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Mathematical Maturity
In mathematics, mathematical maturity is an informal term often used to refer to the quality of having a general understanding and mastery of the way mathematicians operate and communicate. It pertains to a mixture of mathematical experience and insight that cannot be directly taught. Instead, it comes from repeated exposure to mathematical concepts. It is a gauge of mathematics students' erudition in mathematical structure In mathematics, a structure is a set endowed with some additional features on the set (e.g. an operation, relation, metric, or topology). Often, the additional features are attached or related to the set, so as to provide it with some additiona ...s and methods, and can overlap with other related concepts such as mathematical intuition and mathematical competence. The topic is occasionally also addressed in literature in its own right. Definitions Mathematical maturity has been defined in several different ways by various authors, and is often tied to ot ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mathematical Jargon
The language of mathematics has a vast vocabulary of specialist and technical terms. It also has a certain amount of jargon: commonly used phrases which are part of the culture of mathematics, rather than of the subject. Jargon often appears in lectures, and sometimes in print, as informal shorthand for rigorous arguments or precise ideas. Much of this is common English, but with a specific non-obvious meaning when used in a mathematical sense. Some phrases, like "in general", appear below in more than one section. Philosophy of mathematics ; abstract nonsense:A tongue-in-cheek reference to category theory, using which one can employ arguments that establish a (possibly concrete) result without reference to any specifics of the present problem. For that reason, it's also known as ''general abstract nonsense'' or ''generalized abstract nonsense''. ; canonical:A reference to a standard or choice-free presentation of some mathematical object (e.g., canonical map, canonica ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mathematician
A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems. Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, structure, space, models, and change. History One of the earliest known mathematicians were Thales of Miletus (c. 624–c.546 BC); he has been hailed as the first true mathematician and the first known individual to whom a mathematical discovery has been attributed. He is credited with the first use of deductive reasoning applied to geometry, by deriving four corollaries to Thales' Theorem. The number of known mathematicians grew when Pythagoras of Samos (c. 582–c. 507 BC) established the Pythagorean School, whose doctrine it was that mathematics ruled the universe and whose motto was "All is number". It was the Pythagoreans who coined the term "mathematics", and with whom the study of mathematics for its own sake begins. The first woman mathematician recorded by history was Hyp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mathematical Structure
In mathematics, a structure is a set endowed with some additional features on the set (e.g. an operation, relation, metric, or topology). Often, the additional features are attached or related to the set, so as to provide it with some additional meaning or significance. A partial list of possible structures are measures, algebraic structures ( groups, fields, etc.), topologies, metric structures (geometries), orders, events, equivalence relations, differential structures, and categories. Sometimes, a set is endowed with more than one feature simultaneously, which allows mathematicians to study the interaction between the different structures more richly. For example, an ordering imposes a rigid form, shape, or topology on the set, and if a set has both a topology feature and a group feature, such that these two features are related in a certain way, then the structure becomes a topological group. Mappings between sets which preserve structures (i.e., structures in th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lynn Arthur Steen
Lynn Arthur Steen (January 1, 1941 – June 21, 2015) was an American mathematician who was a Professor of Mathematics at St. Olaf College, Northfield, Minnesota in the U.S. He wrote numerous books and articles on the teaching of mathematics. He was a past president of the Mathematics Association of America (MAA) and served as chairman of the Conference Board of the Mathematical Sciences. Biography Lynn Steen was born in Chicago, Illinois but was raised in Staten Island, New York. His mother was a singer at the N.Y. City Center Opera and his father conducted the Wagner College Choir. In 1961, Steen graduated from Luther College with a degree in Mathematics and a minor in Physics. In 1965 Steen graduated from MIT with a Ph.D in Mathematics. He then joined the faculty of St. Olaf College. At the beginning of Steen's career he mainly focused on teaching and helping develop research experiences for undergraduates. His teaching led Steen to begin to investigate the links between ma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mathematical Notation
Mathematical notation consists of using symbols for representing operations, unspecified numbers, relations and any other mathematical objects, and assembling them into expressions and formulas. Mathematical notation is widely used in mathematics, science, and engineering for representing complex concepts and properties in a concise, unambiguous and accurate way. For example, Albert Einstein's equation E=mc^2 is the quantitative representation in mathematical notation of the mass–energy equivalence. Mathematical notation was first introduced by François Viète at the end of the 16th century, and largely expanded during the 17th and 18th century by René Descartes, Isaac Newton, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, and overall Leonhard Euler. Symbols The use of many symbols is the basis of mathematical notation. They play a similar role as words in natural languages. They may play different roles in mathematical notation similarly as verbs, adjective and nouns play different r ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Generalization
A generalization is a form of abstraction whereby common properties of specific instances are formulated as general concepts or claims. Generalizations posit the existence of a domain or set of elements, as well as one or more common characteristics shared by those elements (thus creating a conceptual model). As such, they are the essential basis of all valid deductive inferences (particularly in logic, mathematics and science), where the process of verification is necessary to determine whether a generalization holds true for any given situation. Generalization can also be used to refer to the process of identifying the parts of a whole, as belonging to the whole. The parts, which might be unrelated when left on their own, may be brought together as a group, hence belonging to the whole by establishing a common relation between them. However, the parts cannot be generalized into a whole—until a common relation is established among ''all'' parts. This does not mean that th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Abstraction (mathematics)
Abstraction in mathematics is the process of extracting the underlying structures, patterns or properties of a mathematical concept, removing any dependence on real world objects with which it might originally have been connected, and generalizing it so that it has wider applications or matching among other abstract descriptions of equivalent phenomena. Two of the most highly abstract areas of modern mathematics are category theory and model theory. Description Many areas of mathematics began with the study of real world problems, before the underlying rules and concepts were identified and defined as abstract structures. For example, geometry has its origins in the calculation of distances and areas in the real world, and algebra started with methods of solving problems in arithmetic. Abstraction is an ongoing process in mathematics and the historical development of many mathematical topics exhibits a progression from the concrete to the abstract. For example, the first steps i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Geometry
Geometry (; ) is, with arithmetic, one of the oldest branches of mathematics. It is concerned with properties of space such as the distance, shape, size, and relative position of figures. A mathematician who works in the field of geometry is called a ''geometer''. Until the 19th century, geometry was almost exclusively devoted to Euclidean geometry, which includes the notions of point, line, plane, distance, angle, surface, and curve, as fundamental concepts. During the 19th century several discoveries enlarged dramatically the scope of geometry. One of the oldest such discoveries is Carl Friedrich Gauss' ("remarkable theorem") that asserts roughly that the Gaussian curvature of a surface is independent from any specific embedding in a Euclidean space. This implies that surfaces can be studied ''intrinsically'', that is, as stand-alone spaces, and has been expanded into the theory of manifolds and Riemannian geometry. Later in the 19th century, it appeared that geome ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mathematical Proof
A mathematical proof is an inferential argument for a mathematical statement, showing that the stated assumptions logically guarantee the conclusion. The argument may use other previously established statements, such as theorems; but every proof can, in principle, be constructed using only certain basic or original assumptions known as axioms, along with the accepted rules of inference. Proofs are examples of exhaustive deductive reasoning which establish logical certainty, to be distinguished from empirical arguments or non-exhaustive inductive reasoning which establish "reasonable expectation". Presenting many cases in which the statement holds is not enough for a proof, which must demonstrate that the statement is true in ''all'' possible cases. A proposition that has not been proved but is believed to be true is known as a conjecture, or a hypothesis if frequently used as an assumption for further mathematical work. Proofs employ logic expressed in mathematical symbols ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mathematical Beauty
Mathematical beauty is the aesthetic pleasure derived from the abstractness, purity, simplicity, depth or orderliness of mathematics. Mathematicians may express this pleasure by describing mathematics (or, at least, some aspect of mathematics) as beautiful or describe mathematics as an art form, e.g., a position taken by G. H. Hardy) or, at a minimum, as a creative activity. Comparisons are made with music and poetry. In method Mathematicians describe an especially pleasing method of proof as '' elegant''. Depending on context, this may mean: * A proof that uses a minimum of additional assumptions or previous results. * A proof that is unusually succinct. * A proof that derives a result in a surprising way (e.g., from an apparently unrelated theorem or a collection of theorems). * A proof that is based on new and original insights. * A method of proof that can be easily generalized to solve a family of similar problems. In the search for an elegant proof, mathematicians ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Logical Intuition
Logical Intuition, or mathematical intuition or rational intuition, is a series of instinctive foresight, know-how, and savviness often associated with the ability to perceive logical or mathematical truth—and the ability to solve mathematical challenges efficiently. Humans apply logical intuition in proving mathematical theorems, validating logical arguments, developing algorithms and heuristics, and in related contexts where mathematical challenges are involved. The ability to recognize logical or mathematical truth and identify viable methods may vary from person to person, and may even be a result of knowledge and experience, which are subject to cultivation. The ability may not be realizable in a computer program by means other than genetic programming or evolutionary programming. History Plato and Aristotle considered intuition a means for perceiving ideas, significant enough that for Aristotle, intuition comprised the only means of knowing principles that are no ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mathematics And Culture
Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics with the major subdisciplines of number theory, algebra, geometry, and analysis, respectively. There is no general consensus among mathematicians about a common definition for their academic discipline. Most mathematical activity involves the discovery of properties of abstract objects and the use of pure reason to prove them. These objects consist of either abstractions from nature orin modern mathematicsentities that are stipulated to have certain properties, called axioms. A ''proof'' consists of a succession of applications of deductive rules to already established results. These results include previously proved theorems, axioms, andin case of abstraction from naturesome basic properties that are considered true starting points of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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