Project Proposal

What if we saw the world as math? Inspired by:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVJyaJ5TNpc

I think it would be pretty fun to make art inspired by calculus, or, to take it a step further, displaying calculus directly. For example, I read somewhere that rainbows involve quite a bit of calculus concepts. Perhaps our project can simply show what has been pointed out to us since the beginning of this year: calculus in nature. This includes organic curves of rocks, rainbows, fractals, even weather patterns. It sounds like a simple project, but it gives us a lot of room for creativity.

Book of Numbers Chapter 1 QQC

Quote: "If you break one egg, you will break an egg." And every other superstition that was listed.

Question: Who exactly made these up and who even believes these superstitions?

Comment: I personally have never heard even one of these superstitions. I mean, I'm not that much of a superstitious person, but I can definitely list a few that don't make sense but were quite infamous back in grade school. For example: "Step on a crack, break you're mama's back" or that one about having bad luck if you spill salt (the remedy is to throw some of the spilled salt over your shoulder).

Also, just as a side note... the number one never seemed so complex until I read through this chapter.

Chapter 0.000000001 QQC

Quote: "The Chinese abacus could also represent numbers as small as 0.01. The speed at which a trained abacus user can calculate sums is remarkable, and proficient users are even able to visualize the movement of the beads in their heads in order to achieve astonishing feats of mental arithmetic."

Question: How does it work? How does one train on it?

Comments: I've of course seen these before, and even played with them temporarily out of curiosity when I was younger, but never fully understood them. I think I understand them more now, and I wonder if using these little devices would help improve my mental math skills. Honestly, it seems like using them would be pretty fun. I might have to experiment with one and find out if this hands-on math technique could help me be more enthusiastic about my math skills. This is a large idea, I know, but maybe it could take me one small step closer to this goal.

Book of Numbers Chapter 0 QQC

Quote: Many thousands of years ago, when people didn't speak many words, before writing was invented, before there was money, before there were even words to describe numbers, people knew numbers. Although we had no names for them, we used them. We couldn't think about them or draw them.

Question: Numbers without symbols? What would the world be like if we didn't have numbers or time?

Comment: This has been a very curious thought to me since I entered high school. I just can't bring myself to imagine numbers without some sort of representation (for example, the symbol, or two rocks). I mean, of course I understand what numbers are, to an extent, but then it's strange to think about what they are in the universe. It's hard for me to explain, but it's quite interesting to think about. I mean, humans started out with knowing next to nothing, and then we started developing the idea of numbers and using them for counting, trading, and so on. And then somehow, through hundreds of thousands of steps, we went from counting to arithmetic. Numbers are, essentially, things humans made up, aren't they? So it would be easier for us to make sense of the world? For example, time is a measurement we made up as well (when it comes to seconds and hours).

Gauss QQC

Quote: "I mean the word proof not in the sense of lawyers, who set two half proofs equal to a whole one, but int the sense of the mathematician where 1/2 proof=0 and it is demanded for proof that every doubt becomes impossible."

Question: Is it possible to have that much proof for math? Where's the line between 'proof' and 'what just makes sense' in math?

Comment: Because proof, to me, can even be a picture drawn on a white board. It's not necessarily proof, but it certainly makes sense when it's explained. But even if I understand something, there's almost always going to be questions that come up at one point or another. Would that be considered a doubt? Or would that just mean the problem needs to be better explained for me to understand? It's just hard for me to imagine coming up with proof for certain math techniques unless you can physically prove it in the real world (which I know they have done already). All in all, I think this Gauss fellow is pretty witty, and I'm glad he was a critical thinker who thought that proof was just as important as the theory/technique. One thing I've come to realize is that in order for me to truly understand something-- especially in math-- I need to know why we do these steps, how this process applies to what we're solving, and why this makes sense in the first place. It's quite hard for me to find these answers on my own because sadly, I'm not quite creative enough to make sense of many mathematical processes--at least for now.

Euler QQC

I finally found out why none of my articles were loading!

Quote: "From 1727 to 1783 his writings poured out in a seemingly endless flood, constantly adding knowledge to every known branch of pure and applied mathematics"

Questions: Are people like this still around? Are people continuously writing new findings about math, or are most math articles just for explaining what was already proven in Euler's time?

Comment: I mean, I don't know much about the mathematical world around me, or rather, I have never been all that interested in reading articles about math, but this line just made me wonder if we're still making a lot of mathematical discoveries, or at least making new theories about them and publishing them. Honestly, I love learning new things, especially when I have a lot of sources I can refer to. That way I can take the pieces of information from each source that makes sense to me, and piece together my understanding of the subject. So I wonder if more people were interested in learning math back then because there were constantly so many new theories and discoveries and wonders.

Leibniz QQC

Quote: "Leibniz lived at a time when the passion for metaphysics was deep and strong, when it was still believed possible to understand the world purely by thought."

Question: Do we not still hold that belief to an extent?

Comment: It sounds like this point of time was a very beautiful and creative one. But I think that to this day we still believe that we can understand the world--at least a large chunk of it--purely by thought. For example, we have many mathematical hypothesis that were derived purely by thought, and sometimes certain steps in these hypothesis aren't easily explained. Also, whenever I learn about Biology, most of the information I take in seems to be hypothesis, or in otherwords, derived purely by thought, because we don't necessarily have proof that a cell moves exactly in the way it does, but it makes sense. Another example might be dinosaurs. Yes, we have the proof that they existed, but we can be sure what they looked like. For now, all we have is how we think the bones connect, and that they had scales, but there are still many arguments over it. Some scientists believe that many dinosaurs actually had feathers, rather than scales--there was once an exhibit on it in the Natural History Museum.

All in all, I think a lot of our world is still purely derived by thought, and each thought, analysis, hypothesis, and discovery brings us more power and potential.