MATH IN THE

MODERN WORLD
 Video 1
Changing Perspective
by Roger Antonsen

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=
ZQElzjCsl9o
 Homework
Answer the following questions:
Based on the presentation of Roger
Antonsen:
1. What is mathematics?
2. What is understanding?
3. How does a person know that
he/she has understanding?
4. How is understanding made
possible?
What is Mathematics?
 Mathematics is not all about
numbers. It is more about reasoning,
making logical inferences and
generalization, and seeing
relationship in both the visible and
invisible patterns in the natural world.
 Learning Objectives:
At the end of this section, the students are
expected to:
✔ Identify patterns in nature
✔ Articulate the importance of mathematics
in one’s life
✔ Argue about the nature of mathematics,
what is it, how it is expressed,
represented, and used.
✔ Express appreciation for mathematics as a
human endeavor
 Questions
1. What is mathematics?
2. Where is mathematics?
3. What is mathematics for?
4. What is mathematics all
about? (What do you study in
math?)
5. What role does mathematics
play in our world?
 What is Mathematics?

❖Developed by human mind and culture –

develop a formal system of thoughts for
recognizing, classifying, and exploiting
patterns.

❖Great secret: NATURE’S PATTERNS -

rules that govern natural processes.

❖Johannes Kepler – The Six-Cornered

Snowflake
"In 1611, Kepler wrote an essay wondering why snowflakes always had
perfect, sixfold symmetry. It's a simple enough question, but one that no one
had ever asked before and one that couldn't actually be answered for
another three centuries. Still, in trying to work out an answer, Kepler raised
some fascinating questions about physics, math, and biology.

When snow began to fall while he was walking across

the Charles Bridge in Prague late in 1610, the eminent
astronomer Johannes Kepler asked himself the
following question: Why do snowflakes, when they
first fall, and before they are entangled into larger
clumps, always come down with six corners and
with six radii tufted like feathers?
In his effort to answer this charming and never-before-
asked question about snowflakes, Kepler delves into
the nature of beehives, peapods, pomegranates, five-
petaled flowers, the spiral shape of the snail's shell,
and the formative power of nature itself. While he did
not answer his original question—it remained a mystery
for another three hundred years—he did find an
occasion for deep and playful thought.
PATTERNS
 Where is mathematics?

▪ In nature
✔Numerical patterns
– Fibonacci
sequence - flowers
✔Geometric
patterns -
snowflakes
 Where is mathematics?

▪ In nature
✔Wave patterns -
sand dunes, stripes,
spots
✔Patterns of
movement – flight of
birds, motion of
heavenly bodies
 Where is mathematics?

▪ In nature
✔Chaos and Fractals–
clouds, rivers
networks, mountains,
trees, lightning
Patterns in Nature
 Where is mathematics?
▪ In man- made structures
What role does mathematics play in
our world?
▪ Mathematics is a useful and systematic
way to think about and understand
nature.
Examples
✔Storm is a functions of temperature and
pressure
𝐹 𝑥 =𝑥+𝑦
𝑆𝑡𝑜𝑟𝑚 = 𝑡𝑒𝑚𝑝𝑒𝑟𝑎𝑡𝑢𝑟𝑒 + 𝑝𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑠𝑢𝑟𝑒
What role does mathematics play in
our world?

✔Plant growth is a function of

nutrients and sunlight
✔Success is a function of good
character, positive mind set and
discipline
 What is mathematics all about?

✓Patterns
✓Numbers
✓Operations and Functions
✓Processes
✓Data structure
✓Proof – presents a story about
mathematics that works.
What do we want mathematics to tell us
about nature?

▪ How do things happen.

▪ Patterns
▪ Why things happen.
▪ Genetics and evolution
▪ Mathematical models in
understanding populations
 What is mathematics for?

▪ Mathematics helps organize patterns

and regularities in the world.
▪ Helps us to solve puzzles. It is a
systematically way of digging out the
rules and structures that lie behind
some observed pattern or regularity
▪ Rules and structures are then used to
explain what’s going on.
 What is mathematics for?

▪ Helps predict behavior of nature

and phenomena
▪ Helps control nature and
occurrences for our own ends
▪ Make practical use of what we
have learned about our world
 Some Ideas to Discourage or Debunk
or Disprove

➢Mathematics is just for the

books, confined in the
classroom.
➢Mathematics has no place in
my life.
 Reflection

Where is mathematics in your

daily life?