfortune from their parents, teachers can also try to tie in the personalities portrayed by the Mayan glyphs to "decorate" mathematics and draw students' attention. From my personal experience, I believe numbers can represent a diverse set of qualities in some situations. In sports the athletes are always assigned numbers on their uniforms, and depending on the sport, each number is often associated with certain qualities or positions. For example, a player with the number "9" in so...

From this week's reading, my main takeaways are the following: 1. The Romans rejected many of the mathematical ideas that interested the Greeks because what the Greeks focused on was too impractical. This can be explained by some of the cultural or social differences between the Romans and Greeks, where the author mentioned that Romans enter 'adulthood' sooner than Greeks, and thus the skills acquired during the early education years would not be the same across societies. Even today, what children are required to learn in one place may differ from those who grew up in another part of the world. 2. There is confusion regarding the terms "logic" and "logistics", particularly concerning their practicality and functionality. From my own understanding, I have always separated their meanings without considering if there is a possible connection. As stated in the article, logistics deals with numerable objects, and it was considered a study for slaves, ...