You're looking at Less Wrong's discussion board. This includes all posts, including those that haven't been promoted to the front page yet. For more information, see About Less Wrong.

_rpd comments on Learning Mathematics in Context - Less Wrong Discussion

5 Post author: Crux 26 January 2016 10:27PM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Article Navigation

Comments (35)

Comments (35)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: _rpd 31 January 2016 05:07:28PM 0 points [-]

provided the field is important within the context of human societal development and in engaging the material I gain a nuanced understanding of the content and a deep appreciation of how the originators created the system.

I'll suggest investigating the problem of "squaring the circle." It has it's roots in the origins of mathematics, passes through geometric proofs (including the notions of formal proofs and proof from elementary axioms), was unsolved for 2000 years in the face of myriad attempts, and was proved impossible to solve using the relatively modern techniques of abstract algebra.

The linked site has references (some already mentioned in this thread) that may be helpful ...

R.Courant and H.Robbins, What is Mathematics?, Oxford University Press, 1996

H.Dorrie, 100 Great Problems Of Elementary Mathematics, Dover Publications, NY, 1965.

W.Dunham, Journey through Genius, Penguin Books, 1991

M.Kac and S.M.Ulam, Mathematics and Logic, Dover Publications, NY, 1968.

including ...

R.B.Nelsen, Proofs Without Words, MAA, 1993

which may be of special interest to you.

Powered by Reddit Powered by Reddit