Category Archives: Education

(Ir)rational Behavior of Calculation

Posted on October 18, 2011 by Vadim Kulikov

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

Posted on August 22, 2011 by Vadim Kulikov

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?

Posted on July 4, 2011 by Vadim Kulikov

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!

Posted on June 28, 2011 by Vadim Kulikov

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

Posted on June 7, 2010 by Vadim Kulikov

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

Posted on May 6, 2010 by Vadim Kulikov

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

Posted on May 5, 2010 by Vadim Kulikov

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

Posted on December 12, 2009 by Vadim Kulikov

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