Raymond EDCP 442

For the research of Emilie, I got into rabbit holes of her wild journeys as a female philosopher, scientist and mathematician in the male-dominant fields during the Enlightenment Period. I got fascinated with her personal stories of hustling to fund her research using her aptitude for logical reasoning. There are many mentions of interesting facts which I have yet to read on, hence the books Passionate Mind and Daring Genius of the Enlightenment will be my holiday readings. I also learned that her contribution to science was born out of the sheer passion and fascination of mathematics. She was exposed to Newotian thinking early on and kept involving herself in the field even after marriage. Women at that time focused on marrying the ideal man as a goal while she continued to be herself as an equal amongst the male scientists at the time. It is truly inspiring how much will she had in dedicating in something she loves despite the adversities. Overall, I am very happy to choose her as th...

This document includes everything about our math history art project. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1yCxa5gft-UEPsHltfYtXWnQVo_B51MmBg3Xw66ZeSPQ/edit?usp=sharing

My partner Saiya and I will be working on the life of Émilie du Châtelet. Our art piece will be in the form of a sculpture. Here is a draft list of references we found for our research. Zinsser, J. P. (2007). Emilie du Chatelet: Daring Genius of the Enlightenment. Penguin. Tamboukou, M. (2023). Exceptional women in science education? Émilie Du Châtelet and Maria Gaetana Agnesi. Paedagogica Historica, 1–21. https://doi.org/10.1080/00309230.2023.2238621 Shaw, W. (n.d.). Du Châtelet (1706-1749). Project Vox. https://projectvox.org/du-chatelet-1706-1749/ Pursuit of Knowledge. (2024, May 4). Émilie du Châtelet: Forgotten Physicist [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnaW7r6wMd4

As a student of the statistics discipline, I was astounded by the amount of history which lies within the topic of probability theory alone. In fact, everything I have presented on 5 slides was only a small subset of techniques used in modern generalized linear regression models. It was also surprising how many mathematicians reached the same conclusions on this subject. This further enforces my perception that many theorems are categorized as 'necessary' instead of 'arbitrary'. Moreover, when researching the origins of each contribution, I was surprised at how many probability theories were discovered when working on applications of astronomy or finance. While many math concepts are discovered from inspirations and artistic expressions, it was nice to see that there can also be discoveries through supporting applications of real-world problems.

Watching the Dancing Euclidean Proofs video gave me new perspectives on mathematical learning. I paused and rewatched the part where Carolina served as an anchor point while Samuel ran around her in a perfect circle. This is a beautiful way in which a circle is illustrated, through an equal radius in 360 degrees. In fact, words like 'radius' and 'degree' aren't even necessary when watching the video. The simplicity of a circle is enough for understanding. Another part which I paused on was when Samuels explained the choreography required a lot of thinking, which is a little unexpected. In my opinion, the choreography is an extension to the existing understanding of the Euclidean Proof which tests the person on his/her true understanding of the concept. This is how I approach mathematical learning as well, a true relational understanding should allow student to extend the topics further than just classroom exercises. People have a stereotypical view of the tedium and...

I think it does make a significant difference given the demographics which a BC classroom looks like. Not recognizing non-European contribution can be a form of culture oppression. While many students are not aware of this, learning about history of non-European Mathematics broadens the viewpoint similar to a social issue. For students who can feel like their culture is recognized, it could helps them understand the concepts better, or even more engaged in learning. For the naming of Pythagoras Theorem, I find it very euro-centric where it is named after the person who has discovered it. In the Chinese equivalent, the theorem is called 勾(gou)股(gu)定理(theorem) where 勾 and 股 represents opposite and adjacent in a right angle triangle. Hence, the naming is literally just Opposite-Adjacent Theorem. This showed the naming scheme was on the basis that it was a discovery, not an invention. It's the lack of person-centric meaning which speaks volume about the culture of traditional Chinese d...