A Curriculum Suggestion for Teaching College Arithmetic

Author(s): Stanley Schmidt

Source: The Two-Year College Mathematics Journal, Vol. 1, No. 1 (Spring, 1970), pp. 92-95
Published by: Mathematical Association of America
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3027122
Accessed: 00/00/0000 00:00
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless
you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you
may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use.
Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at
http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=maa.
Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed
page of such transmission.
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of
content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms
of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Mathematical Association of America is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to
The Two-Year College Mathematics Journal.

http://www.jstor.org

ClassroomNotes
Teachingexperienceoftenproducessome appropriateexplanation,a sheetof paper
techniqueor specialknowledgein mathe- likethefacsimile
below:
maticsinstruction
whichhas proveduseful
NAME_
MathE
in theclassroom.Everyinstructor
has one
or two such techniquesin his repertoire,
San Francisco
and it is our hope thathe will findthis
sectionof theJournal
a suitablevehiclefor
The MathTour
makingthemavailableto others.
Getall of thefollowCompleteand return.
ing problemscorrectand you advanceto
the next town on your triparoundthe
world.If you havean errorthispaperwill
be returnedto you. You will not be told
A Curriculum
Suggestion
which problemis wrong.Hunt and find
forTeachingCollegeArithmetic
yourerrorsand turnit in againuntilyou
advanceto thenextcity.
StanleySchmidt
CityCollegeofSan Francisco
48
4496
699401
+ 2861
- 248109
X 26
One of thegreatestdifficulties
thattheinstructorof a junior college class in
Those studentswho hand in the first
arithmetic
facesis expressedby the quesdone
tion: "How shall I presentthecontentof sheetwithall the problemscorrectly
receivea secondsheetentitled:"Welcome
thecourseto thestudents?"
In this articleI wish to presentan to Oakland!" containing two simple
approachto the teachingof these arith- divisionproblems.
In itsoriginalformThe MathTourconmetic classes which mightbe used in
conjunction with the two traditional sistedof 52 steps.Beforeeach classmeetmethodsof (1) lecturing,
and (2) assigning ing,I wroteup enoughstepson thetourto
ensurethatI wouldstayaheadof theclass.
I
students.
problemsand helpingindividual
up thetourcan thusbe
developedthismethod,called "The Math The job of writing
at City brokenup intomanyworksessionsrather
Tour,"whileteachingmathematics
in adCollegeof San Franciscoduringthe spring thanhavingto be completedentirely
vance.
semester
of 1969.
In its originalformThe MathTourwas
Duringthe use of The Math Tour,I
used duringthe last thirdof thesemester oftenoverheard
studentsaskingeachother
witha class of fifteenstudentsand using suchquestionsas "Haveyougotto Boston
no studentassistants.Withthe help of yet?"or stating"I'm goingto tryto getto
severalof the studentsin the class,there Englandtoday."I feelthatthereis perhaps
wouldbe littledifficulty
in employing
this more incentivein thissystemof learning
teachingmethodwitha class of 50 to 70 progressthan in the more traditional
members.
of finishing
so manypagesin a
framework
Basically,The Math Tour is a pro- givenamountof time.
gramedlearningsequencewhichties the
Anyonewishingto havea copyof The
studentnot to the text but to the in- MathTourmaywriteto mein careof City
Each studentis handed,afteran Collegeof San Francisco.
structor.
92

The following
selections
are fromIn Mathematical
Circlesby HowardW. Eves,
published
Weber& Schmidt,
byPrindle,
Inc.,1969.

1060 The origin of our word "sine." The meanings of the

present names of the trigonometricfunctions,with the exception of
sine,are clear fromtheirgeometricalinterpretationswhen the angle is
placed at the centerof a circle of unit radius. Thus, in Figure 18, if the
radius of the circle is one unit,the measuresof tan 0 and sec 0 are given
by the lengthsof the tangent
segmentCD and the secantsegment OD.
And, of course, cotangentmerelymeans complement'stangent,and so
on. The functionstangent,cotangent,secant, and cosecant have been
known by various other names, these presentones appearing as late as
the end of the sixteenthcentury.
The originof the word sineis curious. Aryabhata called it ardha-jya
("half chord") and alsojyd-ardhj("chord half"), and then abbreviated
the term by simply usingjyd ("chord"). Fromjyd the Arabs phonetically derivedjiba, which, followingthe Arabian practice of omitting
vowel symbols, was writtenas jb. Now jiba, aside fromits technical
significance,is a meaningless word in Arabic. Later writers,coming
acrossjb as an abbreviation for the meaninglessjiba decided to subD

FIGURE

A~~~~~

18

stitutejaib instead, which contains the same letters and is a good

Arabian word meaning "cove" or "bay." Still later, Gherardo of
Cremona (ca. 1150), when he made his translationsfromthe Arabic,
replaced the Arabicjaib by its Latin equivalent, sinus,whence came our
presentword sine.
93

1490 On the originof > and < . During his stay of roughly a
year in America, Harriot took the opportunityto study the Indians
and to learn to speak their language. Upon returningto England, he
wrote a book entitledA Briefand TrueReportof theNew FoundLand of
and of theNatureand Mannerof theNaturall
Virginia,of theCommodities,
Inhabitants(first edition 1588, second edition 1590). Captain John
White, who accompanied Harriot, made sketchesof scenes and people
seen by the two men. In the 1590 edition of Harriot's book appeared
engravingsmade by Thomas de Bry of some of the sketchesdrawn by
White. One of these engravingsshows a rear view of an Indian chief
on whose leftshoulder blade appears the mark reproduced in Figure
22. If the small serif-likemarks are removed, and the resultingsymbol

FIGURE

22

pulled apart in the horizontal direction,therewill appear two symbols

similar to those that Harriot chose for "is greater than" and "is less
than." It is thus possible, as was pointed out by Charles L. Smith of the
State Universityof New York at Potsdam, that a mark on the back of
an Indian chief suggested to Harriot two mathematical symbols that
have now been in use formore than three centuries.
In the absence of any stated or recorded motivationon the part of
Harriot, the above explanation could well be the true one. But there
is at least one feature of Harriot's early symbols perhaps militating
against the conjecture. Harriot constructedhis inequality signs as very
long, horizontally drawn-out symbols, and not at all like the short
stubby symbolsappearing on the Indian chief's back.
Of course, since Harriot had adopted the long drawn-outequality
sign of Robert Recorde, it could be that his long drawn-outinequality
signswere so designed merelyforsimilitudeofrepresentation.However,
one would like to think that Harriot had a more rational motivation
forthe originof his symbolsthan an adaptation of marks appearing on
the back of an Indian chief. Such a rational and easily conceived
motivation would be this: In an expression like 2 = 2, the space
94

between the two leftends of the bars of the equality sign is equal to the
space between the two rightends of these bars, and, also, the number
on the left of the equality sign is equal to the number on the right.
Therefore,in designing a symbol to representthe qualitative relation
between 4 and 2, say, since the leftnumber 4 is greater than the right
number 2, why not adopt a symbol composed of two converging
bars, so
that the space between the two leftends of these bars is greater than
that between the two right ends of the bars? Because of Harriot's
adoption of the long equality sign, a long inequality sign for "is
greater than," composed of two converging bars like we have just
described, should, to circumventpossible misinterpretation,
completely
converge,yielding,over the years, 4 > 2.
Whatever Harriot's motivation might have been for the origin of
his inequality signs, the motivation described immediately above has
fine pedagogical value, and once a student hears this motivation he
will never confound the two symbols > and <.
3520 Whythereis no Nobel Prize in mathematics.There is a
Nobel prize in several of the great fieldsofstudy,but none in mathematics. The reason for this is interesting.At one time the great Swedish
mathematician G. M. Mittag-Leffler(1846-1927) was a man of considerable wealth, and in accumulating his fortunehe antagonized a
number of people, in particular Alfred Nobel, who founded the five
great prizes forannual award forthe best work in Physics,Chemistry,
Physiology or Medicine, for Idealistic Literary Work, and for the
Cause of Universal Peace. At the time the prizes were set up, mathematics was also under consideration.Nobel asked his advisers,if there
should be a prize in mathematics, in their opinion might MittagLefflerever win it? Since Mittag-Lefflerwas such an able and famous
mathematician,they had to admit that such would indeed be a possibility. "Let there be no Nobel Prize in Mathematics, then," Alfred
Nobel ordered.

Ze

=0?'

95