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My first post - What is Math?

A person on the street might say that Math is...  

My professor for my Math capstone class asked us what is Math? Some responses were that Math is problem solving, it is anything to do with numbers, or, as I originally thought, a way to model what we see around us in a methodical manner (you can see my physics background show here). After some further thought on the topic, however, I'm changing my view a bit.  

Three brothers inherit 35 camels...  

     In a slightly modified version of the well known Arabic Algebra problem, our professor told us that there are three brother's whose father left a will telling them how to divide their camels. The father said the oldest should take half of the camels, the middle brother should take one third, and the youngest brother should take one ninth. Faced with the issue of all of the fractions not resulting in whole numbers, the brothers turn to a Mathematician riding by on camel back with his companion to try to solve the problem for them (I won't ruin the end of the story if you haven't heard it before). After we mulled over the problem, and our professor told us the solution, we were then asked "Is this a Math problem"? My knee-jerk reaction is to say yes - it was a problem that involved division while also taking certain constraints into account. Certainly that must be Math. Let's re-frame the question; why couldn't the brothers solve the problem on their own? They did the division correctly, however when they didn't get whole number answers, they gave up and asked for help. The problem ultimately was that they were using Math as a tool to solve the problem they were faced with (dividing up the 35 camels), however they didn't use it correctly (they didn't consider trying to round up or down). This makes me think that Math is a tool that can be used to solve problems. Just like any other tool, however, it has it's pros and cons, and it must be used in a certain way to be most effective. For example, you don't want to use the handle of a hammer to try to pound a nail into a wall (incorrect usage), and you wouldn't want to use a hammer to try to dig a hole (not the most effective tool).

Comments

  1. John GoldenSeptember 6, 2017 at 12:48 PM

    Nice use of the story to leverage your definition. What about the 5 math milestones?

    ReplyDelete

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