Analyzing The Universe and The Teacup
The Universe and the Teacup is a pretty interesting book with one purpose: To make math seem relevant and cool to people who have decided that they don't like math.
K. C. Cole pushes this idea by explaining how math applies to every imaginable thing in the universe, and how mathematicians are, in a sense, scientists. She also uses quotes to promote the coolness of math: "Understanding is a lot like sex," states the first line of the book. This rather blunt analogy, as well as the passage that explains how bubbles meet at 120-degree angles, supports Cole's theory that math can be applied to any subject. This approach of looking at commonplace objects and activities in a new way in order to associate them with math makes Cole's comparison of mathematicians with scientists easier to understand. It requires one to look at mathematicians not just as people who know lots of facts and formulas, but rather as curious people who use these formulas to understand the world around them.
Chapter two of The Universe and the Teacup deals with exponential numbers. More precisely, it deals with the difficulty humans have in processing very large and very small numbers. The term the book uses to describe this difficulty is "number numbness."
This numbness is natural, stemming from the fact that humans simply do not deal with such numbers very often, and even when they are dealt with, they are seen as words, not rational concepts. The fact that absolutely everyone suffers from this difficulty could prove to be harmful in the future, as population grows at the seemingly infinitesimal rate of 2% per year, an amount that is actually quite large when the current number of people on Earth i...
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...ding the whole book, although I encountered many new ways of looking at things, there were only a few ideas that will probably affect me very much in the long run. One such concept is in the chapter about scale. It basically says that if we were much larger, we would collapse, due to physical laws of nature, and if we were much smaller, we would be unable to function, due to similar laws. This gave me the idea that everything is the size it is because it has to be. The scale of things on Earth is the only scale possible for Earth; just as the scale of things on other planets follow the physical laws of that planet. For instance, if people existed on Jupiter, they would have to be extremely large giants, due to the size of the planet. This is the only major change in thought I took away from this book, though it was filled with many interesting new ideas.
ubiquitous and constitutes the greatest psychical danger-situation known to the human organism...' (ibid.). Isabel Menzies Lyth argues that these anxieties are
In the article The Cosmic Perspective by Neil deGrasse Tyson he examines a range of topics from human life coming from Mars to how our perspective of the universe relates to religion. In the year 2000, a new space show opened at the Hayden Planetarium called Passport to the Universe, which compared the size of people Milky Way and beyond. While a show like this might make someone feel minuscule and insignificant, Tyson says that seeing the size of the universe actually makes him feel more alive not less and gives him a sense of grandeur. I agree with his idea that looking at us as a people in comparison can actually give you a sense of grandeur. However, when I compare myself to the vastness of space, it puts events on Earth in perspective while showing how influential we can be as a people even if we are small.
Only sixteen of the 179 pages relate to Albert Einstein. The rest of the novel describes some of his "dreams" from April 15 to June 28, 1905. What if time were a circle? What if cause and effect were erratic? What if the passage of time brought increasing order? What if we had no memories? What if time flowed backward? What if we lived for only a day? What if time were measured by quality and not quantity?
Theoretical physics uses mathematical formulas to make predictions or theories about what happens in the natural world (Rújula). Theoretical physics is a complex yet interesting science, is filled with theories which people cannot prove, but they also cannot disprove. The theory the author uses in the novel is the multiple universe, or multiverse theory. According to Charles Seife, the multiverse theory states that: “Space is infinite. Within any finite volume of space, however, matter and energy can be arranged in only a f...
Euler number theory has been an interesting topic as it is complex and difficult to understand. To make this topic easy to understand for me, I decided to explore Euler number. Euler number is used in many different situations like trigonometry, logarithms and my favourite integration. These are some areas which we have studies in IB Math SL. There is more importance to Euler number than the IB curriculum has taught me. This is one reason I wanted to explore this topic.
Ball, Keith. Strange Curves, Counting Rabbits, and Other Mathematical Explorations. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003.
Contemporary philosophies of mathematics define the subject as the study of patterns, as opposed to the traditional study of numbers. These patterns exist in many abstract forms, such as numeric patterns, spatial (visual reasoning) patterns, patterns of motion, and patterns of growth or decay. Rackin recognizes the breakdown of one specific pattern, specifically the relationship between factors and products in base ten multiplications. From this evidence, he concludes that mathematics is meaningless in Wonderland, with no defined structure. But Rackin is making this assertion bas...
...ithout these analogies [in mathematics]? Nothing but Dodgson's original nursery tale, Alice's Adventures Under Ground, charming but short on characteristic nonsense.” (Bayley) Magic mushrooms, babies turning into pigs, and absurd questions (‘why is a raven like a writing desk?’) were all Carroll’s way of showing how useless the mathematical theories during the Victorian age were to him.
Finally, Isaac Newton’s Theory of Universal Gravitation shows how God designed the universe according to mathematical principles. What fully distinguishes science during the Scientific Revolution from the natural philosophy that dominated the preceding eras was the integration of mathematics into science. After centuries of relegating themselves to mere observation of nature, mathematics offered scientists an invaluable tool. Through the synthesis of mathematics, science gained its most distinguishing fea...
Butterworth, B. "Numerical Thought with and without Words: Evidence from Indigenous Australian Children." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 105.35 (2008): 13179-3184. Web. 2 Sept. 2011. .
My pedestal quality lies in the area of mathematics. It polishes my academic armor and sharpens my sword of educational merit. Mathematics is the backbone of my academic figure. Arithmetic and functions come like breathing and a math challenge is always appreciated; however, in no way is my prestige in math providing even the smallest level of interest for me. In fact, mathematics to me is comparable to a wrench in a toolbox: useful when needed, but otherwise useless. Nevertheless, my understanding of this subject provides exceptional resources to students in need.
“It should be evident that each step in my career has rested on a firm foundation in mathematics. For me, the study of mathematics was the key that opened the doors to the universe.”(ROBERT L. STEWART, NASA Astronaut)
Mathematics has been regarded as the backbone of scientific and technological development without which no nation can attain any sustainable development. Okafor and Adeleye (2011) defines Mathematics as the study of number, symbols, sizes, shapes, spaces, patterns, generalization, measurement, models, qualities, relationships and functions.
Moreover, there is not an accurate definition for Mathematics, since it’s applied in different forms according to the field. Yet, Mathematical thinking is not the same as doing mathematics. The subject Mathematics focuses on learning procedures to solve stereotypes problems, and unfortunately the majority of the people have mathematics as a concept that involves only step-by-step procedures. In addition, reading and writing for Mathematicians is essential and different from the other careers. Each letter and symbol have an specific meaning, therefore, mathematicians need to be careful on how to read and write in mathematical terms property, since it can change the meaning of the equation or the problem. (Shanahan & Shanahn,
We face several situation in our lifetime, and even though all these situations are different, they all have one thing in common. The all can be handled with a step by step problem solving attitude. Math, the study of logic, deductions, and applications is what creates this problem solving attitude. Math deals with numbers along with all the operations that can be used with them. Math is a strict rule based subject that fosters the structured thinking and problem solving attitude, which is used for analyzing daily problems, not just numeric ones. Math is used every day. Math is used in cooking, shopping, driving, daily