Category Archives: Education

(Ir)rational Behavior of Calculation

We had the following set of exercises with a group of secondary school students (in Ressun lukio). Assume that a and b are positive real numbers. Then assume one of the following: (i) a and b are both rational (ii) … Continue reading

Posted in Algebra, Calculus, Education, Mathematics, Wednesday Problem | 1 Comment

Intellectual Lazyness

My friend gives private mathematics lessons to young pupils, mostly high school students who need some help in their curriculum math. Here is a story about a student of him. My friend asks him: how much is 5+6? The guy … Continue reading

Posted in Education, Philosophy, Popular | 4 Comments

0.999999….. = 1?

The question in the title is constantly discussed on web forums and at our department’s corridors; sometimes even by professional mathematicians and is in fact already quite seen and banal. In our department this question is often raised by the … Continue reading

Posted in Calculus, Education, Mathematics, Philosophy, Popular | 5 Comments

I am back!

Now I can blog again: the ‘publish’ button returned to the user interface. Let me start the new era of Walks on Math by: * Changing the name of the blog into Walks on Mind * Posting an interview of … Continue reading

Posted in Education, Meta, Philosophy, Popular | Leave a comment

The Most Important Relation In Mathematics 1

Part 1: Basics In this and few following posts I will argue that not only in mathematics, but in all human reasoning, the role of equivalence relations is crucial. The notion of an equivalence relation is the key to any … Continue reading

Posted in Education, Foundations, Mathematics, Philosophy | 3 Comments

Jouko Väänänen’s Birthday Meeting

Let me advertise the meeting (in September 2010) whose web page I am maintaining: http://www.helsinki.fi/~kulikov/jouko/ All logicians, are most welcome to the meeting! Other people are also welcome! :-P There will be two tutorials before the conference: by Andres Villaveces … Continue reading

Posted in Education, Logic, Meta | Leave a comment

If You Beg For Money, You Might End Up Doing Math

Yesterday I was walking around with my friend in a market hall. Two girls of age 15 asked us whether we could give them 40 euro cents. It is about $0.6. We asked them what could we gain in response. … Continue reading

Posted in Education, Meta, Recreation, Wednesday Problem | 3 Comments

Tips to Young Mathematicians

I read the article “Advice to a Young Mathematician” written by five authors Sir Michael Atiyah, Bela Bollobas, Alain Connes, Dusa McDuff and Peter Sarnak. In the following I summarize in eight clauses what I found useful and what was … Continue reading

Posted in Book & Article Reviews, Education | Leave a comment