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#mathematics

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🔴 **Descartes’ Mathematics**

“_In La Géométrie, Descartes details a groundbreaking program for geometrical problem-solving—what he refers to as a “geometrical calculus” (calcul géométrique)—that rests on a distinctive approach to the relationship between algebra and geometry._”

Domski, Mary, “Descartes’ Mathematics”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2025 Edition), Edward N. Zalta & Uri Nodelman (eds.), forthcoming URL = <plato.stanford.edu/archives/su>.

#Descartes#History#HistSci
Fortgeführter Thread

A subtlety probably difficult to spot in the animation is that the interaction of the two waves leaves them phase shifted, with the taller wave gaining position, while the shorter one loses it. This further animation shows the interactions again (purple) but I’ve also shown what would happen if each wave moved without interaction with the other (red and blue).

Fortgeführter Thread

When you start looking at #NonlinearWaves, some of these principles no longer apply. For example, in the Korteweg-de Vries equation, which has #Soliton or solutions, you can no longer simply add two solutions together as the resulting function would not be a solution of the governing equation. Waves of different heights travel at different velocities, with the taller waves moving faster than the shorter ones. Instead, they interact #nonlinearly.

3/4

#Math #Maths #Mathematics I get maths students coming to me in their last year of high school not having learnt the main reason we use radians rather than degrees

Essentially, calculus.

E.g. the derivative of a trig function where the variable is in radians, is simpler/cleaner than in degrees, for example:

If x is in radians then
d/dx (sin x) = cos x

In degrees:
d/dx (sin x) = (pi/180) cos x

The extra factor of (pi/180) makes things messy.

Antwortete im Thread

@JacquesTimmermans
I recall learning about the quaternions surprisingly early in life and becoming somewhat obsessed with them and other related algebras I managed to discover along the way all of which seemed to provide sensible finite numbers of solutions to various problems; then suddenly realising one day, some years later, that Hamilton had not only found three square roots of minus one but that *every point* on the unit imaginary sphere is a square root of minus one...
#maths #mathematics

"How do we know that a particular set of postulates, say those of elementary algebra, will never lead to a contradiction? The answer to this disposes once and for all of the hoary myth of absolute truth for the conclusions of pure mathematics. We do not know [...] that a particular set of postulates is self-consistent and that it will never lead to a contradiction." – Eric Temple Bell (1883-1960)
#quote #mathematics #math #maths

Yesterday was day 1 of the 3 day International Meeting of the STACK community.

It was inspiring to be around so many smart people working on improving #maths education. There was good coverage of the use of JSXGraph for creating questions with graphics that students can interact with . Recent developments in Large Language Models and #AI have made it much easier to create the #Javascript code required for #JSXGraph .

sites.google.com/view/stack202

sites.google.comSTACK 2025 - ScheduleThe schedule is as follows. All in person participants will be provided with a site plan to help you find the rooms. All remote participants will be emailed a Zoom link. The workshops, discussions, talks and network meetings are all available for both in person and remote participants. The icon 5️⃣
#edtech#education#math

This morning I boosted (then rescinded) an image purporting to show how a circle is distorted on Mercator projections. In hindsight it should have been obvious, but it reminded me how easy it is for misinformation (or worse, disinformation) to spread, and how it gets a headstart on truth.

So, here I am trying to atone for my error by linking to a more accurate presentation of the distortion, and hopefully helping the truth catch up:

reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/