Re: [MLUG - DISCUSSION] Mathematical proof is foolproof, it seems, only in the absence of fools

[Mike Miller <EMAIL:PROTECTED>]

On Tue, 19 Dec 2006, Jonathan King wrote:

> That evening, I complained about this to my dad, and he showed me *and 
> made sure I understood* Euclid's argument that there was indeed no such 
> thing as a largest prime number. To be honest, it was probably one of 
> the more important moments of my education.

For my development in math there were two important things.  One was when 
my dad showed me that I could figure out the answer to any math problem by 
looking at the earlier section of the text book.  That was in about 4th 
grade.  It seems obvious, but it wasn't obvious to me.  After that I 
started to teach myself many things.  This led eventually to Hogben's 
"Mathematics for the Million" and skipping the first algebra class.  (I 
told an undergrad that coming to class might help her learning and grades 
-- she thanked me for telling her and she said she didn't know that 
before.  Her grades suddenly improved dramatically, so I think she was 
serious!)

The other big event was when my 7th grade teacher showed us how to break 
up a circle into "pie slices" of smaller and smaller sizes and rearrange 
them into a rectangle to prove that the area of a circle is pi r².  It was 
so gorgeous that I was in love with math!  That's when I got out the 
Hogben and skipped the next year of math.

Mike

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