Download or read book Contemporary Mathematical Thinking written by Frédéric Patras and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2023-04-13 with total page 133 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book deals with the evolution of mathematical thought during the 20th century. Representing a unique point of view combining mathematics, philosophy and history on this issue, it presents an original analysis of key authors, for example Bourbaki, Grothendieck and Husserl. As a product of 19th and early 20th century science, a canon of knowledge or a scientific ideology, mathematical structuralism had to give way. The succession is difficult, still in progress, and uncertain. To understand contemporary mathematics, its progressive liberation from the slogans of "modern mathematics" and the paths that remain open today, it is first necessary to deconstruct the history of this long dominant current. Another conception of mathematical thought emerged in the work of mathematicians such as Hilbert or Weyl, which went beyond the narrow epistemological paths of science in the making. In this tradition, mathematical thought was accompanied by a philosophical requirement. Modernity teaches us to revive it. The book is intended for a varied public: mathematicians concerned with understanding their discipline, philosophers of science, and the erudite public curious about the progress of mathematics.
Download or read book Mathematical Thinking and Problem Solving written by Alan H. Schoenfeld and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-05-06 with total page 303 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the early 1980s there was virtually no serious communication among the various groups that contribute to mathematics education -- mathematicians, mathematics educators, classroom teachers, and cognitive scientists. Members of these groups came from different traditions, had different perspectives, and rarely gathered in the same place to discuss issues of common interest. Part of the problem was that there was no common ground for the discussions -- given the disparate traditions and perspectives. As one way of addressing this problem, the Sloan Foundation funded two conferences in the mid-1980s, bringing together members of the different communities in a ground clearing effort, designed to establish a base for communication. In those conferences, interdisciplinary teams reviewed major topic areas and put together distillations of what was known about them.* A more recent conference -- upon which this volume is based -- offered a forum in which various people involved in education reform would present their work, and members of the broad communities gathered would comment on it. The focus was primarily on college mathematics, informed by developments in K-12 mathematics. The main issues of the conference were mathematical thinking and problem solving.
Download or read book Introduction to Mathematical Thinking written by Friedrich Waismann and published by Courier Corporation. This book was released on 2012-08-07 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examinations of arithmetic, geometry, and theory of integers; rational and natural numbers; complete induction; limit and point of accumulation; remarkable curves; complex and hypercomplex numbers; more. Includes 27 figures. 1959 edition.
Download or read book Introduction to Mathematical Thinking written by Keith J. Devlin and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Mathematical thinking is not the same as 'doing math'--unless you are a professional mathematician. For most people, 'doing math' means the application of procedures and symbolic manipulations. Mathematical thinking, in contrast, is what the name reflects, a way of thinking about things in the world that humans have developed over three thousand years. It does not have to be about mathematics at all, which means that many people can benefit from learning this powerful way of thinking, not just mathematicians and scientists."--Back cover.
Download or read book The Essence of Numbers written by Frédéric Patras and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2020-10-06 with total page 180 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book considers the manifold possible approaches, past and present, to our understanding of the natural numbers. They are treated as epistemic objects: mathematical objects that have been subject to epistemological inquiry and attention throughout their history and whose conception has evolved accordingly. Although they are the simplest and most common mathematical objects, as this book reveals, they have a very complex nature whose study illuminates subtle features of the functioning of our thought. Using jointly history, mathematics and philosophy to grasp the essence of numbers, the reader is led through their various interpretations, presenting the ways they have been involved in major theoretical projects from Thales onward. Some pertain primarily to philosophy (as in the works of Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Wittgenstein...), others to general mathematics (Euclid's Elements, Cartesian algebraic geometry, Cantorian infinities, set theory...). Also serving as an introduction to the works and thought of major mathematicians and philosophers, from Plato and Aristotle to Cantor, Dedekind, Frege, Husserl and Weyl, this book will be of interest to a wide variety of readers, from scholars with a general interest in the philosophy or mathematics to philosophers and mathematicians themselves.
Download or read book The Nature of Mathematical Thinking written by Robert J. Sternberg and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2012-10-12 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why do some children seem to learn mathematics easily and others slave away at it, learning it only with great effort and apparent pain? Why are some people good at algebra but terrible at geometry? How can people who successfully run a business as adults have been failures at math in school? How come some professional mathematicians suffer terribly when trying to balance a checkbook? And why do school children in the United States perform so dismally in international comparisons? These are the kinds of real questions the editors set out to answer, or at least address, in editing this book on mathematical thinking. Their goal was to seek a diversity of contributors representing multiple viewpoints whose expertise might converge on the answers to these and other pressing and interesting questions regarding this subject. The chapter authors were asked to focus on their own approach to mathematical thinking, but also to address a common core of issues such as the nature of mathematical thinking, how it is similar to and different from other kinds of thinking, what makes some people or some groups better than others in this subject area, and how mathematical thinking can be assessed and taught. Their work is directed to a diverse audience -- psychologists interested in the nature of mathematical thinking and abilities, computer scientists who want to simulate mathematical thinking, educators involved in teaching and testing mathematical thinking, philosophers who need to understand the qualitative aspects of logical thinking, anthropologists and others interested in how and why mathematical thinking seems to differ in quality across cultures, and laypeople and others who have to think mathematically and want to understand how they are going to accomplish that feat.
Download or read book An Introduction to the Philosophy of Mathematics written by Mark Colyvan and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2012-06-14 with total page 199 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A fascinating journey through intriguing mathematical and philosophical territory - a lively introduction to this contemporary topic.
Download or read book Contemporary Perspectives on Mathematics in Early Childhood Education written by Olivia Saracho and published by IAP. This book was released on 2008-02-01 with total page 346 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume provides a comprehensive critical analysis of the research in mathematics education for young children. The researchers who conducted the critical analysis focused on the relationship between (1) mathematics learning in the early years and domain specific approaches to cognitive development, (2) the children’s social learning and their developing understanding of math, and (3) the children’s learning in a natural context and their understanding of mathematics concepts. The work of these scholars can help guide those researchers who are interested in pursuing studies in early childhood mathematics in a specific area of study. This volume will facilitate the research conducted by both novice and expert researchers. The volume has accomplished its major goals, which consists of critically analyzing important research in a specific area that would be most useful in advancing the field and provide recommendations for both researchers and educators.
Download or read book Mathematical Reasoning written by Lyn D. English and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-04-03 with total page 393 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How we reason with mathematical ideas continues to be a fascinating and challenging topic of research--particularly with the rapid and diverse developments in the field of cognitive science that have taken place in recent years. Because it draws on multiple disciplines, including psychology, philosophy, computer science, linguistics, and anthropology, cognitive science provides rich scope for addressing issues that are at the core of mathematical learning. Drawing upon the interdisciplinary nature of cognitive science, this book presents a broadened perspective on mathematics and mathematical reasoning. It represents a move away from the traditional notion of reasoning as "abstract" and "disembodied", to the contemporary view that it is "embodied" and "imaginative." From this perspective, mathematical reasoning involves reasoning with structures that emerge from our bodily experiences as we interact with the environment; these structures extend beyond finitary propositional representations. Mathematical reasoning is imaginative in the sense that it utilizes a number of powerful, illuminating devices that structure these concrete experiences and transform them into models for abstract thought. These "thinking tools"--analogy, metaphor, metonymy, and imagery--play an important role in mathematical reasoning, as the chapters in this book demonstrate, yet their potential for enhancing learning in the domain has received little recognition. This book is an attempt to fill this void. Drawing upon backgrounds in mathematics education, educational psychology, philosophy, linguistics, and cognitive science, the chapter authors provide a rich and comprehensive analysis of mathematical reasoning. New and exciting perspectives are presented on the nature of mathematics (e.g., "mind-based mathematics"), on the array of powerful cognitive tools for reasoning (e.g., "analogy and metaphor"), and on the different ways these tools can facilitate mathematical reasoning. Examples are drawn from the reasoning of the preschool child to that of the adult learner.
Download or read book Synthetic Philosophy of Contemporary Mathematics written by Fernando Zalamea and published by National Geographic Books. This book was released on 2012-09-01 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A panoramic survey of the vast spectrum of modern and contemporary mathematics and the new philosophical possibilities they suggest. A panoramic survey of the vast spectrum of modern and contemporary mathematics and the new philosophical possibilities they suggest, this book gives the inquisitive non-specialist an insight into the conceptual transformations and intellectual orientations of modern and contemporary mathematics. The predominant analytic approach, with its focus on the formal, the elementary and the foundational, has effectively divorced philosophy from the real practice of mathematics and the profound conceptual shifts in the discipline over the last century. The first part discusses the specificity of modern (1830–1950) and contemporary (1950 to the present) mathematics, and reviews the failure of mainstream philosophy of mathematics to address this specificity. Building on the work of the few exceptional thinkers to have engaged with the “real mathematics” of their era (including Lautman, Deleuze, Badiou, de Lorenzo and Châtelet), Zalamea challenges philosophy's self-imposed ignorance of the “making of mathematics.” In the second part, thirteen detailed case studies examine the greatest creators in the field, mapping the central advances accomplished in mathematics over the last half-century, exploring in vivid detail the characteristic creative gestures of modern master Grothendieck and contemporary creators including Lawvere, Shelah, Connes, and Freyd. Drawing on these concrete examples, and oriented by a unique philosophical constellation (Peirce, Lautman, Merleau-Ponty), in the third part Zalamea sets out the program for a sophisticated new epistemology, one that will avail itself of the powerful conceptual instruments forged by the mathematical mind, but which have until now remained largely neglected by philosophers.
Download or read book Introduction to Mathematical Thinking written by Friederich Waismann and published by . This book was released on 1959 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book How Not to Be Wrong written by Jordan Ellenberg and published by Penguin Press. This book was released on 2014-05-29 with total page 480 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A brilliant tour of mathematical thought and a guide to becoming a better thinker, How Not to Be Wrong shows that math is not just a long list of rules to be learned and carried out by rote. Math touches everything we do; It's what makes the world make sense. Using the mathematician's methods and hard-won insights-minus the jargon-professor and popular columnist Jordan Ellenberg guides general readers through his ideas with rigor and lively irreverence, infusing everything from election results to baseball to the existence of God and the psychology of slime molds with a heightened sense of clarity and wonder. Armed with the tools of mathematics, we can see the hidden structures beneath the messy and chaotic surface of our daily lives. How Not to Be Wrong shows us how--Publisher's description.
Download or read book Mathematics and the Real World written by Zvi Artstein and published by Prometheus Books. This book was released on 2014-09-02 with total page 428 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Mathematics for Human Flourishing written by Francis Su and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2020-01-07 with total page 287 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "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.
Download or read book Greek Mathematical Thought and the Origin of Algebra written by Jacob Klein and published by Courier Corporation. This book was released on 2013-04-22 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Important study focuses on the revival and assimilation of ancient Greek mathematics in the 13th-16th centuries, via Arabic science, and the 16th-century development of symbolic algebra. 1968 edition. Bibliography.
Download or read book Visual Thinking in Mathematics written by Marcus Giaquinto and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2007-07-05 with total page 298 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawing from philosophical work on the nature of concepts and from empirical studies of visual perception, mental imagery, and numerical cognition, Giaquinto explores a major source of our grasp of mathematics, using examples from basic geometry, arithmetic, algebra, and real analysis.
Download or read book Physics for Mathematicians written by Michael Spivak and published by . This book was released on 2010 with total page 733 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
