Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Equation, Nilanjan De

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

No abstract provided.

Harmonics In The Library, Charles Coppin

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

Students of traditional calculus courses can discover significant mathematics original to themselves, especially if these courses are taught in a way that allows shafts of mathematical light to shine through. We tell a story of such an incident in the form of a dialogue between two fictional students. Our students, on their own, discover (or rediscover) a well-known problem based on the harmonic series. We believe opportunities for such discoveries are greater if students have had some experience with inquiry-based learning prior to entering a traditional course. More broadly, we aim to demonstrate what can occur when students feel no …

A Math Therapy Exercise, Gary Stogsdill

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

Math anxiety prevents many liberal arts undergraduates from appreciating mathematics and realizing their potential in math courses and math-related endeavors. The author describes his development and use of a "math therapy exercise" that enables students to move beyond the paralyzing grip of math anxiety and cultivate a more positive relationship with mathematics.

Rock Art Tallies: Mathematics On Stone In Western North America, James V. Rauff

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

Western North America abounds with rock art sites. From Alberta to New Mexico and from Minnesota to California one can find the enigmatic rock paintings and rock carvings left by the pre-Columbian inhabitants. The images left behind on the rocks of the American plains and deserts are those of humanoids and animals, arrows and spears, and a variety of geometric shapes and abstract designs. Also included, in great numbers, are sequences of repeated shapes and marks that scholars have termed "tallies." The tallies are presumed to be an ancient accounting of something or some things. This article examines rock art …

Connecting The Contradictory With Science Art And The Aid Of A Caption, Carel P. Brest Van Kempen, Darryl Wheye

The STEAM Journal

When the disciplines of science and art intertwine to reveal a truth then words and images are suited to telling different parts, and reveal the whole story most effectively when working in tandem. Decoding the underlying science within a work of art through a caption does not diminish its value as art, but when we fail to decode the science we miss entry into a narrative.

Just Beautiful Portrays Of The Mind? The Relevance Of Aesthetic Strategies On Knowledge Creation In Neuroscience, Valerie Kummer

The STEAM Journal

We live in the age of big data. All types of data are being generated at an increasing rate but theories about the strategies and methods to visualize them is lagging. One of the main challenges we face today in research is to keep up with the massive amounts of data we produce (Allen, Elena A. et.al, 2012). Especially in the field of neuroscience and its use of imaging technologies, the vast array of data has risen to such a high number that it is impossible to grasp the inherent information without additional software tools and intelligent interfaces. Only through …

Broad Vision: The Art & Science Of Looking, Heather Barnett, John R. A. Smith

The STEAM Journal

Undergraduate students and academic staff from diverse disciplines in the arts and sciences investigated questions of mediated vision through a year-long interdisciplinary research project at the University of Westminster, London, United Kingdom. The Broad Vision project explored the perception and interpretation of microscopic worlds, and investigated the benefits and challenges of working across disciplinary divides in a university setting. This article describes the three-phase model for interdisciplinary learning and research developed through the project, providing a valuable case study for inquiry based art/science education.

Quantum Man, Julian Voss-Andreae

The STEAM Journal

According to quantum physics, the world is fundamentally quite different than it seems. Drawing inspiration from the underlying nature of reality, former quantum physicist Julian Voss-Andreae created an image of a walking human as a quantum object. Made up of parallel sheets of steel, the sculpture is a metaphor for the counter-intuitive world of quantum physics. Symbolizing the dual nature of matter with the appearance of classical reality on the surface and cloudy quantum behavior underneath, the sculpture seems to consist of solid steel when seen from the front, but dissolves into almost nothing when seen from the side.

The Wiseman, James William Sobieski

The STEAM Journal

I created this artwork for a gallery show of masks. I have always been an auto-didact. I turned my love of books and learning into a sculpture that is a self-portrait. It is an icon of the power knowledge brings. A mask is a protective barrier between the wearer and the world. The paper word-filled book pages create a fierce and intimidating grill. I love working with a variety of materials and constructing objects that demand the viewer to think.

Bottled Sky, Ioannis Michalou(Di)S

The STEAM Journal

Cloud-hunter Ioannis ΜICHALOU(di)S, lies in wait of air streams, grapping pieces of sky, shaping them, molding them, and baptizing them as ‘aerosculptures’. MICHALOU(di)S is the first visual artist worldwide to use art and science in a unique way. His latest Art-Science achievement is ‘Bottled Sky’. He states:

“In October 2001, while I was trying to create a cubic nephele, in the Visual Arts Research Centre of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), I came upon the silica aerogel for the first time... It is a space technology material, intangible -consisting of 99.9% air and 0.1% glass - which has been recently …

Propeller, Joel Kahn

The STEAM Journal

This image is based on several different algorithms interconnected within a single program in the language BASIC-256. The fundamental structure involves a tightly wound spiral working outwards from the center of the image. As the spiral is drawn, different values of red, green and blue are modified through separate but related processes, producing the changing appearance. Algebra, trigonometry, geometry, and analytic geometry are all utilized in overlapping ways within the program. As with many works of algorithmic art, small changes in the program can produce dramatic alterations of the visual output, which makes lots of variations possible.

Balconies, Joe Guimera

The STEAM Journal

Recent developments in theoretical physics suggest the possibility of parallel universes. What if we could see two or more universes at the same time? In effect, superimpose a scene from one universe; say a street corner, over the image of the same scene from a second universe? The photograph “Balconies” imagines the possibilities.

Towards A “Cloud Curriculum” In Art And Science?, Roger Malina

The STEAM Journal

Recently an email hit my desk from Paul Thomas in Australia with a proposal to work together on a “Cloud Curriculum for Art and Science”. I immediately agreed to collaborate. I don’t yet have a clue of what a cloud curriculum is, but what I do know is that we are ‘backing into the future’ in educational institutions and we desperately need a ‘cloud curriculum.’ We need to look over the ten year horizon. And in the emerging art-science field I doubt that the usual approach to curriculum development will work.

A Distributed Intelligence Approach To Multidisciplinarity: Encouraging Divergent Thinking In Complex Science Issues In Society., Jarod Kawasaki, Dai Toyofuku

The STEAM Journal

The scientific issues that face society today are increasingly complex, open-ended and tentative (Sadler, 2004). Finding solutions to these issues, not only requires an understanding of the science, but also, concurrently dealing with political, social, and economic dimensions that exist (Hodson, 2003). For example, 40 years after the first congressional hearing on climate change held by Al Gore in 1976, the 2012 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report states that climate change is still getting worse, despite efforts by governments, businesses, social actors such as Non-Government Organizations, and scientists. With the top minds in the world, across all disciplines, …

Steam...Now!, John Eger

The STEAM Journal

With America slowly awakening to the need to turn out creative and innovative workers who can join the 21^st century (its already 2012) workplace -- because they have the new thinking skills --we have to change the current emphasis on STEM, for Science, Technology, Engineering and Math to STEAM, by insuring that the whole brain is nurtured through the arts: thus STEAM.

A Letter To The Steam Journal Readers, Deborah Freund

The STEAM Journal

A letter to the readers from the President of Claremont Graduate University, President Deborah Freund, welcoming the inaugural issue of 'The STEAM Journal'.

Equations Of Light - The Steam Journal Inaugural Issue, The Cover Art, Chris Brownell

The STEAM Journal

This is the background to some of the work, art and thinking that went into the cover art for the inaugural issue.

Three Poems: The Lorenz Transformations, Rotating The Strange Attractor To Find The Principal Components, The Sieve Of Eratosthenes, Robin Chapman

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

No abstract provided.

Some Contributions To The Sociology Of Numbers, Robert Dawson

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

Those who work with numbers eventually realize that they all have different personalities (the word "numbers" can of course be replaced by any number of other nouns here.) Here is one view of the issue.

How To Cook Up A Math Poem In N Easy Steps, Caleb Emmons

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

A mathematical poem attempts to distill a mathematical concept and present it in a literary or visually compelling way. This paper presents an outline of my own personal method of composing such poetry. The outline is elucidated via an extended meditation on the composition of one particular poem.

On Contemplation In Mathematics, Frank Lucas Wolcott

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

In a section about research, we make the case that intentional, structured reflection on the mathematical research process, by mathematical researchers themselves, would result in better mathematicians doing better mathematics. As supporting evidence, we describe the Flavors and Seasons project. In a section about teaching, we describe the contemplative education movement and share personal experiences using meditation in the math classroom. We conclude with an explicit proposal for elucidating the experiential context of mathematics, in both research and teaching environments.

Teaching The Complex Numbers: What History And Philosophy Of Mathematics Suggest, Emily R. Grosholz

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

The narrative about the nineteenth century favored by many philosophers of mathematics strongly influenced by either logic or algebra, is that geometric intuition led real and complex analysis astray until Cauchy and Kronecker in one sense and Dedekind in another guided mathematicians out of the labyrinth through the arithmetization of analysis. Yet the use of geometry in most cases in nineteenth century mathematics was not misleading and was often key to important developments. Thus the geometrization of complex numbers was essential to their acceptance and to the development of complex analysis; geometry provided the canonical examples that led to the …

Sloane’S Gap: Do Mathematical And Social Factors Explain The Distribution Of Numbers In The Oeis?, Nicolas J.-P. Gauvrit, Jean-Paul Delahaye, Hector Zenil

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

The Online Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences (OEIS) is a catalog of integer sequences. We are particularly interested in the number of occurrences of N(n) of an integer n in the database. This number N(n) marks the importance of n and it varies noticeably from one number to another, and from one number to the next in a series. “Importance” can be mathematically objective (2^10 is an example of an “important” number in this sense) or as the result of a shared mathematical culture (10^9 is more important than 9^10 because we use a decimal notation). The concept of algorithmic complexity …