Many people don't understand how much math and specifically geometry govern their everyday life. We even come out of the womb wanting to know where things are, what they look like and how to get from one place to another, all geometry. That's the topic of a new book, Shape: The Hidden Geometry of Information, Biology, Strategy, Democracy and Everything Else. Author UW-Madison Mathematics Professor Jordan Ellenberg joins us today.
Mystery to Me livestream, discussing "Shape: The Hidden Geometry of Information, Biology, Strategy, Democracy and Everything Else," with Meredith Broussard, via Crowdcast. RSVP for link.
Isthmus Picks for May 20-27 features a return to live theater from American Players Theatre and Madison Shakespeare Company, virtual community leadership awards presentations from YWCA Madison and Madison College, and much more.
âShapeâ Makes Geometry Entertaining. Really, It Does.
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âGirls canât do Euclid: can they, sir?â
âThe Mill on the Flossâ contains one of George Eliotâs sharpest caricatures in the figure of the foul schoolmaster Stelling. About girls, he reassures his young charges: âTheyâve a great deal of superficial cleverness; but they couldnât go far into anything.â
Certainly not geometry, that maker of men. Stelling embodied British pedagogy at the time, with all its complacent sexism and emphasis on rote memorization. But as the emphasis shifted from students parroting proofs to forming their own, geometry remained exalted for its power to cultivate deductive reasoning, to toughen and refine the mind.