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Colin McAllister’s blog

Rediscovering Straight-edge and CompassConstruction

People who haven't had the right opportunity to learn math have something in commonwith people who were born before math was invented. Perhaps some of the techniques of Euclidean geometrycould be revived in a format that is more accessible today.Specifically, the ancient tools of straight-edge and compass, could be reinvented to suittoday's teaching needs. Take this geometry problem:

What is the largest area of the semi-circle that can be inscribed in a square of edge length 1 unit?

That was thequestionposted by harpreetin the topic " maxima & minima" on aMathematics forumon Orkut.com. Some mathematics enthusiasts took a team approach tothis problem on theMathematics24x7social network, Christian drew a diagram of the solution and Stevecalculated the radius of the semicircle. We calculated the radius as 2-sqrt(2) and the areaas

pi*(3-2*sqrt(2))

(sqrt() represents the square root.) Danny proposed a less abstractexpression of the problem, which would be more interesting to students.

"I have beenasked to help paint a mural on the outside wall of a grocery store in my neighborhood. My task is to create the background for the mural. The instructions are to create the largest possible semicircle on the wall, with the semicircle touching all 4 sides. The wall is square

Semicircle_In_Square

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Post a comment Tags: math, mathematics, geometry, education, maths

with 10 feet on each side. I need to find out how to position the semicircle to satisfy theinstructions. I also need to know the radius and center of the semicircle. How can I figurethis out with the basic math that I know?"

In the discussionStraight Edge and CompassConstruction For Developmental Math, I described a method of drawing the mural using along plank, lengths of rope, a few pegs and some chalk.

Use the rope to extend the baseof the wall, to the right, by its width, and mark the point with a peg. This defines animaginary square that is side by side with, and on the right of the square wall. Draw adiagonal on the original square, because we know that the solution is symmetrical about the diagonal. Mark a diagonal on the imaginary square by stretching a rope from the peg tothe top right corner of the square wall. This is a way of calculating the square root of two.Using the peg as the center point and the rope as a radius, follow an arc down to the baseof the wall, and mark the point where the arc intersects the base. The distance of that point from the left wall is 2-sqrt(2), which is the radius of the semicircle. Draw a perpendicular from that point, and where it meets the diagonal, peg the center point of the semicircle. Attaching a length of rope to the peg, stretch it to the furthest wall, and with chalk held fixed on the rope, draw the semicircle.

I also described the construction in more abstractterms, and used theGeoGebrageometry software to demonstrate.(See the diagram,where the biggest semicircle that fits in the square is positioned diagonally in the top left of the diagram.)

Draw the square as a 4 sided regular polygon. Draw an identical square toits right Draw the diagonals of the right hand square and use them as radii of arcs that intersect the left hand square. Create points where the arcs intersect the base and top sideof the left hand square. Join these two points with a vertical line. Its intersection with thediagonal of the left hand square defines the centre of the semicircle. Draw the semicirclethrough any one point on the square and notice that it touches or intersects the square at 4 points. Draw the base of the semicircle through the two intersection points.

(I mistakenlydrew the wall as 11 feet instead of 10, but that does not detract from the construction.)Constructive geometry involves no measurement of length, except use of the compass asa tool to copy a length and duplicate it somewhere else on the plane. It also involves noalgebra. We multiply a length by extending it with additional equal lengths. We draw thediagonal of a square without realising that we are calculating the square root of two.Constructive geometry is available to people who don't do algebra. They can solve ancientproblems, rediscover the history of mathematics and apply it to their own environment.Straight-edge and compass problems range in difficulty from simply drawing a hexagon tothe more complex procedure for drawing a pentagon.

Promoting Mathematics Via Social Networks

This is a story of thepromotion of mathematics and science through social networks, digital repositories andother Web 2.0 technologies. It began in August 2008 when I was inspired by the 1999Cluetrain Manifesto, and wrote a discussion paper "Use the Cloud to Get a Clue", which I published as a PDF file on Scribd.com and later as a slide show "Openness and SocialNetworking" on Slideshare.net. To demonstrate the Creative Commons licenses, I threwtogether a quick presentation "The Cool Physics of Heat", and was surprised that itnotched up almost 1000 views on Slideshare.net and 1400 views on Scribd.com, muchmore than any other document that I have released. I then focussed on my interest in

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mathematics (not my mainsubject), in particular blogging about it here, athttp://cmcallister.vox.com/ on the free bloggingservice, Vox.com. Idiscovered an active nichesocial network,Mathematics24x7, on theNing.com platform, whereteachers and other academics wereexpressing their enthusiasm for maths. I participated in a weekly#mathchat Twitter conference(2am GMTThursdays). That exchange inspired me to create a public wiki "Online MathematicsAccess", about math markup as a tool for discussing mathematics online. There werefailures too; my "Mirimatics" forum on Friendster.com stimulated absolutely no discussion. Iadded aMath Problem Solvinggroup to Mathematics24x7, which is more successful, andattracted a dozen participants in as many days. My online activity is neither scientificresearch nor publishing, in the formal sense. However, it is still worthwhile, and involvesthe exchange of academic ideas with a network of new online acquaintances. It ispromising that this discourse has grown, without being published in an academic journal,or having any research focus. The discussion has drifted across such diverse topics as thesolution of geometric problemsand the significance of colour in cognition, which someone "Liked" on Facebook. I'm simply writing about a subject that I enjoy, not striving tomaximise page hits. The only metrics are the view count on my uploaded files, and a fewred dots on the visitor map on my blog. I uploaded snapshots, of both themath markupwikiand thisVox.com blog, to Scribd.com, to make them more available. The online discourse is dynamic, refreshing, and involves a broad cross section of maths enthusiasts.We exercised teamwork in solving maths problems and discussed some new ideas. Thediscussions are linked to other networks too, including theMath, Math Education, MathCulturegroup on LinkedIn.com and aMathematics communityon Orkut.com. This story is dedicated to the many individuals who are persecuted for publishing their ideas, a few of whom I mention on my blog athttp://cmcallister.blog.friendster.com/.

Links:

Social network:http://mathematics24x7.ning.com/created by Rashmi Kathuria #mathchat, hosted weekly by Maria Droujkova athttp://twitter.com/mariadroujkova Math Markup wiki:http://onlinemathematicsaccess.wikispaces.com/ Math, Math Education, Math Culture, managed by Opher Liba, athttp://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=33207 Math 2.0 Interest Group, managed by by Maria Droujkova, athttp://mathfuture.wikispaces.com/

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Colourised Equations As An Aid To Mathematics

Yesterday, during a discussion aboutcognition, a colleague informed me that Physicist