Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Does Chatgpt Know Calculus?, Kris H. Green

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

Academics and educators across the world are grappling with how OpenAI’s new software, ChatGPT, will impact teaching and learning. This essay explores ChatGPT’s response to a typical calculus problem as a way of illustrating its functionality and limitations.

Academic Hats And Ice Cream: Two Optimization Problems, Valery F. Ochkov, Yulia V. Chudova

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

This article describes the use of computer software to optimize the design of an academic hat and an ice cream cone!

The Nature Of Numbers: Real Computing, Bradley J. Lucier

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

While studying the computable real numbers as a professional mathematician, I came to see the computable reals, and not the real numbers as usually presented in undergraduate real analysis classes, as the natural culmination of my evolving understanding of numbers as a schoolchild. This paper attempts to trace and explain that evolution. The first part recounts the nature of numbers as they were presented to us grade-school children. In particular, the introduction of square roots induced a step change in my understanding of numbers. Another incident gave me insight into the brilliance of Alan Turing in his paper introducing both …

The Mystery Of The Dancing Men, Manmohan Kaur

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

In this paper I describe an activity based on a 1903 Sherlock Holmes murder mystery, in which a substitution cipher is used to encrypt secret messages. The story provides a fun and interesting way to talk about frequency analysis, and can be used as a segue into mathematical constructs such as modular arithmetic and computation. The activity is accessible to ages twelve and above, and has been successfully used in mathematics outreach and popularization efforts as well as in general education and mathematics courses.

Computational Thinking In Mathematics And Computer Science: What Programming Does To Your Head, Al Cuoco, E. Paul Goldenberg

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

How you think about a phenomenon certainly influences how you create a program to model it. The main point of this essay is that the influence goes both ways: creating programs influences how you think. The programs we are talking about are not just the ones we write for a computer. Programs can be implemented on a computer or with physical devices or in your mind. The implementation can bring your ideas to life. Often, though, the implementation and the ideas develop in tandem, each acting as a mirror on the other. We describe an example of how programming and …

Virtual Temari: Artistically Inspired Mathematics, Carl Giuffre, Lee Stemkoski

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

Technology can be a significant aide in understanding and appreciating geometry, beyond theoretical considerations. Both fiber art and technology have been employed as a significant aide and an inspiring vessel in education to explore geometry. The Japanese craft known as temari, or "hand-balls", combines important artistic, spiritual, and familial values, and provides one such approach to exploring geometry. Mathematically, the artwork of temari may be classified based on whether they are inspired by polyhedra and discrete patterns or by periodic functional curves. The resulting designs of these categories provide an ancient vantage for displaying spherical patterns. We illustrate a …

Designing Fractal Line Pied-De-Poules: A Case Study In Algorithmic Design Mediating Between Culture And Fractal Mathematics, Loe M.G. Feijs

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

Millions of people own and wear pied-de-poule (houndstooth) garments. The pattern has an intriguing basic figure and a typical set of symmetries. The origin of the pattern lies in a specific type of weaving. In this article I apply computational techniques to modernize this ancient decorative pattern. In particular I describe a way to enrich pied-de-poule with a fractal structure.

Although a first fractal line pied-de-poule was shown at Bridges 2015, a number of fundamental questions still remained. The following questions are addressed in this article: Does the original pied-de-poule appear as a limit case when the fractal structure is …