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Courtesy, to use one example, is something that computers cannot quite teach yet. Whether computers ever become the sophisticated teachers Arthur C Clarke envisioned in Songs of Distant Earth remains to be seen. The present certainty is that computers can be useful tools, but nobody has quite figured out how to use them effectively in the classroom. Don’t forget, von Neumann, Woz, Alan Turing, et al., were all educated with chalkboards. --payam.minoofar.com

Apple Co-Founder Steve Wozniak Says Education Was a Primary Motivation for His Inventions

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December 18, 2007

Mathematics Professors' Video About Möbius Transformations Is a YouTube Hit

It’s hard to explain Möbius transformations with a flat illustration in a textbook. But two professors at the University of Minnesota found that a 3-D animation lets them show the mathematical concept in a way that seems to have sparked the imaginations of a wide range of viewers. The video has been watched more than one million times since it was put on YouTube.

The professors are Douglas N. Arnold, a professor of mathematics and director of the Institute for Mathematics and its Applications, and Jonathan Rogness, an assistant professor of mathematics. They have something of a fan club on YouTube, with more than 4,000 comments on the video. Not everyone claims to have understood the lesson, though. “Thanks for trying to explain it,” wrote one commenter, “but its still a bit over my head.” —Jeffrey R. Young

Comments

1. It would be nice to see this kind of technology accompanied by an empirically verifiable claim about learning, using, or creating mathematics. Here’s one: It helps engineering and science students but decreases the creativity of students of pure mathematics.

   — S. Britchky    Dec 19, 04:02 AM    #

2. This is what we in dance call elements of choreography. Of course, creativity is possible once the mind’s eye comprehends the ever-changing nature of four-dimensionality. This YouTube Illustration is, no doubt, the first of many manipulations that are purely mathematical. See Pilobolus’ work for the creative applications of same!

   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAKlVwTpnNI

   — KarenDC    Dec 19, 07:46 AM    #

3. This might help fashion design students as well as designers: This morning I just read an interview with the curator of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Fashion Institute. He remarked on the 20th century designer Balenciaga’s genius for flexing fabric in mysterious ways. Many other designs cut on the bias, affecting the way seams are attached, etc. (Attention: Project Runway!)

   — Martha Evans    Dec 19, 09:46 AM    #

4. A question for Dr. Britchky: I agree that this is very helpful for engineering and science students (I’m a physicist), but why wouldn’t that also be so for students of pure mathematics?

   — Don Langenberg    Dec 19, 10:15 AM    #

5. please send me more about transformations and there definitions

   — hadi    Dec 20, 07:21 PM    #

6. please send me more about transformations
   i want more

   — hadi    Dec 20, 07:23 PM    #

7. where can i learn the equations behind this?
   I would greatly appreciate any help

   — frank    Jan 27, 11:38 PM    #

Commenting is closed for this article.

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