Reflections on History of Mathematics (due March 20)
You will need to both email a .pdf to me at sottile@tamu.edu (or through Piazza; I think
this works), and submit this to turnitin.com.
Here is the information for our class:
Math 629: History of Mathematics Class ID: 43151150 Class Enrollment Key: See
Piazza.
Please make your paper double-spaced (actually 1.3 or 1.5 will do), also 12 pt type for
my old eyes, and a running head with your name and finally, page numbers and a title. Thanks.
A note about length: I'd like to see papers of at least a couple of pages long; I suggest a lower bound of 1000
words, to encourage you to choose to have enough space to develop your ideas, but also to signal that this need not be an all-consuming
activity.
We have begun studying the history of mathematics now for six weeks, as well as trying our hand at doing mathematics from different
historical periods, sometimes with the methods from that time.
I expect that this is quite a bit different from your experience in other mathematics classes.
The purpose of this short paper is to have you reflect on that experience; what you learned, what was what you expected, what was
unexpected, how did this relate to your previous mathematics experience.
Here are some prompts that may help you begin to think about this assignment, you might try to address these, especially the last.
- What was something you learned that surprised you.
- What was something that was challenging to you.
- What was something that inspired you.
- What was something that either may be used to enrich your teaching (for those who are or have been teachers),
or that changed or deepened your understanding of mathematics.
This is the first time I have assigned such a reflective writing exercise; this is a bit of an experiment.
Feel free to discuss this on Piazza.
I am open to ideas from the class; this is an experimental assignment.
I just want something that is historical and much less work than the term paper.
Last modified: Fri Mar 15 10:24:49 PDT 2024 by sottile