Due Monday, September 11 at 11:59pm
Contents
Background
Gracie’s questions
Gracie Cunningham was a student who went viral on Twitter a few years ago when someone tweeted her Tik Tok and said, “this is the dumbest video ive ever seen.” (That person’s Twitter account has since been suspended btw.)
After catching a lot of hate on Twitter, Gracie made a follow-up video and tweeted it herself. (I like both videos but I think I prefer the first one tbh.)
Alongside all the critical comments calling her dumb, Gracie got a huge outpouring of support from mathematicians, physicists, philosophers, and teachers, who loved her videos. Like, really, really loved them.
Dr. Cheng’s answers
Eugenia Cheng is a mathematician who is very good at explaining math to non-mathematicians. She’s published a few popular books about math for a general audience and is very active on Twitter. She’s even appeared on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert!
Gracie’s questions are mostly about the history and philosophy of math (which is a real academic discipline that people can study and get PhD’s in!). Some of her questions have concrete answers and some of her questions just lead to more questions. When Dr. Cheng saw Gracie’s videos and the critical comments on them, she tried answering Gracie’s questions one-by-one on her blog.
Assignment instructions
None of us are experts in the history of math or in the philosophy of math (unless there’s something you’re not telling us in your OpenLab introduction post from last week!). But we all have studied math and encountered math in some form in our day-to-day lives…which means that we’ve all spent time thinking about math, so we can ask questions about it.
For this week’s assignment, think about math in the big picture of the human experience, not just the math you see in your math classes.
- Watch both of Gracie’s videos above and read Eugenia Cheng’s blog post.
- Choose one of the following prompts:
- What are you curious about? Have you ever had any questions like “Is math real?” or like Gracie’s questions that you’ve thought about before? What is one of your questions and what have your thoughts been about it? Was there something in particular that made you have question? Was there something that changed your mind about how you think about it? Do you have any possible answers for your question, even if they contradict each other?
- Which of Dr. Cheng’s answers is the most interesting to you? Why? Did you agree with everything she said or do you have a different idea? How would you have answered this question?
- Imagine Gracie is your friend. What would your answers to her questions be? Which of her questions would you ask her more questions about? What would you ask her? How would you engage with her ideas in a supportive way?
- What’s something mathematical that you have encountered in your life that had nothing to do with the math you learned in school? Was there a problem you had to solve on your own? Did you have to look up how to solve it or did you figure out a way to solve it yourself? Did you use algebra without realizing you used algebra? How do you know what you did counts as math instead of as something that’s not math?
- Look up the history of a mathematical fact, formula, or idea. What problem were people trying to solve when they discovered it? How did it solve the problem for them? How did they know they were right and how did they use it? What is the story of this fact, formula, or idea? (I’m not sure how reliable it is, but the website the Story of Mathematics might be a good place to start).
- Make your own video (on Tik Tok or anywhere else that’s public) asking your own questions about the history and philosophy of math.
- In a comment below, respond to the prompt you chose in at least 5 sentences. Make sure to tell us which prompt you chose so we know what you’re responding to! If you are making your own video, include a link to it in your comment.
You will receive participation credit for your comment.
If you want to write more than a few sentences, you are certainly allowed to! If your response is too long for a comment, you may submit your own OpenLab post; comment here with a link to your post so we can find it later.
Prompt #1
What I am curious about is how did the inventors actually come up with the equation and known that they are right just like Gracie said in her video. I never really had that idea to ask whether math was real or not, but once I saw the video it made me think if the equations and mathematics could be relied on. Now one of my questions to math is how long did it take to develop math and have many peoples acknowledgement was needed. The video of Eugenia Cheng did not make any of the explanation of math being similar to baking any better, it actually confused me. I have no possible answer to what Gracies question was if “math was even real?”
Prompt #2
I find all of her answers very interesting because they helped me answer the same type of questions I had when I started allegro in middle school. Things like patterns over and over again you do start to see Constance. I agreed with everything except question 5’s answer because I thought it was corny or cheesy. My answer to her number 5 would be “No… You not funny” That is all. I liked the fact that it went viral and so many opinions were given it just puts a lot into perspective. The video didn’t help me with anything but multiplying I guess. Even so, I felt like it was more of them talking and pretending than actual math.
Prompt 3:
My answer to Gracie’s question “once they did find these formulas, how did they know that they were right?” is that they probably tested it many many times and had different people test it as well to see if they got the same answer. I would ask Gracie where the idea of her even questioning math came from. The way I would of engaged with her would of been adding on to her questioning because she would of made me start questioning things as well. Like her question ” How did people know what they were looking for when they started theorizing about formulas?” I would of then asked ” Do you think there’s a certain reason that made them feel like they should come up with formulas?”. Overall, I think Gracie had a valid reason to question math and where it stems from.
Prompt A
I’m interested in this woman’s reasoning and her assumptions on how math scholars in the past worked and took apart different problems. I’m also interested on why they invented things like algebra and what was the application of them thousands of years ago. I would imagine it had something to do with mercantilism and the moving of goods over large distances. In these applications, advanced math would need to be used to develop an idea of supply and demand between different cultures. Different places would have different people, languages, and ways of life, so trade was most likely not apples to apples – so tradesmen would have to invent new kinds of math when 1 did not equal 1.
Prompt A
I have had questions like “Is math real” but then I realized that it is used in architecture and in the old days they might have used it to build castles, homes, etc. But, I question why sometimes math is used with cooking something, because out of every tool or strategy why use math? I am curious about what exactly happened when the first person who thought about math. the thing that made me question math is when numbers are used in tech. why is it numbers and not letters or signs?
prompt A
i agree with her, basic math is real like addition, subtractions, divisions, multiplications. But finding y=mx+ b , area of a circle etcc.. are not real. i don’t think i need all of this math problems for my profession.
Prompt A
I had always been wondering how specific mathematical formulas were created and their accuracy was confirmed. I agree that basic operations like addition and subtraction appear simple, but I’m drawn by the history and importance of some equations like y=mx+b. I’m curious about the story behind how they created y=mx+b and its useful uses. Some answers i might’ve thought about is that they used it for architecture.
Prompt A
how did the formulators actually come up with these equations and know if it was accurate. Grace stated once they did find these formulas, how did they know that they were right? I would say they presumably tested it numerous times to get similar results from others. i agree with her when she said basic math is real such as division addition, multiplication ect but finding area of a circle and other equations is unnecessary.
Prompt A.
I’m curious about how I didn’t question the same thing as Gracie before.
Everything that she’s asking makes sense. In my mind there’s no way I can imagine they needed so many formulas for daily life stuff, heck we don’t even need them now.
But, I understand that It was something needed because those formulas and math strategies they invented back then are what got us so far on inventions nowadays. My question is,
How did people pass it on? Like I know math got better because people invented something and then based on that someone else down the line continued the work and came up with something else in addition and then someone else after that.. So on and so on.
It makes me think that people back in the days were VERY ahead of us based on Intelligence.
Nowadays people have the easy way, everything basically has been done for us and we spent years and years learning stuff someone else came up with soooo many years ago.
I’m not sure how I can answer my own question but I just believe people were a LOT smarter than Today.
I’m curious about why she chose TIK TOK and yes, I have wondered about similar things before. To be honest I question how things came to be more than I question the math problem itself. A question I have is why 2 negatives multiplied equal to a positive number. So far nothing has changed how I thought about it. I just accepted it and moved on.
Prompt A: I’ve definitely had questions about if math was real or not. Why would we create equations that don’t even make senses or seemingly don’t apply to everyday jobs? I still wonder about that, but I’ve been told by several teachers in the past to stop asking it out loud.
Prompt C
I do think Math is real to an extent. Like one of my classmates said, we use addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division everyday. For example when you’re trying to split the bill with a friend, you can either divide the bill by 2 or you can subtract the items that you personally got and pay for that. But when it comes to formulas like y=mx+b, I personally feel like we don’t use this everyday, but since we were taught about how to calculate area or perimeter, we do use it without knowing that we are using a formula. For example, let’s say one is trying to figure the area of a room to see how they go about adding furniture. You would use the area formula without even knowing that you’re using it.
I do have questions of my own especially on how math started. For example: Who defined this as Math and who defined what order of operations and formulas are.
I don’t know if I answered Gracie’s questions but this is what I would say.
The question that I had is how first people came up with the answers and how long did it take the people to solve a question. Yes I had a question is math real? for a second I thought its not real because I thought that you don’t need math in life but than I thinked about how people measure and add up stuff and this shows that math is real.
Prompt 1
Prompt1
prompt 1
After watching everything and reading the blog I also am curious how these people made up certain equations out of nothing. One question I would often ask myself is, why is there so many ways to solve the same problem?. As I have become older and been through different math classes all these equations and forms of solving questions are just a way to make life easier. I can also see where Gracie is coming from but without those philosophers math wouldn’t be what it is today.
PROMPT #1
My curiosity lies in understanding the process by which mathematicians devised equations and gained confidence in their accuracy ,much like Gracie mentioned in her video. It never occurred to me to question the authenticity of mathematics until i watched the videos, which prompted me to question the reliability of mathematical equations. Consequently, one of my inquiries pertains to that of the timeline of mathematical development. Unfortunately Eugenia Cheng’s video did not clarify the resemblance between math and baking for me, but on the contrary it left me more confused and just left me questioning more and more if Math is even real.
Prompt A:
After watching these videos my curiosity lies in understanding how it was that math was invented. Before watching these videos I never wondered if math was real however after watching these videos i’ve come to a conclusion that I agree with Gracie. She made a strong point of why was it that math became a thing. One question that I have is how did the creators of math come up with different equations and formulas that have nothing to do with everyday life? Some math equations have no use in our everyday life but they were created. I want to know why they were created and how long it took to come up with these equations and formulas.
Pythagoras, the Greek mathematician and philosopher who lived in the sixth century BC, did not discover the Pythagorean theorem. Ancient societies including the Babylonians, Egyptians, Indians, and Chinese were already familiar with the theorem and employed it for a variety of tasks like measuring land, building altars, and creating architectural designs. Certain societies have guidelines for producing sequences of numbers that meet the theorem, as 3, 4, and 5 or 5, 12, and 13. We refer to these sets as Pythagorean triples.
These ancient people were attempting to figure out how to calculate the length of a right triangle’s missing side given the lengths of its other two sides.
well after watching both videos it brought me a deeper understanding of math. In my opinion evreyone has questioned whether math is real or wether we actually need it and yes it is real and we do need it .
well after watching both videos it brought me a deeper understanding of math. In my opinion evreyone has questioned whether math is real or wether we actually need it and yes it is real and we do need it .
To me, I’m most curious about how math was invented. I think the way Dr. Cheng showed exponential math was very creative and simple. If Gracie was my friend I think my answer would go something like this: ” I think of math as the roots for a tree. Many things require math such as code, quantum physics, construction, etc! But to how it was invented I have no clue”.