Assignment 2 Reflections

This assignment was the first time I found myself trying to ‘walk the talk’ as it relates to what I’ve perceived to be the goal of this course, namely to leverage history to provide context and make topics more engaging. Initially, when I chose explore this history of compass and straight-edge constructions, I had expected to primarily focus on the Greeks. While researching the Greeks, I was reminded of the deeply philosophical relationship they had with geometry – although there were practical applications of geometry, the Greeks were moved by the spiritual and sacred elements that they saw infused with these shapes. In attempting to better understand this motivation, I found a paper titled: “The Ritual Origin of Geometry”. The paper speculates that the first desire to create ‘perfect’ circles and squares was theological in nature. It also drew my attention to the importance of ‘peg and cord’ constructions, of which compass and straight-edge were mimicking.

This paper helped me realize (to a degree) how to really make this topic engaging. I posit many students would find the history of ancient rituals a more interesting entry point than history of the Greeks. I personally am much more excited by these ideas and can hopefully channel some of this excitement to my students. Additionally, having students actually execute peg and cord constructions is a highly collaborative activity. Much like the dancing of Euclidian proofs, students have the opportunity to embody the math which is so abstracted on the page.

Frankly, keeping in mind that the purpose of math history (for me) is to inspire students’ interest, I feel that typical chronological ‘reporting’ of history does not serve us. We care why these things happened, not when. Taken to an extreme, this leads me to consider the morality of embellishing history so as to make mathematics more interesting and engaging. Is it immoral to lie about the origins of the quadratic formula for the sake of learning the quadratic formula? It is a question worth asking, though it may be relatively unimportant. As someone still largely ignorant of the histories, it may be that all mathematical origins are fascinating and can serve to captivate students without embellishment. That being said, if it turns out they aren’t, I find myself without a clear answer to this question.  

Link for UBC Students to downloads a copy of "The Ritual Origin of Geometry". I HIGHLY recommend!

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF00327767