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Probability, pi, and the primes: Serendipity and experimentation in elementary calculus

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2016

Robert M. Young
Robert M. Young*
Affiliation:
Department of Mathematics, Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio 44074, e-mail: [email protected]
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Extract

Many years ago, long before it had become fashionable for so many research mathematicians to concern themselves with pedagogy, the renowned topologist Bill Thurston appeared as the keynote speaker at a symposium held at Harvard University. As he approached the podium, he could be seen carrying a set of toy building blocks, the sort designed for children. He was going to use them to construct models for his talk. But before he began, he held up the box and said, ‘You know what, kids love this stuff. What is it that we do to them?’ Of course, Thurston was right. Children have a natural curiosity, an innate sense of wonder about the world. Picasso said that children were natural born painters. Thurston said that they were natural born geometers. How do we help them to recapture that child-like sense of wonder after so many years of neglect?

Type
Articles
Information
The Mathematical Gazette , Volume 82 , Issue 495 , November 1998 , pp. 443 - 451
Copyright
Copyright © The Mathematical Association 1998

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