Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-m6dg7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-19T10:45:39.920Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Historical stories in the mathematics classroom

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2016

Extract

Some years ago when I was co-editor of the German periodical Mathematik lehren we decided to prepare an issue on the history of mathematics. To secure the interest of our usual readership, we planned to elaborate a few hints, recommendations, or suggestions on how to include historical items in the ordinary teaching of mathematics in school. It soon became clear however that this methodological problem would be the critical point of our project. It turned out, as I had feared from the beginning, that only a very few of my colleagues could be talked into writing about this feature of the subject. It was easy to get papers on historical facts or on hypothetical developments, but everyone found it hard to write about practical ways of teaching history in the mathematics classroom.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Mathematical Association 1992

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Beckmann, P., A history of π, Golem Press, 1977.Google Scholar
Bialas, V., Erdgestalt, Kosmologie und Weltanschauung: Die Gescichte der Geodäsie als Teil der Kulturgeschichte [The history of geodesy as a part of the history of civilisation], Stuttgart, 1962.Google Scholar
Bühlerm, M., “Reading Archimedes measurement of a circle”, in Fauvel, (ed.) History in the mathematics classroom: the IREM papers, Mathematical Association, 1990.Google Scholar
Cantor, M., Vorlesungen über Geschichte der Mathematik [Lectures on mathematical history], Teubner, 1913.Google Scholar
Fischer, I., “Another look at Eratosthenes’ and Posidonius’ determinations of the earth’s circumference”, Quarterly Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society 16 (1975), 152167.Google Scholar
Freudenthal, H., “Die Welt wird gemessen”, [Measuring the earth], in Führer, 1986. Google Scholar
Führer, L., “Zur Enstehung und Begrüündung der Analysisunterrichts an allgemeinbildenden Schulen” [Genesis and legitimation of analysis teaching in Germany], Der Mathematikunterricht 27, 5 (1981) 81122.Google Scholar
Führer, L., “Die Kreisberechnung als Brennspiegel der Schulmathematik” [Circle measurement as a burning mirror of school mathematics], Praxis der Mathematik, 23 (1982), 289298,323–337.Google Scholar
Führer, L., (ed) Geschichte – Geschichten [History – high-stories], special issue of Mathematik lehren 19(1986).Google Scholar
Hogben, L. Science for the citizen, Allen and Unwin, 1938.Google Scholar
Kämmerer, W., Die quadratur des Kreises im Schulunterricht [The quadrature of the circle in mathematics teaching], Emil Roth, 1930.Google Scholar
Kitcher, P., The nature of mathematical knowledge, Oxford University Press, 1983.Google Scholar
Knorr, W.R., “Archimedes and the measurement of the circle: a new interpretation”, Archive for the history of exact sciences 15,(1976), 115140.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kommereil, K., Das Grenzgebeit der elementaren und höheren Mathematik [At the frontier of elementary and higher mathematics], Koehler 1936.Google Scholar
Prell, H., Die Vorstellungen des Altertums von der Erumfangslänge [Ideas of the Earth’s circumference in antiquity], Berlin 1959.Google Scholar
Resnikoff, H.L., and Wells, R.O., Mathematics in civilisation, Dover 1984.Google Scholar
Rottländer, R.C.A., Antike Längenmaβe [Measures of length in antiquity], Vieweg, 1979.Google Scholar
Rudio, F., (ed.) Archimedes, Huygens, Lambert, Legendre: vier Abhandlungen über die Kreissmessung [Four papers on the measurement of the circle], Teubner, 1982.Google Scholar
Salamin, E., “Computation of π using the arithmetic-geometric mean”, Mathematics of computation, July 1976, 565570.Google Scholar
Schelin, C.W., “Calculator function approximation”, Mathematics monthly, 905 (1983), 317325.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schneider, I., Archimedes, Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellscaft, 1979.Google Scholar
Smeur, A.J.E.M., On the value of π in ancient mathematical texts: a new interpretation”, Archive for the history of exact sciences, 6 (1969/70), 249270.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Struik, D.J., A source book in mathematics 1200–1800, Harvard U.P., 1969.Google Scholar
Taylor, E.G.R., The haven-finding art: a history of navigation from Odysseus to Captain Cook, Hollis and Carter, 1971.Google Scholar
Tropfke, J., Geschichte der Elementarmathematik, Band 1: Arithmetik und Algebra [History of mathematics volume 1], new edition by Vogel, K., Reich, K., and Gericke, H., de Gruyter 1980.Google Scholar
van der Waerden, B.L., Science awakening, O.U.P. 1961.Google Scholar
van der Waerden, B.L., Die Pythagoreer, Artemis 1979.Google Scholar
Winter, H., “Zoll, Fuβ, und Elle: alte Körpermaβe neu zu entdecken” [Inch, foot and yard: old body measures to be rediscovered], in Führer 1986.Google Scholar