Arithmetic of Medieval Universities

It was really interesting to see that Church denounce the 7 arts due to it being the basis for the pagan education system. As a Christian, and someone who has studied the Bible in depth, it really shocked me to find out that the Christian Church wanted to segregate themselves from those who didn't follow the ways of the Bible. What's more shocking is the fact that they later became prerequisites to the study of Theology, because to me, it doesn't make sense as to why they would ban it and then promote it.

Computation used exclusively for the technical study of Easter reckoning was very interesting to me too. From the reading, it shows just how much power the Church had on society. I've read about the Catholic Church and its influence during the Medieval times, so this wasn't a new concept for me, but I never knew that their material and applications also directly translated to Christianity as well.

Lastly, I found it interesting when they mentioned the late Robert Recorde. As mentioned in the article, students would be known to applause after every lecture. To me that is amazing. The explanation given was they he helped foster general interest in the sciences, and it stuck out to me because as a teacher, isn't that what I should strive for? Maybe not a round of applause after every class, but the ability to instill a sense of curiousity and wonder in as many students as possible when it comes to math is what I would truly love to have. Making my students love math as much as he made his students love learning arithmetic would be a dream come true.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Assignment 2 Response

I believe that our "Napier's Bones" presentation was quite a treat for some students in class. The gasps of finding out how they did multiplication was very rewarding, because the enjoyment and satisfaction of teaching students something they didn't know really made us happy. I believe that this activity is a fun activity for younger grades, most preferably in elementary school, because it serves as a visual aid to multiplying and dividing numbers. The concept itself isn't very different from how most people learned to multiply, but it shows the type of thinking required for though multiplying "ugly" numbers together. For example, if I were to multiply 37 and 35, it would be easier (for me) to calculate (30 x 35) + (7 x 35) instead. This breakdown of the numbers greatly reduces the stress on a student, and helps them piece together the multiplication instead of having them do difficult mental math.
Read more

Final Project: Alan Turing

My project will be a series of journal articles told through the perspective of a British soldier during the second world war. It will discuss the great works of Alan Turing and how he cut the war short by several years, allowing the soldier to avoid the high potential of death. Strawn G. Alan turing.  IT Professional . 2014;16(1):5-7. Anguera de Sojo A, Ares J, Lara JA, Lizcano D, Martínez MA, Pazos J. Turing and the serendipitous               discovery of the modern computer.  Foundations of Science . 2013;18(3):545-557. Dyson G. The dawn of computing: Alan turing's bridging of logic and machines laid the foundation for               digital computers.  Nature . 2012;482(7386):459. How Alan Turing Cracked The Enigma Code. (n.d.). Retrieved November 26, 2018, from                           https://www.iwm.org.uk/h...
Read more

Was Pythagoras Chinese?

Unless it is a mathematics history course, I do not believe it is necessary to acknowledge any source of mathematics. I personally do not believe that knowing how the Chinese demonstrated a fundamental understanding of a theorem named after Pythagoras will affect how my understanding of said theorem. It is amazing that the Chinese were able to understand various different advanced mathematical concepts, that I will not argue against. However, my life or mathematical abilities have not changed the slightest upon reading about the many advances during the Yellow King's ruling period. If it comes to properly naming something, I do agree that they should be done correctly. Giving credit to where it is due is important, but there are times when a discovery was made by someone who also influenced other fields of academia. Euclid was not only known for Elements , but also for his work on the field of geometry as well. But this only goes back to the my initial argument that it only matters...
Read more