MATHEMATICS CLUB will meet for one hour weekly
on THURSDAYS at 4:00 (16:00) PDT at the Math square
with Tagline (Robert A. Hendrix) as trail guide and emcee.
Second life avatars will meet up at the Math square but we will also resort to
ZOOM sessions in which the group will have access to White Board function for spontaneous generation
of diagrams, figures and notes.
GOALS OF MATHEMATICAL CLUB
Maths club will be a regular meeting of the curious. Sessions are intended to be held in a safe, noncompetitive environment in which any serious question is welcome. By design, sessions will be INTERACTIVE – discovery more than instruction, exploration more than lectures; a forum begetting of questions and discussion of questions.
We will start each session with a point of focus, some specific mathematical idea or problem that is approachable for anyone with common sense and basic mathematical skill sets. The intention is that at the conclusion of the hour, EVERYONE in attendance will be left with the joy of having learned something new, having gained new appreciation of some “pebble on the seashore”, and possibly with new questions to sort out in one’s own mind. There is something here for every member of this motley crew we think of as humankind and we welcome all.
Why a Maths Club?
There is a culture to mathematics. As with any social attribute, the culture of mathematics can be fed and nurtured, and it can grow in the give and take of shared ideas arising from the minds of people. Like seeds that metamorph into amazingly complex living plants, our mathematical ideas can provoke thought and evolve to internal understanding with deeper insight. Best of all, our ideas can generate good questions to ponder and news paths of thought.
Where you put your mind, there you go. – Tagline
“The whole of science is nothing more than a refinement of everyday thinking.”
— Albert Einstein
Mathematics is a thinking process inherently available to every person. Imagine being told not to walk, not to take even a step unless you did it according to an arcane program of dogmatic instruction outlined in pedagogic texts. Then an educational system drags you through endless processes about how to move your legs with you all the while stuck in the backseat of a car on a road trip with shoes that are killing your feet. Similarly, math instruction in school often goes at such a clip, that FOUNDATIONS ARE GIVEN SHORT SHRIFT because there is never time to go back and look at the view you just passed. Somehow, you must remember that you know how to walk!
All the skills needed to do maths are in your DNA, fired in the forge of life challenges and hammered on the anvil of evolution. Your ANCESTORS LIVED AND DIED by these abilities. You are beneficiary to all the abilities they used as they managed to survive their life experiences. They passed their blueprints down to you, crowdsourced in a sense, originating from many sources but entirely from survivors and winners. You have innate ability to perceive and manage mathematical aspects as found in most everything you do during the day, everything you see, everything going on in the world, the financial markets, the coffee in your cup, the leaves in the trees and the stars in the night sky. You simply have to discover what you might be missing.