Reflection - A Man Left Albuquerque Heading East: Chapter 7

 In this excerpt, we consider why, despite enormous differences in time and space, the mathematical content of some Babylonian word problems remain the same in modern times

Drawing from personal experience writing test questions, I can affirm the temptation to create problems as a function of the variables used in some given method. In order to test instrumental understanding, one intuitively provides variations of essentially the same question by varying which information is given. This often does not align with any practical situation, but instead forces the student to consider all possible ways in which some method might be used. In particular, by providing the student with information that would typically be the target quantity, they are forced to calculate some quantity that would in reality be measured directly. 

When all variations of some problem are considered together, they constitute a strong understanding of the method. This aligns with Høyrup’s observations that although many problems are presented with practical quantities, they are not the quantities one might have access to in reality. Lastly, without access to algebra, I personally can’t conceive of any alternate way of demonstrating some general method without direct application.

As such, I am (currently) of the opinion that the content of word problems has remained consistent over thousands of years because the methods themselves have also remained constant.