[MATHEDCC] Real world and negatives

John Chamberlain (chamber@CORD.ORG)
Tue, 09 Nov 1999 14:52:22 -0600

In the real world of a computer programmer trying to describe the positions
of various objects in three-dimensional spaces, movements could not be done
without resorting to the many conventions we have created in
mathematics...including negative numbers. For example, the transformation
of a body of coordinates requires the product of coordinate values and
trigonometric functions (of angles of rotation, angles of perspective,
etc), which very often result in products of negatives and positives, or
pairs of negatives.

This is the kind of thing that happens millions of times when the students
play a flight simulator or adventure game on their PCs for example.

Even the seemingly stretched examples of finance posted by others here
(debits and credits) are quite valid when you consider how a computer
programmer must instruct the computer to evaluate the sums, products,
differences, quotients, and even exponents (which also are often negative numbers).

I don't think that students necessarily need to know that they will ever
actually do these examples (e.g., computer programming), but they will be
more inclined to grasp the concept if they can attach to it a context of
something they DO UNDERSTAND (e.g., the PC flight simulator) or have
experienced. That's where good teachers discover what makes the student
"tick" and tap THAT context in their teaching. Isn't this what makes
teaching exciting year after year?

John Chamberlain | C - O - R - D
Senior Associate | 601 Lake Air Dr
- - - - - - - - - - - | Waco, TX 76710
800-972-2766, Ext 221 | Fax 254-772-8972
chamber@cord.org | http://www.cord.org

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