1) I have appreciated very much the experience told by Daina Taimina. I
think that young people are usually very interested in math history as
they are interested in stories and tales (as most of adult people). I
think that every educational pathway on cultural subjects, even
specialistic ones, should have the structure of a "story", sometimes of a
"thriller", without losing the rigorous aspect.
Math history could be very useful to plane a story-like teaching of
mathematics.
My experience on teaching to beginners university students confirms
that, for example, an interesting way of introducing logarithms to them is
starting with a historical survey on their invention: connecting such an
invention with the historical, scientific and economical context of XVI and
XVII century, pointing out what the basic idea and its pratical need were,
how time was ripe for this invention and how it was of incredible
usefulness for astronomy calculations and hence for the navigation
a.s.o.... Moreover supplying some news or portraits about the main
protagonists (Neper, Burgi, Briggs, Kepler, etc.) is useful.
After my lectures on logarithms with such an approach, many students
told me: 'At long last I understand and appreciate this subject. During
high-school we were used to deal with logarithmis as an abstract,
incomprehensible and useless "ufo"!' (concerning "useless", they never used
a slide rule and didn't get any information about the relevance of the
logarithmic function and its relationship with the modelling of the natural
phenomena).
2) I agree with Borzacchini when he says: 'Reading in the original
language can be necessary for a historian, but critical and oriented
translations can be sufficient for a course. In addition, I think that
"History of Mathematics" could play a role even in other curriculums,
because it is actually the most intriguing part of the "History of Truth".'
I disagree with him when he says: 'People do not love history and, in
order to not learning from it, they prefer to repeat it.'
The big success of the recent book "Fermat's last Theorem", by Singh,
demonstrates that people (mainly young people) love math history when it is
proposed as a "story", in this case as a sort of "thriller". Many students
of my class which "hated" mathematics have changed their mind after reading
such a book. Someone has also faced further math history books, as Boyer or
Eric Temple Bell, etc.
I think that a "suitable" insertion of math history in math lectures
could be a powerful instrument to help students to overcome their aversion
to mathematics, which was stratified and reinforced along too many years of
abstract and axiomatic teaching.
Warm regards,
Emilio F. Orsega
Emilio F.Orsega
Dip. di Chimica Fisica
Universita "Ca' Foscari" di Venezia
Calle Larga S. Marta, 2137
I - 30173 VENEZIA (Italy)
Phone: (+39) 041 257 86 01
FAX: (+39) 041 257 85 94
e-mail: ors-ef@unive.it