Unit 7: Mathematics − the Language of Science.

"Pure mathematics is, in its way, the poetry of logical ideas." Albert Einstein

"Mathematics, rightly viewed, posses not only truth, but supreme beauty; a beauty cold and austere, like that of sculpture." Bertrand Russell

WARM-UP

1. Think of as many words as possible related to mathimatics. How important is mathematics to you?

2. Work in pairs. Do the quiz to find out how much you know about the origins of mathematics.

Who invented math?

1. Euclid collected theorems and proofs about polygons and angles - creating Euclidean geometry in a book called The ……

1. Chords

2. Elements

3. Expansion

4. Fundamentals

2. Galileo said that mathematics is the language of …… .

1. God

2. life

3. nature

4. the world

3. The earliest known evidence of mathematics is …… .

1. angle measurement

2. counting

3. matrices

4. using zero

4. By the 3rd century B.C., people in India were using the number zero. At first it was represented by a blank space. This was confusing, so it was replaced by a/an …… .

1. circle

2. dot

3. inverted v

4. line

5. Plato believed that mathematics exists …… .

1. because humans created it

2. outside of mankind's ability to understand it

3. whether or not humans understand it

4. none of the above

6. The fractions used by the ancient Egyptians differed from ours because …..…

1. most of them used 1 in the numerator

2. most of them used 1 in the denominator

3. they were usually mixed fractions

4. the ancient Egyptians did not use fractions

7. The oldest written records of mathematics were originally located in ……

1. China

2. Egypt

3. India

4. Mesopotamia

8. Leonhard Euler, creator of modern trigonometry, popularized the symbol for …… .

1. cube root

2. factorial

3. inequality

4. pi

3. Discuss the questions in your group.

1. What famous mathematicians who studied or worked at our University do you know?

2. What faculties of the KPI relate to the subject of Maths?

3. What social sciences is Maths connected with?

4. When did people begin to use Maths?

5. What is the role of paradoxes in the development of Maths?

6. Do you think that to become a mathematician one has to have ability

for maths?

7. Can you give any advice on how to develop ability for fast calculating?

4. Do you agree or disagree with the quotations? Discuss them in pairs.

1. "There are things which seem incredible to most men who have not studied mathematics." Aristotle

2. "As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality." Albert Einstein

3. "Mathematics is the queen of sciences and arithmetic is the queen of mathematics." Carl Friedrich Gauss

4. "Film is one of the three universal languages, the other two: mathematics and music." Frank Capra

5. "The essence of mathematics lies in its freedom." Georg Cantor

6. "To most outsiders, modern mathematics is unknown territory. Its borders are protected by dense thickets of technical terms; its landscapes are a mass of indecipherable equations and incomprehensible concepts." Ivars Peterson

7. "For the things of this world cannot be made known without a knowledge of mathematics." Roger Bacon

8. "Mathematics may be defined as the subject in which we never know what we are talking about, nor whether what we are saying is true."Bertrand Russell

READING

5. You need to

a) underline the stressed sound in each word as in the example and pronounce them. Practise reading.

Abbreviation, concise, purposefully, throughout, frequent, minus, precise, algebra, geometry, pervade, philosophy, magnitude, vowel, successful, successively, ambiguity, susceptible, technique.

b) pay attention to the shift of the stress in the following numerals. Practise reading.

thirteen − thirty	seventeen − seventy
fo(u)rteen − fo(u)rty	eighteen − eighty
fifteen − fifty	nineteen − ninety
sixteen − sixty

6. Tell what the following abbreviations or shortenings mean. If you don't know, see Appendix 4.

   	vs.		cf.
   	e.g.		v.v.
   	etc.		B.C.
   	i.e.		A.D.
   	fig.		exc.

7. Read the text "Mathematics − the language of science" and answer the questions.

1. Is the language of mathematics universal? Why (not)?

2. What is algebra?

3. What three stages has algebra passed?

4. How is the language of mathematics designed?

5. What signs and symbols are there in mathematics?

6. What sciences does mathematics embrace?

7. What is verbal algebra?

8. Give examples of abbreviated algebra.

8. Think of the heading for each paragraph of the text.