Good mathematical technique and the case for mathematical insight

Good mathematical technique can bring the solution to certain mathematical questions within reach. By a proper formulation (one that is both tractable and that generalizes readily) and the use of mechanical techniques, one can often pass from a single insight to the solution of a family of problems, and in some cases, to the [...]

Teaching Mathematics 'in Tunic'

…Thoughts on the Teaching of Exploratory, Topical Mathematics

Mathematics is a richly spun tapestry threaded with interconnections from a multiplicity of endeavors, perspectives, and disciplines, both theoretical and applied. Contrary to its typical presentation, mathematics is not a linear subject.

For an instructor, this presents a number of challenges: how best to address the non-linear, inter-woven [...]

Catalysts in the Development of Mathematics

The development of mathematics has had many encouraging forces: societal, technological, cultural. These have served to accelerate mathematics and have been accelerated in turn, in many cases the pair becoming locked into a mutually beneficial resonance that has dramatically energized both.

In this article, I look at some of the significant catalysts, from the rise [...]

Knowledge Engineering

…and the Emerging Technologies of the Next Decade

Between Mathematics, Computer Science, Software Engineering, Electrical Engineering, and Statistics, is emerging an area of effort concerned, not just with using data or information gathered slowly over months or years, but with its real-time acquisition, interpretation and analysis, and its real-time use in appropriate decision-making, automatic adjustment, and [...]

Hurling Boulders: Assembly Language Programming

… An Overview of Assembly Language Programming

Assembly language programming often evokes images of a time when real programmers hurled boulders the size of small UNIVACs. The mystique is there for those whose computer science training is primarily in higher level languages.

But programming is programming, and one language shouldn’t be much harder to pick up [...]

An Open Source Assembly Language Toolset

… for Assembly Language Programming

To get started with assembly language on your x86 box, here is a set of open source (free) toolchain elements that play well together when host and target platforms are an x86 PC running a Windows (or Linux) operating system…

The Development of Mathematics

… in a nutshell

The development of mathematics is intimately interwoven with the progress of civilization, influencing the course of history through its application to science and technology.

But mathematics has changed. Even the mathematics of the 1800s can seem quite strange now, so greatly has mathematics evolved in the past 100 years and [...]

Characteristics of Modern Mathematics

What are the characteristics of mathematics, especially contemporary mathematics?

I’ll consider five groups of characteristics:

Applicability and Effectiveness,
Abstraction and Generality,
Simplicity,
Logical Derivation, Axiomatic Arrangement,
Precision, Correctness, Evolution through Dialectic…

What is Mathematics?

Can a definition be given that captures the meaning of Mathematics across the millennia of its recorded history? What unites the practice of mathematics throughout its history and into the present time?

In this article, I will try for a short answer by proceeding iteratively — convergence will be reached in two iterations….

Mathematics in Pre-History

…Taking into account early human evolution, and in particular, the development of speech, it is likely that the understanding of counting and keeping time far pre-dates the discovered fossil evidence of Homo Sapiens from 30,000 years ago, and reaches back at least as far as 250,000 years ago, coincident with speech, fire, and cooperative hunting, [...]