Count Us In

Gareth Roberts

Description

Mathematics, like language, is a universal experience. Every society counts and is empowered by its ability to count and to measure. The mathematical processes developed within various cultures differ widely, and Count Us In explores these cultural links, drawing examples from the author’s personal experiences. The process of counting, like the process of communicating with words, is common to all societies worldwide but, just as there is a rich variety of languages, so too is there a rich variety in methods of counting and of recording numbers – methods that have developed over centuries to meet the needs of various groups of people. The narrative of this book takes the form of a collection of short stories based on the author’s personal experience, linked together by a number of sub-themes.

As a popular book on mathematics and on the personalities who created that mathematics, there are no prerequisites beyond the reader’s rudimentary and possibly hazy recollection of primary-school mathematics and a curiosity to know more.
Figures and plates
Acknowledgements
Foreword
1 More cabbage, anyone?
2 Meeting of minds
3 Nothing will come of nothing
4 Setting the Recorde straight
5 Neither a borrower nor a lender be
6 Amazing Mayans
7 What do you reckon?
8 Prairie power
9 Putting down digital roots
10 Areas of (mis)understanding
11 Cracking the code
12 Does mathematics have a gender?
13 How to make maths real for all of us
Appendix
Answers to Puzzles
Notes on Chapters
Further Reading

Sujets

• Sciences formelles
• Guides de référence et manuels mathématiques
• Numeration
• Sciences et techniques
• Idioma galés
• Counting
• Mathematics
• Welsh

Informations

• Publié par: University of Wales Press
• Date de parution: 15 février 2016
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781783167975
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 13 Mo

Extrait

Count us in

C O UNT US IN

C

C O U N T U S I N How to make maths real for all of us

Gareth Ffowc Roberts

UNIVERSITY OF WALES PRESS 2016

© Gareth Ffowc Roberts, 2016

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any material form (including photocopying or storing it in any medium by electronic means and whether or not transiently or incidentally to some other use of this publication) without the written permission of the copyright owner except in accordance with the provisions of the

Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. Applications for the copyright

owner’s written permission to reproduce any part of this publication

should be addressed to the University of Wales Press, 10 Columbus Walk,

Brigantine Place, Cardiff CF10 4UP.

www.uwp.co.uk

British Library CataloguinginPublication Data. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN eISBN

9781783167968

9781783167975

The right of Gareth Ffowc Roberts to be identified as author of this work

has been asserted in accordance with sections 77, 78 and 79 of the

Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

The publication of this book, first published in Welsh by Gomer Press,

Llandysul, Wales, is supported by the Welsh Books Council (WBC) and

the Welsh Association of Lecturers in Mathematics in the Area Training

Organisation (WALMATO).

Designed and typeset by Chris Bell, cbdesign

Printed by CPI Antony Rowe, Chippenham, Wiltshire

Front cover artwork by Valériane Leblond

To my grandchildren Elis, Gwydion, Mari, Miriam, Olwen, and their contemporaries

My wish is that you should learn in your native language. So that no foreign Nation should have cause to mock you on account of your Ignorance.

John Roberts,Arithmetic: mewn Trefn Hawdd ac Eglur(1768)

C

C O NT ENT S

Figures and plates Acknowledgements Preface

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13

More cabbage, anyone? Meeting of minds ‘Nothing will come of nothing’ Setting the Recorde straight ‘Neither a borrower nor a lender be’ Amazing Mayans What do you reckon? Prairie power Putting down digital roots Areas of (mis)understanding Cracking the code Does mathematics have a gender? How to make maths real for all of us

Appendix Answers to puzzles Notes on chapters Further reading Index

ix xi xiii

1 7 15 21 33 41 47 59 67 79 89 97 111

116 120 125 139 141

F IG UR ES AND P L AT ES

Figures Fig. 1. Mural of Einstein and Ramanujan at the Loyola University College in Chennai, India Fig. 2. The bust of Robert Recorde in St Mary’s Church, Tenby Fig. 3. Woodcut from the title page ofThe Ground of Artes (1543) Fig. 4. Robert Recorde introduces the equals sign in The Whetstone of Witte(1557) Fig. 5. Caradog Jones’s work on Pythagoras’ theorem, 1880 Fig. 6. Celtic knot pattern on a cross near Llandeilo Fig. 7. Hymn board in a Welsh chapel Fig. 8. Slate plaque in Llanfechell, Anglesey, celebrating the work of William Jones Fig. 9. William Jones’s use ofπto denote the ratio of the diameter of a circle to its circumference Fig. 10. Llinos’s present to her parents Fig. 11. Mary Wynne Warner (1932–98)

17

23

27

30 65 69 73

81

83 98 102

Plates Plate 1. Gutun Owain’s use of Hindu–Arabic numerals in 1488/9 Plate 2.Magical Symbols,an interpretation by Anne Gregson showing the use of Recorde’s sign of equality Plate 3. Representation of a date using glyphs on a Mayan calendar