Make sure that whatever you write, it is in your own words, and is related to what you learned in the course. You are welcome to answer more than three questions for extra credit.
- Write down a summary of what you learned until now in this course. This summary, consisting of of about 500 words, should not be a list of topics. (The main point of this question is having you reflect and elaborate) (Yes, this question was asked in a previus quiz. Make sure you answer incorporating the material of the last weeks)
- Which topic or idea did you find most interesting and why?
And choose one (or more!) of the following questions
- Give an example (or more than one) in the history of mathematics where problem-solving served as basis for the initial development of a concept.
- Choose two or three of the societies discused in class and explain the reasons, purpose or motivations for these societies to do mathematics.
- Give an example where a mathematician, unable to solve a certain math problem, ended up solving a related but different one.
- Give an example of a math problem that appear in at least three of the societies we studied.
- Given examples (at least two) of concepts that were represented in different ways in different cultures.
- Write something you learned in the course about one of the topics below. . (Two or three paragraphs per topic)
- Describe a point of view or idea that you change because of this course.
Topics
- What is mathematics?
- Number systems
- What is a number? What is a numeral?
- Ishango bone
- Ancient Egypt
- Ancient Mesopotamia
- Plimpton 322
- Mayan Mathematics
- Calendars
- Incan Kipus
- Hellenic Mathematics
- Zeno’s Paradoxes
- Euclid’s elements
- Construction of the equilateral triangle
- Proof of the Pythagorean Theorem
- Proof of the Infinitud of Primes
- Axiom systems
- Archimedes
- Erathostenes
- Apollonius conics
- Ptolemy table of chords
- Diophantus and the Arithmetica
- Ancient Chinese Mathematics
- Ancient and Medieval Indian Mathematics
- Mathematics Islamic world
- Al-khwarizmi