You are on page 1of 54

Intelligent Computer Mathematics

International Conference CICM 2014


Coimbra Portugal July 7 11 2014
Proceedings 1st Edition Stephen M.
Watt
Visit to download the full and correct content document:
https://textbookfull.com/product/intelligent-computer-mathematics-international-confer
ence-cicm-2014-coimbra-portugal-july-7-11-2014-proceedings-1st-edition-stephen-m-
watt/
More products digital (pdf, epub, mobi) instant
download maybe you interests ...

Intelligent Computer Mathematics 13th International


Conference CICM 2020 Bertinoro Italy July 26 31 2020
Proceedings Christoph Benzmüller

https://textbookfull.com/product/intelligent-computer-
mathematics-13th-international-conference-cicm-2020-bertinoro-
italy-july-26-31-2020-proceedings-christoph-benzmuller/

Smart Health International Conference ICSH 2014 Beijing


China July 10 11 2014 Proceedings 1st Edition Xiaolong
Zheng

https://textbookfull.com/product/smart-health-international-
conference-icsh-2014-beijing-china-
july-10-11-2014-proceedings-1st-edition-xiaolong-zheng/

Reversible Computation 6th International Conference RC


2014 Kyoto Japan July 10 11 2014 Proceedings 1st
Edition Shigeru Yamashita

https://textbookfull.com/product/reversible-computation-6th-
international-conference-rc-2014-kyoto-japan-
july-10-11-2014-proceedings-1st-edition-shigeru-yamashita/

Business Process Management 12th International


Conference BPM 2014 Haifa Israel September 7 11 2014
Proceedings 1st Edition Shazia Sadiq

https://textbookfull.com/product/business-process-
management-12th-international-conference-bpm-2014-haifa-israel-
september-7-11-2014-proceedings-1st-edition-shazia-sadiq/
Biomedical Image Registration 6th International
Workshop WBIR 2014 London UK July 7 8 2014 Proceedings
1st Edition Sébastien Ourselin

https://textbookfull.com/product/biomedical-image-
registration-6th-international-workshop-wbir-2014-london-uk-
july-7-8-2014-proceedings-1st-edition-sebastien-ourselin/

Nonlinear Dynamics of Electronic Systems 22nd


International Conference NDES 2014 Albena Bulgaria July
4 6 2014 Proceedings 1st Edition Valeri M. Mladenov

https://textbookfull.com/product/nonlinear-dynamics-of-
electronic-systems-22nd-international-conference-
ndes-2014-albena-bulgaria-july-4-6-2014-proceedings-1st-edition-
valeri-m-mladenov/

Computer Aided Verification 26th International


Conference CAV 2014 Held as Part of the Vienna Summer
of Logic VSL 2014 Vienna Austria July 18 22 2014
Proceedings 1st Edition Armin Biere
https://textbookfull.com/product/computer-aided-
verification-26th-international-conference-cav-2014-held-as-part-
of-the-vienna-summer-of-logic-vsl-2014-vienna-austria-
july-18-22-2014-proceedings-1st-edition-armin-biere/

Hybrid Artificial Intelligence Systems 9th


International Conference HAIS 2014 Salamanca Spain June
11 13 2014 Proceedings 1st Edition Marios Polycarpou

https://textbookfull.com/product/hybrid-artificial-intelligence-
systems-9th-international-conference-hais-2014-salamanca-spain-
june-11-13-2014-proceedings-1st-edition-marios-polycarpou/

Intelligent Computing Theory 10th International


Conference ICIC 2014 Taiyuan China August 3 6 2014
Proceedings 1st Edition De-Shuang Huang

https://textbookfull.com/product/intelligent-computing-
theory-10th-international-conference-icic-2014-taiyuan-china-
august-3-6-2014-proceedings-1st-edition-de-shuang-huang/
Stephen M. Watt James H. Davenport
Alan P. Sexton Petr Sojka
Josef Urban (Eds.)
LNAI 8543

Intelligent
Computer Mathematics
International Conference, CICM 2014
Coimbra, Portugal, July 7–11, 2014
Proceedings

123
Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence 8543

Subseries of Lecture Notes in Computer Science

LNAI Series Editors


Randy Goebel
University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada
Yuzuru Tanaka
Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Japan
Wolfgang Wahlster
DFKI and Saarland University, Saarbrücken, Germany

LNAI Founding Series Editor


Joerg Siekmann
DFKI and Saarland University, Saarbrücken, Germany
Stephen M. Watt James H. Davenport
Alan P. Sexton Petr Sojka
Josef Urban (Eds.)

Intelligent
Computer Mathematics
International Conference, CICM 2014
Coimbra, Portugal, July 7-11, 2014
Proceedings

13
Volume Editors
Stephen M. Watt
The University of Western Ontario
London, ON, Canada
E-mail: stephen.watt@uwo.ca
James H. Davenport
University of Bath, UK
E-mail: j.h.davenport@bath.ac.uk
Alan P. Sexton
University of Birmingham
Edgbaston, Birmingham, UK
E-mail: a.p.sexton@cs.bham.ac.uk
Petr Sojka
Masaryk University
Brno, Czech Republic
E-mail: sojka@fi.muni.cz
Josef Urban
Radboud University Nijmegen
GL Nijmegen, The Netherlands
E-mail: josef.urban@gmail.com

ISSN 0302-9743 e-ISSN 1611-3349


ISBN 978-3-319-08433-6 e-ISBN 978-3-319-08434-3
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-08434-3
Springer Cham Heidelberg New York Dordrecht London

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014941699

LNCS Sublibrary: SL 7 – Artificial Intelligence


© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2014
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of
the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation,
broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information
storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology
now known or hereafter developed. Exempted from this legal reservation are brief excerpts in connection
with reviews or scholarly analysis or material supplied specifically for the purpose of being entered and
executed on a computer system, for exclusive use by the purchaser of the work. Duplication of this publication
or parts thereof is permitted only under the provisions of the Copyright Law of the Publisher’s location,
in ist current version, and permission for use must always be obtained from Springer. Permissions for use
may be obtained through RightsLink at the Copyright Clearance Center. Violations are liable to prosecution
under the respective Copyright Law.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication
does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant
protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
While the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication,
neither the authors nor the editors nor the publisher can accept any legal responsibility for any errors or
omissions that may be made. The publisher makes no warranty, express or implied, with respect to the
material contained herein.
Typesetting: Camera-ready by author, data conversion by Scientific Publishing Services, Chennai, India
Printed on acid-free paper
Springer is part of Springer Science+Business Media (www.springer.com)
Preface

As computers and communications technology advance, greater opportunities


arise for intelligent mathematical computation. While computer algebra,
automated deduction, mathematical publishing and mathematical user interfaces
individually have long and successful histories, we are now seeing increasingly
fruitful interaction among these areas. For the past several years, the Confer-
ences on Intelligent Computer Mathematics (CICM) event has been a primary
venue for discussing these areas and their interplay.
CICM was first held as a joint meeting in 2008, co-locating related conferences
and workshops, and has been held annually since, evolving to a multi-track
conference. Previous CICM meetings have been held in Birmingham (UK 2008),
Grand Bend (Canada 2009), Paris (France 2010), Bertinoro (Italy 2011), Bremen
(Germany 2012) and Bath (UK 2013). This volume contains the papers presented
at CICM 2014, held 7–11 July 2014 at the University of Coimbra, Portugal.
The CICM 2014 meeting was organized with five invited presentations, four
main tracks, a number of workshops, a doctoral mentoring program and an
informal track to share work in progress. The program of the meeting, as well as
additional materials, have been made available at http://cicm-conference.
org/2014/cicm.php.

Invited Speakers
The meeting was pleased to have five distinguished invited speakers to making
presentations on a set of subjects, each touching on several CICM topics. Each
of the invited speakers has been kind enough to provide a record in this volume:

– Yves Bertot, Inria, “Links between homotopy theory and type theory”
– Jaime Carvalho e Silva, University of Coimbra, “What international stud-
ies say about the importance and limitations of using computers to teach
mathematics in secondary schools”
– António Leal Duarte, University of Coimbra, “Teaching tiles”
– Herbert Van de Sompel, Los Alamos National Laboratory, “Towards robust
hyperlinks for web-based scholarly communication”
– Eric Weisstein, Wolfram|Alpha, “Computable data, mathematics, and digital
libraries in Mathematica and Wolfram|Alpha”

The presentations of Yves Bertot and António Leal Duarte are represented by
abstracts following this preface, while those of Jaime Carvalho e Silva, Herbert
Van de Sompel and Eric Weisstein are recorded in these proceedings as full
invited papers. The invited presentation of António Leal Duarte was held jointly
with the 10th International Workshop on Automated Deduction in Geometry.
VI Preface

Main tracks
The main tracks of the CICM meeting this year were Calculemus, Digital Math-
ematics Libraries (DML), Mathematical Knowledge Management (MKM), and
Systems and Projects (S&P).
The Calculemus track of CICM examines the integration of symbolic compu-
tation and mechanized reasoning. This year, the track continued the tradition
of eliciting and publishing papers on the boundary of theorem-proving and com-
puter algebra, using a variety of tools, often within individual contributions as
well as across the range. A novelty this year was the papers applying symbolic
reasoning, viewed broadly, to new application areas.
The Digital Mathematics Libraries track has evolved from the DML workshop
series as a forum for the development of math-aware technologies, standards, al-
gorithms and processes towards the fulfillment of the dream of a global DML.
As in previous years, a blended mix of papers by computer scientists (D), math-
ematicians (M) and librarians of the digital age (L) was accepted to complement
the DML related reports and papers in the S&P and MKM tracks, and an invited
paper by Herbert Van de Sompel on the topic of robust scholarly communication
in the digital era.
The Mathematical Knowledge Management track of CICM is concerned with
all aspects of managing mathematical knowledge in the informal, semi-formal,
and formal settings. This year a relatively large number of the MKM papers were
devoted to novel methods for managing formal mathematical libraries developed
with proof assistants such as HOL Light, Mizar, Isabelle and Coq. This was
complemented by papers devoted to search over informal mathematical corpora,
querying repositories of geometric knowledge, and integration of MKM services
into user applications. A number of MKM-related system and project descrip-
tions were also submitted to the Systems and Projects track of CICM. The track
featured an invited talk by Yves Bertot on the relation between homotopy theory
and type theory.
The Systems and Projects track provides a medium to present short descrip-
tions of existing systems or on-going projects in the areas of the other tracks of
the conference. All accepted papers in this track were presented in the conference
via short talks, posters and, most importantly, demonstrations, thus providing
a hands-on view of the developments and applications in this field. This year
the three other tracks were well represented with very high quality submissions,
testifying to the vibrancy of practical and applied work in the areas of math-
ematical knowledge management, theorem proving and computer algebra, and
digital mathematics libraries.
Prior to the creation of the CICM, two of the present tracks already had
a significant history: there had been 15 previous Calculemus meetings and 6
MKM conferences. In 2007, when Calculemus and MKM were held together in
Hagenberg, Austria, as part of the RISC Summer, it was decided to continue
to hold these meetings together. This led to the first CICM in 2008. The DML
track has been present since that first CICM, at first as a workshop, and the
Systems and Projects track was added in 2011.
Preface VII

This year there were 55 articles submitted for consideration in response to


the call for papers. Of these, 41 were full papers submitted to the Calculemus,
DML and MKM tracks, and 14 were short descriptions submitted to the Systems
and Projects track. A small number of papers were moved between tracks when
it was felt there would be a more natural fit. Each submission received at least
three reviews, and in several cases one or two further opinions were obtained. The
review cycle included a response period, in which authors could clarify points
raised by the referees. This made for a highly productive round of deliberations
before the final decisions were taken. In the end, the track Program Committees
decided to accept 26 full papers and 9 Systems and Projects descriptions.
The Program Committee work for the main tracks was managed using the
EasyChair system. This allowed Committee members to declare actual or po-
tential conflicts of interest, and thereby be excluded from any deliberations on
those papers. Submissions on which track chairs had conflicts were handled by
the general program chair. In this way, Committee members could (and did!)
submit papers for consideration without compromising the peer review process.

Workshops and Related Programs


As in previous years, several workshops and informal programs were organized
in conjunction with the CICM. This year these were:

– CICM Doctoral Program, providing a dedicated forum for PhD students to


present their on-going or planned research and receive feedback, advice and
suggestions from a dedicated research advisory board.
– CICM Work-in-Progress Session, a forum for the presentation of original
work not yet in a suitable form for communication as a formal paper.
– Workshop on Mathematical User Interfaces to share ideas and experiences
on how users interact with mathematics represented on a computer.
– OpenMath Workshop, centered on the refinement of the OpenMath data
language for the exchange of mathematical expressions, its deployment in
various contexts, and developing mathematical “content dictionaries”.
– Workshop on The Notion of Proof, devoted to discussions on the state-of-the-
art of automated theorem proving from the computer science, mathematical
and philosophical points of view, with a special emphasis on proof checking,
proof representation and the intuitive notion of mathematical proof.
– ThEdu 2014: Theorem Proving Components for Educational Software, with
the goal to combine and focus systems from theorem proving, computer
algebra and dynamic geometry to enhance existing educational software and
the design of the next generation of mechanised mathematics assistants.

Appreciation
We thank all those who have contributed to this meeting. We are grateful for
the support of our generous Portuguese sponsors — the Center for Informatics
VIII Preface

and Systems of the University of Coimbra (CISUC), the Center for Research
and Development in Mathematics and Applications (CIDMA) of the University
of Aveiro, the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT) of the Ministério
da Educação e Ciência — and of Maplesoft. We thank Andrei Voronkov for the
EasyChair system which we found indispensable, and for his amazing respon-
siveness in dealing with it. Most fundamentally, we thank the invited speakers,
the contributing authors, the referees, the members of the Program Committee
and the local organizers, all of whose efforts contributed to the practical and
scientific success of the meeting.

May 2014 Stephen M. Watt


James H. Davenport
Alan P. Sexton
Petr Sojka
Josef Urban
Organization

CICM Steering Committee


Serge Autexier (Publicity/Workshop Officer)
Thierry Bouche (DML Delegate)
Jacques Carette (CICM PC Chair 2013)
Bill Farmer (Treasurer)
Michael Kohlhase (Secretary)
Florian Rabe (MKM Delegate)
Renaud Rioboo (Calculemus Delegate)
Stephen Watt (CICM PC Chair 2014)

CICM 2014 Organizing Committee


General Program Chair
Stephen M. Watt

Local Arrangements Chair


Pedro Quaresma

Calculemus Track Chair


James H. Davenport

DML Track Chair


Petr Sojka

MKM Track Chair


Josef Urban

S&P Track Chair


Alan P. Sexton

Doctoral Program Chair


David Wilson

Publicity and Workshops Chair


Serge Auxtexier
X Organization

CICM 2014 Local Arrangements Committee


Reinhard Kahle New University of Lisbon, Portugal
Pedro Quaresma University of Coimbra, Portugal
Eugénio Rocha University of Aveiro, Portugal
Vanda Santos CISUC Coimbra, Portugal
Carlota Simões University of Coimbra, Portugal

Calculemus Track Program Committee


James H. Davenport University of Bath, UK
Matthew England University of Bath, UK
Dejan Jovanović New York University, USA
Laura Kovacs Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden
Assia Mahboubi Inria, France
Adam Naumowicz University of Bialystok, Poland
Grant Passmore University of Cambridge and University
of Edinburgh, UK
Florian Rabe Jacobs University Bremen, Germany
Claudio Sacerdoti Coen University of Bologna, Italy
Freek Wiedijk Radboud University Nijmegen,
The Netherlands

DML Track Program Committee


Akiko Aizawa National Institute of Informatics, Japan
L
 ukasz Bolikowski ICM, University of Warsaw, Poland
Thierry Bouche Université Joseph Fourier, Grenoble, France
Yannis Haralambous Inst. Mines-Télécom/Télécom Bretagne &
CNRS, France
Janka Chlebı́ková University of Portsmouth, UK
Michael Kohlhase Jacobs University Bremen, Germany
Jiřı́ Rákosnı́k Institute of Mathematics AS CR,
Czech Republic
David Ruddy Cornell University, USA
Petr Sojka Masaryk University Brno, Czech Republic
Volker Sorge University of Birmingham, UK
Frank Tompa University of Waterloo, Canada
Richard Zanibbi Rochester Institute of Technology, USA

MKM Track Program Committee


Rob Arthan Queen Mary University of London, UK
David Aspinall University of Edinburgh, UK
Michael Beeson San Jose State University, USA
Organization XI

Thomas Hales University of Pittsburgh, USA


Johan Jeuring Open Universiteit Nederland/Universiteit
Utrecht, The Netherlands
Peter Jipsen Chapman University, USA
Cezary Kaliszyk University of Innsbruck, Austria
Michael Kohlhase Jacobs University Bremen, Germany
Christoph Lange University of Bonn/Fraunhofer IAIS,
Germany
Paul Libbrecht Weingarten University of Education, Germany
Ursula Martin University of Oxford, UK
Bruce Miller National Institute of Standards and
Technology, USA
Adam Naumowicz University of Bialystok, Poland
Florian Rabe Jacobs University Bremen, Germany
Claudio Sacerdoti Coen University of Bologna, Italy
Alan P. Sexton University of Birmingham, UK
Enrico Tassi Inria, France
Josef Urban Radboud University Nijmegen,
The Netherlands
Stephen M. Watt University of Western Ontario, Canada
Makarius Wenzel Université Paris-Sud 11, France
Freek Wiedijk Radboud University Nijmegen,
The Netherlands

Systems and Projects Track Program Committee


Jesse Alama Technical University of Vienna, Austria
Rob Arthan Queen Mary University of London, UK
Deyan Ginev Jacobs University Bremen, Germany
Jónathan Heras University of Dundee, UK
Mateja Jamnik University of Cambridge, UK
Predrag Janičić University of Belgrade, Serbia
Christoph Lange University of Bonn and Fraunhofer IAI,
Germany
Christoph Lüth DFKI and University of Bremen, Germany
Bruce Miller National Institute of Standards and
Technology, USA
Alan P. Sexton University of Birmingham, UK
Hendrik Tews TU Dresden, Germany
XII Organization

Additional Referees

Accattoli B. Krebbers R.
Adams M. Lee M.
Brain M.J. Lelay C.
Caprotti O. Lı́ška M.
Chyzak F. Mörtberg A.
Eder C. O’Connor R.
Ferreira M. van Oostrom V.
Graham-Lengrand S. Peltier N.
Guidi F. Prodescu C.-C.
Heijltjes W.B. Recio T.
Iancu M. Růžička M.
Ion P. Schürmann C.
Jucovschi C. So C.
Kahl W. Subramaniam M.
Khan-Afshar S. Verbeek F.
Kohlhase A. Whiteside I.
Kühlwein D. Zengler C.
Links between Homotopy Theory and Type
Theory

Yves Bertot
Inria
2004 route des lucioles
06902 Sophia Antipolis
France

In the recent history of computer verified proof, we observe the conjunction of


two domains that are seemingly extraordinarily distant: homotopy theory and
type theory.
Type theory [6] is the realm of the motto “proof as programs, propositions as
types”, also often referred to as the Curry-Howard isomorphism. In this approach,
proofs are objects of the logical discourse like any other object (number, program,
statement) and their type is the proposition that they prove. For instance, a
bounded integer can be encoded as a pair of an integer and a proof that this
integer is within the prescribed bounds. This novelty also brings new problems:
while we understand perfectly that there are several numbers in the same type
of natural numbers, it is not immediately clear what we should do with several
(distinct) proofs of the same statement. For instance, what should we do with
two instances (3, p1 ) and (3, p2 ) describing the value 3 bounded by 4, where p1
and p2 are distinct proofs that 3 is smaller than 4.
The question of proof unicity (also called proof irrelevance) is especially im-
portant for proofs of equality between two values. This was studied at the end
of the 1990s by Hoffmann and Streicher [5], and the conclusion was twofold.
First, the unicity of proofs of equality is not a consequence of type theory’s in-
herent foundations so that this property should be added as an axiom (which
they named axiom K) if it is desired for all types; second, the type of equali-
ties between elements of a given type can be endowed with a structure already
known in mathematics as a groupoid structure. At about the same time, Hed-
berg [4] showed that proofs of equalities are unique in any type where equality
is decidable. This result is put to efficient use in Mathematical Components [2].
Meanwhile, mathematics is also traversing crises of its own, first because some
mathematical facts are now established with the help of intensive computations
performed mechanically [3], second because some areas of mathematics reach
a level of internal complexity where too few experts are competent to exert
a critical eye. Bringing in computer verified proofs is a means to improve the
confidence one can have in proofs that are otherwise refereed by too few people.
Homotopy theory is one of the topics where computer verified proof is being
tested. Homotopy theory is about paths between objects, and it is well know
that collections of paths also respect a groupoid structure. It thus feels natural
to attempt to use directly the equality types of type theory to represent the paths
XIV Y. Bertot

used in homotopy theory. It turns out that this experiment works surprisingly
well [1, 8]. For example, homotopy theory naturally considers higher-dimension
paths (paths between paths) but similarly type theory is very well suited to con-
sider equalities between equality proofs. Most of the notions around homotopies
can be described around equality types and the whole system seems to provide
a nice context to perform synthetic homotopy theory in the same spirit that
Euclid’s, Hilbert’s, or Tarski’s axiom systems can be used to perform synthetic
geometry.
Type theory was already trying to pose as a new foundation for mathematics,
but the question of giving a status to several proofs of the same statement was
an unresolved issue. Insights from homotopy theory help clarifying this question:
multiplicity of proofs should be encouraged, even though the collection of types
where unicity of equality proofs is guaranteed should be given a specific status,
as it simply corresponds to the sets of traditional mathematics. For these sets
where unicity of equality proofs are guaranteed, one should be able to benefit
from most of the machinery already developed in Mathematical Components for
types with decidable equality.
New experiments are made possible in this homotopy type theory and new
questions arise. In turn, these questions lead to the proposal of new extensions
[7]. One such extension is the univalence axiom, which simply states that two
homotopically equivalent types should be considered equal; another extension is
the concept of higher inductive type, where inductive types can be equiped with
paths between constructors. These extensions bring questions of consistency and
computability that are still being studied.

References
1. Awodey, S., Warren, M.A.: Homotopy theoretic models of identity types. Math.
Proc. Cambridge Philos. Soc. 146(1), 45–55 (2009)
2. Gonthier, G., et al.: A machine-checked proof of the odd order theorem. In: Blazy,
S., Paulin-Mohring, C., Pichardie, D. (eds.) ITP 2013. LNCS, vol. 7998, pp. 163–
179. Springer, Heidelberg (2013)
3. Hales, T.C.: Cannonballs and honeycombs. Notices of the AMS 47(4), 440–449
(2000)
4. Hedberg, M.: A Coherence Theorem for Martin-Löf’s Type Theory. Journal of
Functional Programming 8(4), 413–436 (1998)
5. Hofmann, M., Streicher, T.: The groupoid interpretation of type theory. In:
Twenty-five Years of Constructive Type Theory (Venice, 1995). Oxford Logic
Guides, vol. 36, pp. 83–111. Oxford Univ. Press, New York (1998)
6. Martin-Löf, P.: Intuitionistic type theories. Bibliopolis (1984)
7. The Univalent Foundations Program. Homotopy Type Theory: Univalent
Foundations of Mathematics. Institute for Advanced Study (2013), http://
homotopytypetheory.org/book
8. Voevodsky, V.: Univalent foundations project (2010), http://www.math.ias.
edu/~vladimir/Site3/Univalent_Foundations_files/univalent_foundations_
project.pdf
Teaching Tiles (Azulejos que Ensinam)

António Leal Duarte

CMUC/Departament of Mathematics, University of Coimbra


P-3001-454 Coimbra, Portugal

Abstract. The mathematical glazed tiles (azulejos) of the Jesuit College


in the city of Coimbra, in Portugal, are remarkable and unique artifacts.
They seem to be the only known example of glazed tiles for classroom
use displaying geometrical diagrams of true mathematical (Euclidian)
demonstrations. Scientific motifs as decorative elements in buildings were
widely used in Europe and, in particular, in spaces built by the Society
of Jesus. Panels of azulejos using ornamental mathematical motifs are
well known in Portugal and elsewhere. But the mathematical azulejos
of Coimbra are unique in that they are genuine didactical aids to the
teaching of mathematics and not merely decorative artifacts.

The majority of the Coimbra mathematical azulejos display strictly ge-


ometrical (Euclidian) matters, while a few concern other scientific mat-
ters. The Euclidian diagrams are drawn from one of André Tacquet’s
famous and very popular editions of Euclid’s Elements, which were ex-
tensively used in Jesuit schools. The first edition, with the title Elementa
geometriæ planæ ac solidæ quibus accedunt selecta ex Archimede theore-
mata was published in 1654; many other editions and translations were
published in the next decades.
A Portuguese translation of Tacquet’s Elements appeared in 1735, thus
roughly at the same time as when the tiles were created, and it is tempt-
ing to relate the two events and assume that they were drawn from this
edition. However, a closer examination reveals that this is not the case.
It is clear today that the diagrams in the azulejos were copied from one
(or more) of Tacquet’s Latin editions.
Table of Contents

Invited Talks
What International Studies Say about the Importance and Limitations
of Using Computers to Teach Mathematics in Secondary Schools . . . . . . . 1
Jaime Carvalho e Silva
Towards Robust Hyperlinks for Web-Based Scholarly Communication . . . 12
Herbert Van de Sompel, Martin Klein, and Harihar Shankar
Computable Data, Mathematics, and Digital Libraries in Mathematica
and Wolfram|Alpha . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
Eric Weisstein

Calculemus
Towards the Formal Reliability Analysis of Oil and Gas Pipelines . . . . . . 30
Waqar Ahmed, Osman Hasan, Sofiène Tahar, and
Mohammad Salah Hamdi
Problem Formulation for Truth-Table Invariant Cylindrical Algebraic
Decomposition by Incremental Triangular Decomposition . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Matthew England, Russell Bradford, Changbo Chen,
James H. Davenport, Marc Moreno Maza, and
David Wilson
A Tableaux-Based Decision Procedure for Multi-parameter
Propositional Schemata . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
David Cerna
Detecting Unknots via Equational Reasoning, I: Exploration . . . . . . . . . . . 76
Andrew Fish and Alexei Lisitsa
Applying Machine Learning to the Problem of Choosing a Heuristic to
Select the Variable Ordering for Cylindrical Algebraic Decomposition . . . 92
Zongyan Huang, Matthew England, David Wilson,
James H. Davenport, Lawrence C. Paulson, and
James Bridge
Hipster: Integrating Theory Exploration in a Proof Assistant . . . . . . . . . . 108
Moa Johansson, Dan Rosén, Nicholas Smallbone, and Koen Claessen
Formalization of Complex Vectors in Higher-Order Logic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
Sanaz Khan Afshar, Vincent Aravantinos, Osman Hasan, and
Sofiène Tahar
XVIII Table of Contents

A Mathematical Structure for Modeling Inventions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138


Bernd Wegner and Sigram Schindler

Digital Mathematics Library


Search Interfaces for Mathematicians . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
Andrea Kohlhase

A Data Model and Encoding for a Semantic, Multilingual Terminology


of Mathematics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169
Michael Kohlhase

PDF/A-3u as an Archival Format for Accessible Mathematics . . . . . . . . . 184


Ross Moore

Which One Is Better: Presentation-Based or Content-Based Math


Search? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200
Minh-Quoc Nghiem, Giovanni Yoko Kristianto, Goran Topić, and
Akiko Aizawa

POS Tagging and Its Applications for Mathematics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213


Ulf Schöneberg and Wolfram Sperber

Mathoid: Robust, Scalable, Fast and Accessible Math Rendering for


Wikipedia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224
Moritz Schubotz and Gabriel Wicke

Mathematical Knowledge Management


Set Theory or Higher Order Logic to Represent Auction Concepts in
Isabelle? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 236
Marco B. Caminati, Manfred Kerber, Christoph Lange, and
Colin Rowat

Realms: A Structure for Consolidating Knowledge about Mathematical


Theories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 252
Jacques Carette, William M. Farmer, and Michael Kohlhase

Matching Concepts across HOL Libraries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267


Thibault Gauthier and Cezary Kaliszyk

Mining State-Based Models from Proof Corpora . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 282


Thomas Gransden, Neil Walkinshaw, and Rajeev Raman

Querying Geometric Figures Using a Controlled Language, Ontological


Graphs and Dependency Lattices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 298
Yannis Haralambous and Pedro Quaresma
Table of Contents XIX

Flexary Operators for Formalized Mathematics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 312


Fulya Horozal, Florian Rabe, and Michael Kohlhase

Interactive Simplifier Tracing and Debugging in Isabelle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 328


Lars Hupel

Towards an Interaction-based Integration of MKM Services into


End-User Applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 344
Constantin Jucovschi

Towards Knowledge Management for HOL Light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 357


Cezary Kaliszyk and Florian Rabe

Automated Improving of Proof Legibility in the Mizar System . . . . . . . . . 373


Karol Pak


A Vernacular for Coherent Logic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 388


Sana Stojanović, Julien Narboux, Marc Bezem, and Predrag Janičić

An Approach to Math-Similarity Search . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 404


Qun Zhang and Abdou Youssef

Systems and Projects


Digital Repository of Mathematical Formulae . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 419
Howard S. Cohl, Marjorie A. McClain, Bonita V. Saunders,
Moritz Schubotz, and Janelle C. Williams

NNexus Reloaded . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 423


Deyan Ginev and Joseph Corneli

E-books and Graphics with LATExml . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 427


Deyan Ginev, Bruce R. Miller, and Silviu Oprea

System Description: MathHub.info . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 431


Mihnea Iancu, Constantin Jucovschi, Michael Kohlhase, and
Tom Wiesing

Developing Corpus-Based Translation Methods between Informal


and Formal Mathematics: Project Description . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 435
Cezary Kaliszyk, Josef Urban, Jiřı́ Vyskočil, and Herman Geuvers

System Description: A Semantics-Aware LATEX-to-Office Converter . . . . . 440


Lukas Kohlhase and Michael Kohlhase

Math Indexer and Searcher Web Interface: Towards Fulfillment of


Mathematicians’ Information Needs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 444
Martin Lı́ška, Petr Sojka, and Michal Růžička
XX Table of Contents

SAT-Enhanced Mizar Proof Checking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 449


Adam Naumowicz

A Framework for Formal Reasoning about Geometrical Optics . . . . . . . . . 453


Umair Siddique and Sofiène Tahar

Author Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 457


What International Studies Say
about the Importance and Limitations
of Using Computers to Teach Mathematics
in Secondary Schools

Jaime Carvalho e Silva

Departamento de Matemática, Universidade de Coimbra,


Apartado 3008, EC Santa Cruz, 3001-501 Coimbra, Portugal
jaimecs@mat.uc.pt
http://www.mat.uc.pt/~ jaimecs/pessoal/

Abstract. The use of technology in schools has been one of the most
debated topics around mathematics education. In some countries there
is a huge investment, in others there is a downscaling. Malaysia decided
in 2013 to put its 10 million students to use Google laptops and Google
apps, while Australia in the same year decided it would not continue
funding their own high school laptop program. Who is right from the
educational point of view? The last major curriculum document writ-
ten in the world to date, the Common Core State Standards-CCSS in
the United States, whose mathematics part is coordinated by the well
known mathematician William McCallum, sets as one of its standards
for mathematical practice: ”Mathematically proficient students consider
the available tools when solving a mathematical problem. These tools
might include pencil and paper, concrete models, a ruler, a protractor, a
calculator, a spreadsheet, a computer algebra system, a statistical pack-
age, or dynamic geometry software.” Strong moves need substantiation
from research, including the analysis of the existing situation in differ-
ent countries. What does research say about the use of computers in
schools in present time and the use of different pieces of software from
spreadsheets to computer algebra systems?

Keywords: mathematics education.

1 Introduction
It is extremely frequent to see heated debates on the pros and cons of using
computers in the classroom, be it the primary school classroom, the middle
school classroom, the secondary school classroom or even the higher education
classroom.
For example [12] in the The New York Times, on June 10, 2010, Randall
Stross, a professor of business at San Jose State University, quotes some stud-
ies about the impact of computers and technology on student’s test scores to
conclude that

S.M. Watt et al. (Eds.): CICM 2014, LNAI 8543, pp. 1–11, 2014.

c Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2014
2 J. Carvalho e Silva

Middle school students are champion time-wasters. And the personal


computer may be the ultimate time-wasting appliance. Put the two to-
gether at home, without hovering supervision, and logic suggests that
you wont witness a miraculous educational transformation.
One of the studies he quotes was published in the Quarterly Journal of Eco-
nomics and carried out in Romania, comparing families that in 2009 received
vouchers to buy computers against families that did not receive that voucher.
Results showed that students in the first group showed significantly lower school
grades in math, English and Romanian. This is a good example of bad use of
statistics. You carry out a large scale collection of data, isolating a few variables
and ignoring most of them and then imply there is a cause-effect relation be-
tween the variables you isolated. Anybody that works closely within education
knows you cannot draw simple conclusions from complex data. Another study
of a similar kind arrives at similar conclusions: a working paper published by
the National Bureau of Economic Research correlates data relative to the intro-
duction of broadband services in the american state of North Carolina between
2000 and 2005 to the results of middle school test scores during that period.
This time they conclude that the ”negative effects” were limited to low income
households.
In a recent analysis [11] published also in The New York Times, Carlo Rotella,
director of American studies at Boston College, discusses in detail the position of
Joel Klein, chief executive of an IT company and former chancellor of New York
Citys public schools from 2002 to 2011. In short, Joel Klein believes that teachers
and students need new and interesting tools that help them teach and learn.
When asked about evidence for his claims he just says that tablets ”will help
teachers do” what educational research shows is important, that ”an individual
student will learn more if you can tailor the curriculum to match her learning
style, pace and interests.” Of course, he did not prove that tablets will indeed
accomplish this goal.
Lots of countries are investing hard in introducing some kind of high tech tools
in the classroom. John Koetsier reports [5], on the digital news site VentureBeat,
that the Malaysian government is investing massively in introducing computers,
internet access software and ”Google Apps” in all 10 thousand schools in the
country totaling 10 million students, teachers, and parents. Why was this choice
made? Because ”Google Apps” are, for educational use, completely free. Is this
the best software for educational use? Will students learn better mathematics
with this environment? This is not stated.
It is clear that we have lots of options on the use of IT technology in schools
(including not using it at all), but we need clear ideas before accepting or re-
jecting hardware, software and communications in the classroom.

2 International Studies
We live in a society where technology is in a rapid evolution, with new tools
arriving at the consumer market every year. It is more than natural that these
Importance and Limitations of Using Computers to Teach Mathematics 3

tools are also offered at the school level. Two main reasons can be stated in favor
of this: first of all the school has never been as efficient as the society desires and
so new approaches are normally welcome (at least by most people); secondly, if
the school is to prepare students for ”real life” and for some professional activity,
then teaching should somehow incorporate the technological tools that students
will find someday in their adult life.
In education, things are never simple. Several authors, like Luc Trouche [13],
already pointed out we should make a distinction between an artifact and an
instrument. This means that you may have some artifact in the classroom (like a
technological tool, hardware or software) but it may have no effect at all unless
you are able to integrate it in your activity, and then it becomes an instrument
for you. This is not a useless distinction because we have important examples of
this difference and the PISA OECD studies give us one of these.

2.1 Digital Reading


PISA is a program conducted by the OECD to study the extent to which 15-year-
old students (normally near the end of compulsory education) have acquired the
knowledge and skills that are essential for full participation in modern society,
focusing mainly in mathematics, reading and science. This program began in
the year 2000 and is applied in numerous countries every three years. A lot of
data is collected about the students, the teachers, the schools and the student’s
environment. Also some other studies are conducted in parallel, at least in some
of the countries participating in the main PISA study. In 2012 a total of 65
countries and economies participated in the PISA data collecting but only 44
countries and economies participated in a computer-based assessment of problem
solving; 32 of them also participated in a computer-based assessment of reading
and mathematics.
For the first time, the PISA 2009 survey also assessed 15-year-old students
ability to read, understand and apply digital texts. These texts are very different
from printed ones, namely at the level of their organisation. In 19 countries and
economies students were given questions via computer to assess this ability. The
PISA 2009 results [9] about digital reading show something striking. They show
that even when guidance on navigation is explicit, significant numbers of students
still cannot locate crucial pages.
Digital reading poses new problems to users: indexing and retrieval techniques
are new because of the virtual nature of page contents and formats; also hyper-
links are introduced and new multipage documents are used in a networked
structure that may confuse the reader. So, a completely new environment comes
up and PISA digital reading assessment offers powerful evidence that todays
15-year-olds, the ”digital natives”, do not automatically know how to operate
effectively in the digital environment, contrarily to what we could have thought.
4 J. Carvalho e Silva

2.2 Computer-Based Assessment of Mathematics

For the first time in 2012, PISA included an optional computer-based assess-
ment of mathematics. 32 of the 65 countries and economies participated in this.
Specially designed PISA questions were presented on a computer, and students
responded on the computer, although they could also use pencil and paper as
they worked out through the test questions. The PISA 2012 report [10] justifies
this part of the PISA program:

(...) computer-based items can be more interactive, authentic and en-


gaging than paper-based items. They can be presented in new formats
(e.g. drag-and-drop), include real-world data (such as a large, sortable
dataset), and use colour, graphics and movement to aid comprehension.
Students may be presented with a moving stimulus or representations
of three-dimensional objects that can be rotated, or have more flexi-
ble access to relevant information. New item formats can expand re-
sponse types beyond verbal and written, giving a more rounded picture
of mathematical literacy. (...) computers have become essential tools for
representing, visualising, exploring, and experimenting with all kinds of
mathematical objects, phenomena and processes, not to mention for re-
alising all types of computations at home, at school, and at work.[10]

Fourty one specially designed computer-based items were developed for this
assessment. These items were designed so that mathematical reasoning and pro-
cesses would take precedence over the ability of using the computer as a tool.
The report details the approach used:

Each computer-based item involves three aspects:


- the mathematical demand (as for paper-based items);
- the general knowledge and skills related to information and commu-
nication technologies (ICT) that are required (e.g. using keyboard and
mouse, and knowing common conventions, such as arrows to move for-
ward). These are intentionally kept to a minimum;
- competencies related to the interaction of mathematics and ICT, such
as making a pie chart from data using a simple ”wizard”, or planning
and implementing a sorting strategy to locate and collect desired data
in a spreadsheet.[10]

The conclusion of this part of the study is that ”there is a high degree of con-
sistency in student performance on items delivered on paper and by computer”
but with some important exceptions:

In the field of mathematics, one participant (Shanghai-China) saw a large


difference, of around 50 score points, in favour of the paper based format.
Three other countries and economies showed substantial differences in
the same direction - Poland (28-point difference), Chinese Taipei (22-
point difference) and Israel (20-point difference). Conversely, there are
Importance and Limitations of Using Computers to Teach Mathematics 5

also countries for which computer delivery of the assessment appears to


have been advantageous. The largest difference, of about 30 score points,
was seen in Brazil. Colombia also saw a difference of about 20 points in
the same direction. The United States, the Slovak Republic and Italy
also saw marked, albeit smaller, differences in favour of the computer
delivery of the assessment. Across OECD countries, the performance
advantage of the computer-based assessment is slightly higher for boys
than for girls. ([10], p. 491)

This is a quite recent report and these differences are not yet discussed in terms
of the nature of the tasks, of the mode of delivery, or of the student familiarity
with computers. In the PISA 2015 program, the computer-based assessment
will be the primary mode of delivery for mathematics literacy and all the other
domains, but the use of paper-based assessment instruments is an option for
countries choosing to do so. In some years we will have then more data for our
discussion.

2.3 Improvements in Performance


Another important question we need to answer, and is raised by a lot of people, is
wether students perform better or worse in a computer environment (at school
and at home). Some PISA studies also address this question. The PISA 2003
study discusses the relation between the frequency of use of computers at home
and student performance in mathematics. And the conclusion is very clear:

(...) in every country, students reporting rare or no use of computers at


home (on average 18% of students) score much lower than their coun-
terparts reporting moderate use or frequent use. [7]

The PISA 2006 study compares the PISA scores and the use of ICT. In [8]
students are grouped according to frequency of ICT use and then the average
performances of each group are compared. Of course this does not tell the whole
story because some factors that affect computer use also affect student perfor-
mance. In order to give a clear picture the PISA 2006 study includes questions
about the location and frequency of student computer use. Trying to include a
number of relevant variables the PISA 2006 study concludes that:

A higher frequency of computer use is associated with higher average


science scores in all countries considered. Among OECD countries, the
largest effect of using a computer almost every day was found in Ice-
land, Japan, The Netherlands, Norway, Poland and Spain. Among part-
ner countries, the largest effect of using computer almost every day was
found in Bulgaria; Macao, China; and Slovenia. ([8], p. 150) (...) in a
large majority of countries, the benefits from higher computer use tend
to be greater at home than at school. Therefore, despite the better en-
vironment and support that schools are expected to provide, computer
use tends to have less impact at school than at home. ([8], p. 156)
6 J. Carvalho e Silva

Having this in mind the PISA study recommends concrete actions regrading
ICT use in schools:

(...) the analysis has shown that computer use increases student perfor-
mance but that this increase is not the same for all students. (...) as the
benefits from computer use depend on the characteristics of each stu-
dent, policies to increase ICT use need to be tailored to students. (...)
the positive effects of computer use on student performance are greatest
when they are supported by a sufficient level of capital. Skills, interests
and attitudes affect students engagement with ICT, the activities they
carry out on the computer and how well. An increase in ICT use that
is not supported by an increase in capital would have a lower impact on
student performance. ([8], p. 156)

Of course, it is clear from these studies that the simple use of ICT does not
guarantee an improvement in performance:

(...) the apparently negative association between performance and some


kinds of computer usage, shown by PISA 2003 and now PISA 2006,
carries a warning not to assume that more is better for students perfor-
mance. ([8], p. 158)

It is clear form these studies that the use of ICT has generally very positive
effects on student performance at the mathematics and science level. Only in-
complete studies will conclude that the use of ICT has a negative influence in
student performance. These OECD big scale studies examine the educational
situation in great detail and include very different political and social realities in
the big number of countries involved so that their conclusions are very reliable.
What we loose in these huge statistical studies is the detail. We need now to
know what works and what does not work in each situation.

3 ICMI Studies

ICMI, the International Commission on Mathematical Instruction, founded in


1908 to foster efforts to improve the quality of mathematics teaching and learning
worldwide, has produced two large studies that discuss in detail the impact and
use of ICT in mathematics education. These were:

– ICMI Study 1. The Influence of Computers and Informatics on Mathematics


and its Teaching
Study Conference held in Strasbourg, France, March 1985.
Study Volume published by Cambridge University Press, 1986, eds: R.F.
Churchhouse et al. (ICMI Study Series)
Second edition published by UNESCO, 1992, eds: Bernard Cornu and An-
thony Ralston. (Science and Technology Education No. 44)
Importance and Limitations of Using Computers to Teach Mathematics 7

– ICMI Study 17. Digital Technologies and Mathematics Teaching and Learn-
ing: Rethinking the Terrain
Study Conference held in Hanoi, Vietnam, December 2006.
Study Volume published by Springer, 2010: Mathematics Education and
Technology-Rethinking the Terrain. The 17th ICMI Study Series: New ICMI
Study Series, Vol. 13. Hoyles, Celia; Lagrange, Jean-Baptiste (Eds.) (New
ICMI Study Series 13)
These studies point out some directions for the integration of ICT in mathe-
matics education, but it is also clear that much more research needs to be done:
The way digital technologies can support and foster today collaborative
work, at the distance or not, between students or between teachers, and
also between teachers and researchers, and the consequences that this
can have on students learning processes, on the evolution of teachers
practices is certainly one essential technological evolution that educa-
tional research has to systematically explore in the future. ([4], p. 473)
Numerous examples are described and quoted in this 500-page volume but we
need to have in mind what I consider to be the main conclusion:
Making technology legitimate and mathematically useful requires modes
of integration (...) requires tasks and situations that are not simple adap-
tation of paper and pencil tasks, often tasks without equivalent in the
paper and pencil environment, thus tasks not so easy to design when you
enter in the technological world with your paper and pencil culture. ([4],
p. 468)
The range of hardware and software considered in this Study is huge, from
Dynamic Geometry Environments to Computer Algebra Systems, including An-
imation Microworlds, Games and Spreadsheets, showing that the use of ICT in
the mathematics classroom is not limited to any particular kind of software and
offers thus many possibilities for mathematics teaching and learning.
Another important point visible in this Study is the need to find an answer to
the ”wrong-doing” of certain technologies. How to deal with the pitfalls of nu-
merical analysis, namely dealing with rounding errors? How to correctly identify
a tangent to a circle in a Dynamic Geometry Environment that has difficulties
with the continuity? The Study calls for a reasonable
(...) basic understanding of the inner representation of mathematics (e.g.,
numbers, equations, stochastics, graphical representations, and geomet-
ric figures) within a computer and a global awareness of problems related
to the difference between conceptual and computational mathematics.
([4], p. 153)

4 First Conclusion
What we discussed from these international studies allows us to conclude that
the CCSS are right in investing decidedly in the use of ICT in the classroom:
8 J. Carvalho e Silva

Standards for Mathematical Practice (...) 5 Use appropriate tools strate-


gically. Mathematically proficient students consider the available tools
when solving a mathematical problem. These tools might include pencil
and paper, concrete models, a ruler, a protractor, a calculator, a spread-
sheet, a computer algebra system, a statistical package, or dynamic ge-
ometry software. Proficient students are sufficiently familiar with tools
appropriate for their grade or course to make sound decisions about when
each of these tools might be helpful, recognizing both the insight to be
gained and their limitations. For example, mathematically proficient high
school students analyze graphs of functions and solutions generated using
a graphing calculator. They detect possible errors by strategically using
estimation and other mathematical knowledge. When making mathemat-
ical models, they know that technology can enable them to visualize the
results of varying assumptions, explore consequences, and compare pre-
dictions with data. Mathematically proficient students at various grade
levels are able to identify relevant external mathematical resources, such
as digital content located on a website, and use them to pose or solve
problems. They are able to use technological tools to explore and deepen
their understanding of concepts.[6]

Most of the countries in the world have a clear vision of what needs to be
done. For example the official curriculum for Singapore reads:

AIMS OF MATHEMATICS EDUCATION IN SCHOOLS: (...) (6) Make


effective use of a variety of mathematical tools (including information
and communication technology tools) in the learning and application of
mathematics. (...)
(...) The use of manipulatives (concrete materials), practical work, and
use of technological aids should be part of the learning experiences of
the students.
SKILLS: (...) Skill proficiencies include the ability to use technology
confidently, where appropriate, for exploration and problem solving.[3]

What happens in the real classroom is not so simple.

5 A Difficult Task

In a national examination in Portugal for the 12th grade, a mathematical mod-


eling problem involved the study of the function:

d(x) = 149.6(1 − 0.0167 cos x) (1)


Graphing Calculators (GC) are allowed in national examinations in Portugal
and so the students can use them to study this function. The biggest challenge
here for the student, and it has been proven to be a big obstacle, is to find a
viewing window to obtain the graph for this function. Of course you can get the
Importance and Limitations of Using Computers to Teach Mathematics 9

Fig. 1. Using the AUTO feature to draw a simple graph of d(x) in a GC

help of the AUTO function of the calculator but then you are not sure you get
all the details you need in graph that shows up.
The second more difficult group of questions in the national 12th grade ex-
aminations in Portugal, were the ones requiring the use of graphing calculators,
some of them also involving modeling problems. In a previous study [1] we con-
cluded that these problems all involve the need to choose a viewing window.
There is no algorithm that can guarantee you get the best viewing window. You
can produce a table of values to help you but you will need always to experiment
or know some properties of the function in order to be sure you get a ”complete”
graph. In more difficult situations you may need to use more than one graph to
capture the details of the graph of the function you want to study.
Another similar difficulty is discussed by Luc Trouche in his paper [13] in the
journal Educational Studies in Mathematics. If a student tries to use a GC to
study the limit of a function when the independent variable goes to +∞ he will
try to graph the function ”as far as possible”. But if he is faced with a function
like

f (x) = ln x + 10 sin x (2)


10 J. Carvalho e Silva

he will think it will not have a limit, when the limit is really +∞. The graph
will give him a dangerous message:

Fig. 2. Graphing function f (x) in the viewing window [100, 200] × [−15, 20]

Luc Trouche concludes that the complexity of the transformation of this new
artifact into a useful instrument for the work of the student is related with the
sophistication of the artifact, namely when it comes to a GC with CAS-Computer
Algebra System. This is a big educational challenge and should be kept in mind
when some hardware or software is selected to be used in the classroom.
In the same paper Luc Trouche warns against the lack of investment in the
use of ICT in the classroom, observing that the use in the classroom is too
limited, in France and other countries, and consequently the ”learning of the use
of instruments is made most of the time alone or between friends” ([13], p. 190)
with all its dangers. It is clear from the international studies that the use of ICT
can produce an improvement in student performance, but to arrive at that point
of improvement, a lot of research, experimentation and planning must be made.
We conclude with a recommendation made by Seymour Papert, the inventor
of the educational programming language LOGO, in the plenary talk he gave
at the Study Conference included in ICMI Study 17. Seymour Papert ended his
talk asking us to spend reasonable part of our time and energy thinking about
possible futures, freeing our minds from the current constraints.

References
1. Balsa, J., Carvalho e Silva, J.: Uma análise do papel da calculadora gráfica nos
exames nacionais. In: Actas do XIII Seminário de Investigação em Educação
Matemática, pp. 237–242. APM, Lisboa (2002)
2. Carvalho e Silva, J.: A formação de professores em novas tecnologias da in-
formação e comunicação no contexto dos novos programas de Matemática
do Ensino Secundário. Comunicação apresentada no 2. Simpósio “Inves-
tigação e Desenvolvimento de Software Educativo”, D.E.I., Coimbra (1997),
http://lsm.dei.uc.pt/simposio/pdfs/c11.pdf
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
shelter for the interpreters, merchants, supernumeraries, etc., and
everything was covered over to the best of our ability with our tents,
awnings, etc.
Well, we were under shelter now, and you know what kind of
shelter, from the inclemency of the rainy season and the bullets of
the Toucouleurs. We had still storms to expect, and against them we
were less well provided. We had already encountered a few of them
unprotected. We had had plenty of tents, of course, but we knew
from experience, that when we saw the preliminary fantasia of the
dried leaves on the left bank beginning, the best thing to do was to
put on as quickly as possible all the waterproofs to be had, and go
outside to meet the hurricane, turning our backs to it, and at the
same time tightening the ropes of the tents. It was really the only
way not to get it—I mean the tent, not the hurricane—on our
shoulders!
It took us a good month of hard work without any rest to establish
our camp. Every morning one party went to fetch straw, whilst the
rest of us kept guard at home and worked at the tata. We were all
glad enough when everything was done, but at the same time we
were rather afraid of the ennui of inaction, as the following quotation
from my notes will show—
“May 16.—The tata was finished this morning, the huts, a dining-
room, and a gurbi or servants’ hall, a kitchen, and an oven of a sort.
There is nothing left to do now, for Suzanne is the only member of
our expedition still without a shelter. Mon Dieu, how dull it will be!”
OSMAN.

Truth to tell, we did have some dull days, and no mistake; but of
course we should have had them in garrison or on board ship.
Fortunately, however, to relieve the monotony of our stay, a regular
world in miniature gathered about us, for we had eager visitors,
courtiers, accredited traders, not to speak of other guests we might
have had if we had chosen.
I must now introduce a few of these people. Two men played a
very important part in our existence at Fort Archinard. These two
were Osman and Pullo. The former was the man from Say, the
Koyrabero who had been waiting for us before we reached Sansan-
Haussa, no doubt to spy on us, and who had come down to Say with
us on the Davoust; a vulgar fellow, without either dignity or
intelligence, he played the ignoble rôle of go-between all the time we
were in the neighbourhood. Of Songhay race, with a dash of the
Fulah in his composition, he had the duplicity of the latter, whilst
retaining all the stupidity of the former.
He was physically a handsome fellow, with fine features, as black
as a crow, but he was getting old now, and was afflicted not only with
tubercular disease, but also with a kind of leprosy, which did not
prevent him from shaking hands with us three times a day.
He often came with a marabout named Ali, who was further gone
in consumption than himself.
Pullo, or Pullo Sidibé, to give his full title, was a very different kind
of man. Tall, thin, with a comparatively pale complexion, he wore a
filthy chechia or native cap a little on one side. He had a way of
moving his arms up and down like a semaphore, and really rather
resembled a big scarecrow in rags. With a mysterious air, such as a
Sibyl might wear, he was constantly taking one or another of us
aside to some corner, or to an ant-hill or mound, far from indiscreet
listeners, to impart in a solemn manner some utterly incredible false
news of which we shall have an example to give presently. I must
mention, too, the way in which he used to smile when we pointed out
to him in a friendly way the mistakes he had made. “Ah,” he would
say to me laughing, “I shall never go back to my fields as long as you
are here, I shall never look after my flock again. You are my milch
cow, you are my great lugan.”
He was at no pains to disguise the true motives for his devotion,
and we were at least able to hope to bind him to us by self-interest.
Osman and Pullo had certain qualities in common, for both were
equally covetous of presents, and equally ready to tell lies with
imperturbable seriousness; but whereas Pollo carried on his
deceptions with the air of a grand seignior and the smile of a
superior man, such as a Fulah might wear who had been brought in
contact with the Tuaregs, Osman showed his avarice and venality
without the slightest attempt at disguise.
The two enjoyed a monopoly of the news, generally false, as I
have already said, brought to us from the Say market. They hit upon
another dodge too, and a very lucrative one; this was to introduce to
us envoys more or less genuine, and more or less interesting, from
the chiefs of the outlying districts and villages. At first Pullo or
Khalifa, as he was also called, worked at this trade alone, and it
would be our first amusement in the morning to climb the ant-hill in
front of the fort and look out for him. We generally saw him pretty
soon, his approach heralded by a red spot on the horizon.
I read in my notes of May 16—“At about eight o’clock, far away on
the borders of the wood in the direction of Say, we see approaching
the thin figure of Pullo Sidibé, surmounted by his dirty fez, balanced
in an uncertain kind of way upon his head. He is followed by a
gentleman in a clean white bubu. ‘Page, pretty page,’ we cry, ‘what
news do you bring?’
With this extraordinary personage everything is possible. I expect
some morning to hear him announce with the air of some herald of a
great embassy, “Amadu Cheiku! the Emir el Munemin, or perhaps
even the Grand Turk, or her Majesty the Queen!”
All went well for some time with Pullo, but when Osman realized
the rewards to be obtained by bringing news or envoys, he set up as
a rival to our first friend. The envoys, who were generally picked up
in the Friday market at Say, now came in pairs, each with his own
showman.
PULLO KHALIFA.

After this opposition was set up, a syndicate was of course sure to
follow. I suspect, however, that if Osman sometimes got the
chestnuts out of the fire, it was generally Khalifa who ate them.
I had to dwell rather fully on these two fellows, they played such a
very preponderant part in our lives, but there were others of
secondary rank, so to speak, of whom I must say a few words.
To begin with, there was the acting chief of the opposite village
named Mamadu, as at least half of his fellow-believers are. With a
clear complexion and an intelligent expression, he was still a regular
scamp, ready to lend himself to any treachery. In the Fulah language
there is a word which means “give a little present so as to get a very
big one.” I am not sure whether there is any word corresponding to
this in Songhay, but there is not the slightest doubt that the
Koyraberos know how to practise the manœuvre suggested by the
word, and Mamadu was an adept at it. On one occasion, however,
his hopes of a present were disappointed, and he was guilty of a
very great mistake. We simply had to turn him out of the camp, and
from that moment he became all submission to us. Our coolies in
their free-spoken way nicknamed him the blackguard Mamadu, and
no doubt he had well merited the epithet by some dastardly deed
they knew of.
Amongst our constant visitors was
one quite small boy, the son of the
famous Abd el Kader of Timbuktu,
who had been the guest of the French
Geographical Society there, a
corresponding member of that of
Paris, the great diplomatist who had
been made a plenipotentiary in spite
of himself, and who had acted as
guide to my friend Caron in his grand
journey. Abd el Kader, when driven
from Timbuktu, wandered about in the
districts near the bend of the river. No
doubt under pretence of making a
A TYPICAL KOURTEYE.
pilgrimage to Mecca, he lived like a
true marabout at the expense of the
natives, seducing many women, and leaving many children behind
him whose mothers he had deserted. It is said that he is now with
Samory.
His little son to whom I referred above was called “the Arabu.” He
was very proud of his parentage, and looked upon his father as a
saint. Though small for his age, he had a big head of the shape
known as hydrocephalic, and was a very sensible, intelligent little
fellow, with quite refined instincts. From our first arrival at Say he had
bravely come to see us on our barges, and though he was trembling
in all his limbs as he spoke, he explained his position clearly to us.
We made a great fuss over him, giving him sugar to eat. The gamins
of Say looked upon him as partly a white, and partly what they call a
tubabu. Strange to say, when there was any difficulty with the
market-women, who sometimes made
a great noise, singing seditious songs
and dancing to their accompaniment,
shouting out praises of Aliburi or
Amadu, it was always the little Arabu
who was deputed to go and pacify
them. As he expressed it, “the son of
an ambassador, I too am an
ambassador!”
This child grew quite fond of us.
Being on his father’s side of more or
less Twat origin, he considered
himself a white man like ourselves,
and of all our guests he was perhaps
the only disinterested one, if we say
nothing about the sugar.
Amongst the Koyraberos, it is the
children, boys or girls, who are the
THE ARABU.
most attractive. The little negroes are
innocent enough up to twelve or
thirteen years old, and are often very
bright and intelligent. But when they reach the age at which they are
considered men and women, the indulgence of their passions
brutalizes the males, whilst the females are worn out by the number
of children they all have. The fatalism of the Mahommedans gives
them also something of the wan expression of oxen who expect they
know not what. I believe the negro race might be very greatly
improved by the careful selection of children before they are
subjected to evil influences. A careful education of such selected
boys and girls would, in the course of a few generations, result in the
growing up of useful citizens and intelligent workers for the common
good.
It may be that the decline in the intelligence of negroes is partly
the result of the way the children are carried about in infancy by their
mothers. They ride pig-a-back all day long, kept in place by a cotton
band fastened above the breasts of the mother, who takes no notice
of them even when they cry. The women do everything, wash, beat
the linen, cook and pound the grain, with their children tied to them in
this fashion. The head of the poor little one comes out above the
bandage, and is shaken and flung backwards and forwards at every
blow of the pestle. It really is very likely that this perpetual motion
injures the brain of the growing child, and accounts for the
degeneration of the race.
However that may be, the constant pressure on the breasts of the
mother leads to their rapid disfigurement; they look quite old before
they have reached middle life. Every one knows that negresses often
give the breast to their babies over their shoulders or even from
under the arm-pit.
So far the French have taken no steps for the effective occupation
of Say, and Amadu Cheiku has been undisputed master of the
country ever since the breaking at Sinder of the power of Madidu
over the Tuaregs. Dunga was the first place in which the Toucouleurs
settled for any time. After their exodus many circumstances
combined in favour of their chief. Driven from Sego, Nioro, and
Massina by the French, as a punishment for his many crimes and
treacheries, he took refuge at Duentza near Dori, but as, like a good
marabout, he tried (from religious motives of course) to poison the
chief and reign in his stead, he was expelled from the town and had
once more to flee for his life. Many of his people deserted him and
returned to Massina. Wandering as a fugitive from village to village
he passed his days begging from hut to hut, trying in vain to win
back the deserters.
The Toucouleurs found it difficult to get a living now, for no one
would treat them as marabouts any longer. The Fulahs of Torodi
refused to let them pass. Ibrahim Galadio, whose influence was
preponderant throughout the country, was not favourable to the
Toucouleurs, and they now took possession of Larba in independent
Songhay, but the Logomaten, or the Tuaregs of Bokar Wandieïdu,
defeated them with much bloodshed and took three hundred of them
prisoners.
The toils were closing in upon Amadu Cheiku, who, taught caution
by experience, expected to find the French skirmishers at his heels
before they were really there. Things did indeed look black for him,
when a saviour suddenly arose in the person of the chief of Say, who
had won back Galadio and Amiru of Torodi to the cause of the true
religion, and at the very time that he was signing a treaty with the
French, gave passage to Amadu, against whom he had been
pretending to need our help.
Amadu crossed the river, and was hospitably received by the
people of Djerma, who gave him the village of Dungu for himself and
his people.
Profiting by family quarrels, the wily chief soon became master,
and presently took possession of the big village of Karma, and it was
not until they were all taken prisoners, that the Djermankobes
discovered that they had been warming and feeding a serpent.
Now Amadu is once more a great marabout in right of his
inheritance from his father, El Hadj Omar. He is also a formidable
military chief, able to put five hundred guns into the field, for he has
that number of Toucouleur warriors under him. His word is
paramount from Sinder to Kibtachi. Unfortunate circumstances,
including the blood shed by the Christians, have won to his side the
whole of the Mussulman population, and besides his five hundred
guns, he can dispose of from ten to twenty thousand so-called
archers or men armed with spears.
His aim, or rather that of his principal adviser, Aliburi, who is really
the organizer of everything, seems to be to join hands on the one
side with Samory, and on the other with the Sultan of Sokoto, from
whom, however, he is divided by the Kebbi, Mauri, and Gober.
Moreover, Samory has a brother who was the leader of the column
which took to flight after the French success at Nioro. He will achieve
his ends unless we can prevent it, for his confederation is
strengthened by the fact that all are united in devotion to the
Mussulman faith, whilst the various native tribes combined against
him, though they are individually braver and stronger, have nothing
to bind them together or to lead them to act in concert.
If this union be brought about, the three great slave-dealers of
Western Africa—Samory, Amadu, and the Emir el Munemin of
Sokoto, will be combined against all comers, and we may expect to
see the complete depopulation of the Niger districts above Say.
Amadu has already begun his operations down-stream, where the
banks are deserted, the villages in ruins, and, where once the
Toucouleurs women came to draw water and to wash their clothes,
grow quantities of wild flowers and creepers.
Let us hope, however, that the recent occupation of Fandu, and
the French policy of establishing an effective protectorate over the
negro races may produce a salutary effect.[10]
The only man in a position to make head against Amadu was
Ibrahim Galadio, a stranger to the country, whose father had fled
there, chased from Massina by the Fulahs of Amadu, the great
founder of the ephemeral dynasty of Hamda-Allahi. Galadio has
guns, Galadio has a tata, he is as strong as the Toucouleurs, and no
one would be able to understand his rallying to the cause of Amadu
Cheiku, and submitting to him, if it were not for the prestige still
attached to the name of that chief’s father, El Hadj Omar. Yet the
former Sultan of Sego is, as every one knows, a Mussulman, with
neither faith nor belief in any law, stained with numerous crimes, a
traitor to his father, cursed even by him, cruel to his women, the
murderer of his brothers, avaricious in dealing with his sofas, and
above all the founder of a heresy.
The Torodi are hand and glove with the Tuaregs, and the people
of Say side with them, but the latter are not of much account as
warriors. Say is really nothing more than a hot-house for breeding
second-rate and intolerant marabouts. No tam-tams, no games are
allowed in it, and only on account of its past has it some little historic
importance.
A FEMALE TUAREG BLACKSMITH IN THE SERVICE OF
IBRAHIM GALADIO.

The Gaberos, the revolted vassals of the Awellimiden, are also on


Amadu’s side. They rallied round him voluntarily from the first, but
one day when they were beating their tabalas or war-drums, an
envoy from Dungu ran through the villages and staved in those
drums, which amongst negroes is considered the greatest insult.
With him went a herald shouting—“Henceforth there is no tabala in
the land, but that of Amadu Cheiku, the son of El Hadj Omar!”
At the invocation of that name so full of prestige, the Gaberos
bowed their heads, and very soon afterwards they had to pay taxes
like every one else.
The Sidibees soon joined them, for they and the Gaberos both
belong to the Fulah race.
Other tribes such as the Sillabees, like the Wagobes of Sinder
and the Sarracolais of the Senegal districts, had emigrated here,
after intestine quarrels with the Djanaru of Nioro, whilst the Kurteyes,
who are Fulahs of Massina, joined the Rimaibes or domestic slaves,
and the Bozos or emigrants from Fituka, in the time of the Ardos of
Massina under the last of the Askias.
This fact of their mixed origin will explain the courage of these
warrior tribes, for the Fulahs of pure descent are by no means
remarkable for bravery.
Even during our stay at Say, the Wagobés, the Kurteyes, and the
Sillabees were certainly on Amadu’s side, though their devotion was
rather lukewarm. Perhaps if they had known that we meant to stay in
the country, and had not been afraid of reprisals after we left, they
would have declared themselves on our side; in a lukewarm way of
course. It is in fact on these mixed tribes, which are neither entirely
Songhay nor Fulah, though they are all Mussulmans, that we shall
have to depend in our future occupation of the districts under notice.
In the present state of Say politics we must also take the Gurma,
the Fandu, and the Mossi people into account. They are all
heathens, but unfortunately the Mahommedan religion daily wins
recruits amongst these people, who were once devoted to fetichism
alone. True heathens, as heathens, are not worth much, for they are
cruel, addicted to drink, and credulous of the delusions their
sorcerers teach them; but they are worth a great deal more than the
Mussulmans, for fetichism may be improved upon and turned to
account, but you can do nothing with a Mahommedan.
The policy which ought to be followed in the districts round Say is
to oppose the marabout coalition which has rallied about Amadu,
with the fetich-worshipping people of Gurma and the lukewarm
Mussulmans of Dendi and Kebbi. They can be made a defence
against the intrusion of fanaticism and intolerance.
Having now, as I hope, given something of an idea of our
surroundings, let me relate how we passed the day at Fort Archinard.
At about half-past five in the morning, the one of us five whites
who happened to be on duty, shouted the order as if we were on
board ship, “Clear the decks!” There was rarely any delay in giving
that order, for it ended the watch for the night, and when one has
been walking the quarter-deck for some hours, one hastens to go
and get a little sleep before daybreak, for in these stifling nights the
only refreshing rest is that obtained in the early morning.
The coolies now lazily bestir themselves. Digui, who is the first to
get up, makes them put away their bedding and take down the
mosquito-nets, etc., shouting a kind of parody of orders on board
ship, “Roll up your kits, roll up your kits!” for they all love to fancy
themselves sailors, and are proud of the name.
Then when all are up and dressed, and everything is stowed
away, all turn towards the rising sun to perform their devotions, for
most of our men are Mussulmans. Some of them, who were but
lukewarm believers when in their homes on the Senegal, become
more and more devout the further they are from their country. Much
of it is mere show, of course. Others really have a kind of instinctive
religion, a sort of superstitious terror of the unseen—what may be
called the natural religion of fear. In every other respect however,
they are brave enough: we have had plenty of proof of that.
I must add here, however, that I have remarked rather a singular
fact, namely, that great religious zeal and endless prostrations, with
much posing and genuflexion, generally coincide with fits of
dishonesty, lying, and treacherous behaviour. One of our fellows,
who had hitherto been honest enough, took simultaneously to prayer
and pilfering our beads; and a man in whom I had before had great
confidence strutted about wearing strings of stolen property on his
neck and arms without any attempt at disguise. This put me on my
guard. Of course he had every reason to ask pardon of God for his
sins and to keep on muttering, “Astafar wallaye, astafar wallaye!—
Pardon, pardon!” At the same time he had taken to filching goods in
the market, an aggravating circumstance of this crime being that he
was trusted to look after our purchases.
There were of course some really devout Mahommedans
amongst our men. Samba Ahmady, our quarter-master, for instance,
always performed his devotions in private, and was a model of
probity. Digui too was a true believer, but perhaps I should say of him
that he was a philosopher rather than a blinded Mahommedan. He
knew how to return thanks to Allah without any ostentation when we
had safely got through some difficulty or danger, and whilst admitting
that there were such people as bad marabouts, he sometimes talked
in a manner alike naïve, touching, and elevated, of the dealings of
Providence with man, which is indeed rare, especially amongst
illiterate negroes.
Then Ahmady Mody, another trustworthy fellow, had a theory of
his own about salaams, and all that. I said to him one day, “Why
don’t you perform your salaam when the others do?”
“Commandant,” he replied, “I am too small; I will do it when I am
married.”
Well, the morning devotions over, we used to go to work, for there
was always something to do; the boats needed repair, or we had to
add to the tata, to unpack and repack the bales, send out parties to
cut wood or straw, and last, not least, to drill the men, and make
them practice shooting at a target. We used to hear our carpenter
Abdulaye singing as he conscientiously worked at oar-making, and
his song did not vary by an iota all the time we were at Say. It was a
very monotonous rhythm consisting of one word, Sam-ba-la-a-bé-é-
é-é-é-é-é-. Samba Laobé, be it understood, was one of the heroes of
the native resistance of the French in Cayor, and was killed in single
combat with Sub-Lieutenant Chauvey of the Spahis in 1886. I don’t
think Abdulaye knew more of the song about this Samba than the
word forming part of his name, and though it was a seditious
composition we could not be angry with him, as he evidently had not
the least idea what it all meant.
REPAIRING THE ‘AUBE.’

Abdulaye, who was a big, well-built Wolof, had but one ambition
during our stay at Fort Archinard, and that was to be allowed to go
and smash in the jaw of his fellow-countryman Aliburi, a native of his
own village. This Aliburi is a tool of Amadu, chief champion of the
war to the death with the French, so Abdulaye wishes to kill him if his
master is not to be got at. “Aliburi,” he would say, “is a bad Wolof.”
When the camp was cleaned and tidied up, the native traders,
male and female, came with their wares, for we had started a market
at Fort Archinard. When our occupation began, one of our chief fears
was that we should suffer from famine through Amadu’s declared
hostility to us. True, there was a village opposite to our camp, and if
the worst came to the worst, we could always make an armed
requisition in Say itself. But I was very averse to any such measures.
They would have been far too great a departure from the pacific
tactics we had so far pursued, and which were enjoined by our
instructions. I was anxious to preserve that attitude, and to carry out
my instructions to the letter. The people at Say seemed at the first
very unwilling to sell us anything. They, of course, ran considerable
risk of being robbed on their way to us, indeed this really did happen
more than once, and the chief of Say, though he did not forbid their
coming to our camp, did not encourage it, so that those who did
venture asked extortionate prices, thirty-five to forty cubits, or about
twenty-one yards of stuff for a sheep, for instance; but we were able
to buy good food for ourselves and our men, which was the most
important thing after all.
The first thing in the morning we used to see the native traders
squatting on the bank opposite Fort Archinard waiting for the little
barge worked by a few men, to go over and fetch them. Most of
these merchants I must add were women, and I really do think that
before they left Say they must have passed an examination in
ugliness, for I never saw such frights anywhere as our first lady
visitors here. As time goes on I know many discover something like
beauty in native women, and there are some who think them as
good-looking as their sisters of pale complexions. Even those who
do not exactly admire them are interested in them because they are
types of a race, but for all that, negresses, like English women when
they are ugly at all, are really revoltingly ugly.
OUR MARKET AT FORT ARCHINARD.

Well, ugly or not, our market-women soon set out their wares on a
kind of platform a little up-stream from the camp. The bugnul, or
negro trader, has his own particular mode of proceeding; he does not
expect to be spoken to, everything is done by gesture. The djula, or
merchant, crouches on the ground, with his wares spread out in front
of him. The buyer passes along, looks at the wares, and offers his
cowries or cloth in exchange. If the price is suitable the bargain is
concluded, if not the djula shakes his head, making a sign, signifying
“No,” and the would-be buyer goes away or squats down himself to
await his time. Sometimes the price is lowered, or the purchaser
adds a few cowries to his original offer. There is none of the noise
usual in European markets, none of the flow of language so
characteristic of them. Each party to a bargain tries to tire out the
other, but neither of them wastes any words.
MARKET AT FORT ARCHINARD.

The first price asked by a negro is never the same as that he


means to take. A reduction of at least half, sometimes much more, is
made.
Not knowing what attitude the Koyraberos might assume towards
us in the future, our first care on our arrival at the site of Fort
Archinard was to take advantage of their present good-will, and buy
in a good store of cereals and animals.
We soon made up our minds what prices we would give, for the
circumstances were exceptional, and we wanted rice or millet and
sheep enough to last us for three months. That once accomplished,
we could afford to think of economy and fix our own prices. The
currency employed was white cloth, and my private opinion is that
certain commercial arrangements were agreed upon amongst the
notables of Say, showing no mean intelligence on their part. They
meant to buy up all our merchandise, whether cloth, copper, or
beads.
This is what actually happened; as we only gave one or two cubits
of cloth for objects of little value, no real use could be made of them,
so they were sold again to speculators, who bought them at a very
low price from their needy owners, and then hid them away. Nothing
more was seen of them during our stay, but when we were gone they
meant to produce them, and ask extortionate prices for them.
Our average prices fluctuated in an extraordinary way. We
presently superseded Suleyman, who was too much of a talker, and
tried other men as buyers, but we really had not a single coolie who
was a good djula; at last in despair Baudry was obliged to take the
task upon himself, and every morning he went to market to lay in a
supply of provisions, buying grain and sheep, milk and butter. He
was probably the only buyer who took no perquisites for himself.
We got to know personally all the frightful negresses who served
us. We talked to them at first by signs, every one using a kind of
language of his own. Father Hacquart became very popular amongst
them, for he could speak the Arabic employed by the so-called
marabouts, and haggle in Songhay with the Koyraberos, whether
male or female. Some of the negresses hit upon a very clever
dodge, for instead of selling, they gave. They brought presents to the
Father, to the Commandant, and to the other officers, such various
gifts as calabashes of honey, eggs, milk, poultry, etc., but the
principle was always to give a little to receive much. Truth to tell, it is
very difficult to refuse to fall in with the idea when the presents are
offered in such an insinuating way.
A YOUNG GIRL OF SAY.

By these means we started a fine poultry farm, and our chickens


lived in the abattis of our enceinte. Their life was not altogether a
happy one at Fort Archinard; they became too familiar, and, poor
things, this cost them dear. Bluzet and I—this is a merciless age—
used to shoot at them from a little bow with arrows made of bits of
bamboo pointed with a pin, waging pitiless war on those who came
to drink at our well, or who dared to go so far as to disturb us when
we had gone to snatch a little rest and coolness in our huts.
We made rather an important discovery in connection with this
shooting of our poultry. Osman had secretly smuggled some
poisoned arrows into our camp, and we drove the point of one of
them into the head of a hen which had already been wounded by
Bluzet. The result was astonishing, for the next day the hen was
cured of her first hurt, and able to run about as if nothing had
happened.

You might also like