I thought it was interesting to read about how Muhammad ibn Musa alKhwarizmi introduced the concept of decimal positioning notation. I wonder what led him to use a base 10 system.
I was also interested to read about how Islamic art played a big role in the development of geometry. I think this shows how creative math can be. Math can be both beautiful and practical as these designs at applications in creating borders and infinite designs.
Once again, I am led to reflect on how mathematics is a shared human history and a beautiful example of people building off of other ideas and furthering the field based from their personal and cultural knowledge. More concise geometrical constructions and proofs were developed by Ibn Sinān and Muslim mathematicians with inspiration from the Greeks.
I think the Taxicab Numbers story and Major's paper show that numbers can have various associations for different people. I thought it was interesting that her paper explained the frequency of those associations through linguistics and the reality that we use words to identify those numbers so different parts of a brain form connections. It is interesting to me the history of how different cultures "named" the numbers. This topic also made me think about the book Flatland and how shapes are given personality which is similar to this. In that book, the culture of the day is reflected in how women are only lines and seen as having not very much dimension of variance. I think everyone has some associations with certain numbers even if it is through math, it is still connecting different parts of our brain.
I found it interesting to read about the history of Christianity interacting with the liberal arts education. I think there is still a debate present in faith communities about what knowledge is important to learn and where it conflicts with the goals of different religious groups. Can faith and math go together?
It seems that theoretical mathematics was an important study. The article mentions philosophical approaches to mathematical thinking. I think this is less of a value in our culture today and I wonder why. Perhaps society right now is more interested in making sure students have the practical skills they will need in a future profession than in developing that theoretical type of thinking.
So interesting to read about how there was a theology of numbers and numbers being gendered. I think that people today sometimes have special numbers or lucky numbers. I sometimes think there are "nice" numbers that have a kind of symmetry or pattern to them.
This article reminded me how in history we can see patterns of pendulum swinging. At one time theoretical knowledge, rhetoric and mystery might be valued and then there is a shift to very scientific knowledge or instrumental skill perhaps. I think this shows why historical understanding is important, even in mathematics. It shows us the different environments where mathematics was developed and how it was valued.
