The Department of Mathematics and Statistics invites students, faculty and staff to attend a talk given by Dr. Bernard Hodgson from Université Laval (Québec) on Friday, October 4, 2024 from 2:00 PM to 3:00 PM. The talk is entitled History of mathematics as a component of university mathematics education

For information, contact: Chantal Buteau: cbuteau@brocku.ca

Abstract:

I wish in my presentation to discuss the role that history of mathematics could, or should, play in university mathematics education, including in the preparation of schoolteachers. I will support my comments with original documents from the past, so to emphasize the wit of great mathematicians of earlier times as well as the ingenuity of methods they used when solving various problems, before the arrival of modern symbolism. I will present among others approaches developed by Archimedes for “squaring” a circle or a segment of a parabola; the resolution by al Khwarizmi of the second-degree trinomial, without the algebraic notations nowadays standard; or good old Pythagoras as revisited by Euclid.

Biography:

Bernard R. Hodgson is Professeur titulaire in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at Université Laval. His research and teaching interests include mathematical logic and theoretical computer science, mathematical education (in particular the mathematical preparation of primary and secondary school teachers), history of mathematics education, and history of mathematics. He was an invited regular lecturer at the International Congress of Mathematicians-ICM (1990 and 1998) and at International Congress on Mathematical Education – ICME (1992 and 2016), and a plenary lecturer at ICME-12 (2012).