SLIDE 1
Title: CHAPTER 3: WHAT MATHEMATICS IS ABOUT?
Common words we think when it comes to mathematics:
Numbers, patterns, add, subtract, divide, multiply, factors
The science of structure, order, and relation that has evolved from elemental practices of
counting, measuring, and describing the shapes of objects.
It deals with logical reasoning and quantitative calculation, and its development has
involved an increasing degree of idealization and abstraction of its subject matter.
SLIDE 2
Title: Numbers: Discovery by various civilization
The starting point has to be NUMBERS. Inevitably my starting point has to be numbers. A
large part of the early prehistory of mathematics can be summed up as the discovery, by various
civilizations, of a wider and wider range of things that deserved to be called numbers.
Counting without numbers: counting on your fingers
Counting through recording: scratches on pieces of wood or bone
Fractions: (1) beyond counting numbers. (2) kind of number we know symbolize as 2/3, 22/7,
1/7 etc. (3)You cannot count with fractions.
Zero: (between 400 and 1200 AD) The key idea here was the invention of a symbol for
“nothing.” Mathematics uses symbols, but it no more is those symbols than music is musical
notation or language is strings of letters from an alphabet.
Carl Friedrich Gauss: “not notations, but notions.” The pun “non notationes, sed notiones” in
latin.
SLIDE 3
Real Numbers – Were used happily for centuries before anybody worried about the logic behind
them. people worried a great deal about the next enlargement of the number system even though
was harmless. Because of that, square roots for negative numbers was introduced which led to
the discovery of Imaginary and Complex numbers.
Negative numbers can be thought of as representing a debt
Real number definition: are simply the combination of rational and irrational numbers, in the
number system.
Note: The set of real numbers consist of different categories, such as natural and whole numbers,
integers, rational and irrational numbers. (bali yung mga susunod na naka bold from imaginary-
whole number is under lahat ng real number.)
Natural numbers or Whole Numbers
Natural number definition: Contain all counting numbers which start from 1.
N = {1,2,3,4,……}
Whole number definition: Collection of zero and natural number.
W = {0,1,2,3,…..}
SLIDE 4
Note: Whole numbers 1, 2, 3… are known as the natural numbers. If you include negative whole
numbers, the series is known as integers. Positive and negative numbers taken together are
known as rational numbers
SLIDE 5
Title: Other Mathematical Objects:
OPERATION examples are addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division.
FUNCTION = Transformations rules for transforming one mathematical object into
another. Many of these processes can be thought of as things which help to create data structures.
Thingification of process: (1) def: process of turning something into a thing (2) mathematical
processes are abstractions (3) a number is a process that has long been thingified so thoroughly
that everybody thinks of it as a thing.
Ex: the number 2 is not actually a thing but a process. Process you carry out when you associate
two camels with the symbols 1 & 2 chanted in turn.
SLIDE 6
Title: Representation of Math
The image of mathematics raised by this description of its basic objects is something like a tree,
rooted in numbers and branching into ever more esoteric data structures as you proceed from
trunk to bough, bough to limb, limb to twig. . . . But this image lacks an essential ingredient. It
fails to describe how mathematical concepts interact.
Escoteric: intended for or likely to be understood by only a small number of people with a
specialized knowledge or interest.
SLIDE 7
Title: Proof
Professional mathematicians no statement is considered valid unless it is proved beyond any
possibility of logical error. But there are limits to what can be proved, and how it can be proved.
~ Math Philosophy established that you can’t prove everything, because you have to start
somewhere; and even when you’ve decided where to start, some statements may be neither
provable nor disprovable
~ Mathematical logic say that a proof is a sequence of statements. Each of which either follows
from previous statements in the sequence or from agreed an unproved but explicitly stated
assumptions that in effect define the area of mathematics being studied, also called Axioms.
Ship/Dock
A type of puzzle in which you are given a word (ship) and asked to turn it into the word (dock)
by changing one letter at a time.
SHIP SLIP SLOP SLOT SOOT LOOT LOOK LOCK DOCK
There are plenty of alternatives, and some involve fewer words. But if you play around with this
problem, you will eventually notice that all solutions have one thing in common: at least one of
the intermediate words must contain two vowels. (just like in mathematical solutions. You can
come up with diff solutions but you’ll still end up in one correct answer)
Proofs knit the fabric of mathematics together, and if a single thread is weak, the entire fabric
may unravel.
SLIDE 8
Title: Mathematical Emotional Experiences
Frustration at the intractability of what ought to be an easy question,
Elation when light dawned,
Suspicion as you checked whether there were any holes in the argument, aesthetic
Satisfaction when you decided the idea really was O.K. and realized how neatly it cut through
all the apparent complications.
“Even mathematicians can commit mistakes”
Xtra slide hehe for reference lang
References:
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