Project Proposal

I'm not quite sure how to go about this but here goes. 


After senior project/illuminated mathematics, we only got to pick a subject that no one else that had. But, after that project I really wanted to explore a topic that I didn't get to have and that was math as a universal language. I want to discover more about not how numbers came to be, but, rather how everyone uses them. So I would like to investigate numbers through different cultures. For example: We use the roman numeral system like most of the world, but, before the Chinese used roman numerals they had their own way of writing and using numbers. I would want to do a project that explores these differences. By the way, one of my passions is Chinese so I'd be applying it to that. 

QQC 10

Much Ado About Numbers: Chapter 1

“The mysterious Philosopher's Stone the unknown catalyst that was thought to transform base metals into gold and be the elixir of everlasting life - was said to be “one in essence” according to the 17th-century scholar of alchemy William Gratacolle. (However, William also found about a hundred other names for the Philosopher’s Stone, ranging from “the eyes of fishes” to the rather bizzare “belly of a man in the mist,” so it is unlikely that being “one in essence” was terribly helpful in the centuries-long search for the stone.)

I wonder why people thought that the philosopher’s stone existed. “Belly of a man in the mist”? Wut? Where do people come up with this stuff?

“And of course, number one is often used to mean “the best.”  In China, Feng Shui can be improved with the right numbers. The number one is the first of the yang numbers and its strongly linked to growth and prosperity.”

I’ve never heard of 1 being a good number. I’ve learned something new. Eight is a really lucky number but four is not because the word for four and the word for death are pronounced the same way. There are also larger numbers that when you say the numbers one after another they sound like auspicious words like prosperity or happiness for example. 

“Natural numbers are the pigeons of the number world - you see them everywhere you look.” 

I can’t imagine numbers flying around and perching on buildings in major metropolitan areas.

“Perfect numbers like perfect men are very rare.”

I’m surprised a man said this. XD I would’ve thought that a math witch would have said this. 

“Not surprisingly, it is said that 2,000 years ago, couples in love would exchange talismans and lockets with the numbers 284 and 220 on them, and apparently many marriages have happened between partners who each had perfect numbers for birthdays, horoscopes, heights (or anything else they could think of).”

I think its funny that numbers in the past were such a prominent part of a persons personal life. We don’t really revere numbers as much as we used to.

“Although it seems a little strange 0.99999999... is 1.”

Number  buckets! Throw it in the 1 bucket. 

QQC 9

Much Ado About Numbers: Chapter 0.000000001

“We’ve know these must exist for centuries; all anyone has to do is take one apple and cut it in two in order to see the problem.”

Never thought of it this way. 

“Pythagoras was born on the Greek island of Samos, and led an eventful life during which he traveled to Egypt where he was influenced greatly by their philosophers and customs, was taken as a prisoner of war to Babylon where he learned mathematics, music and sciences, before returning home, to Samos, and then moving to Croton, in Southern Italy.”

He was taken as a prisoner and learned mathematics. That is some torture. 

“The speed at which a trained abacus user can calculate sums is remarkable, and proficient users are even able to visualize the movement of beads in their heads in order to achieve astonishing feats of mental arithmetic.” 

That’s really cool. It makes me think of our reliance on calculators and how, while useful, we don’t really need them. 

“DNA, the molecule that holds together and makes up all our genes, is 2 nanometers in diameter.”

“In 2003 scientist at UC Berkley, created the smallest electric motor, less than 500 nm in size.”

Think of the ramifications for the medical field. 

“Scientists at MIT have even managed to attach a nanosized radio antenna onto a gene and use a radio signal to control its expression.”

Wow. Just wow. World of Warcraft that is. No I’m just joking. XD That is some pretty amazing shittake. 

“That’s 141.6 picometers or 1.416 Angstrom, which rather remarkably happens to be pretty much the size of a carbon atom. Not bad for 2,500 years ago, before anyone even knew atoms existed.”

I wonder what would happen if we went back in time and told all the great math figures the type of math we have now?

QQC 8

Much Ado About Numbers: Chapter 0


“Numbers are words (and symbols) that we use to describe patterns. It is essential for all creatures on our planet to perceive patterns. Even the simplest organism needs to be able to distinguish between things that may kill it and things that it needs to eat.”

If you look at it this way, the organisms with the most ability to recognize patterns survive. In this way every generation gets smarter. So, could you say that simple organisms evolve intelligence?

“We are the only creatures on Earth to make use of language, so its not terribly surprising that we are the only ones to “speak numbers.””

What defines a language? How do we know we are the only ones that speak numbers? In “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” the dolphins are the second most intelligent beings and know far before humans of the destruction of the earth. How do we test if another species knows numbers if they don’t see “numbers” as a representation of a number of objects?

“Clues of the origins of the Roman numerals are also visible in their language. In Latin, rationem putare means “to count.” The word ratio meant (as it does today) “a relationship between things” and the word putare meant “to cut, or prune a tree.” So when the Romans talked about counting, the spoke words that effectively meant, “use your eyes to observe relationships between things and make cuts in wood.”

“Nothing was invented around 1,800 years ago in India.” 

Where did the concept of zero come from mentally? Aside from a number to keep other numbers in place, how do you quantify nothing?

“It took a while, but eventually it was realized that zero doesn’t always obey the rules that other numbers obey.”

Zero be breakin’ rules. But is it ethical? XD

“Over a thousand years after Brahmagupta had written his work, a French mathematician named Guillaume de I’Hopital received his credit for this idea of shrinking series to zero over zero and it is known today as I’Hopital’s Rule.”

Mathematics is such a violent and vindictive hobby. Yeesh.