2008 Woodie Awards
Lies teachers told
Katelynn Wilton
Issue date: 4/21/08 Section: News
Last Thursday, one of the last seminars of the semester was held. Sponsored by the Physics Club, the seminar featured Professor Felland, a member of the math department here at Clarkson University. Judging by the size of the room in Snell, the showing was not expected to be huge. By the eyes of those who entered, you could tell that people were surprised that the seminar was completely packed with over sixty people in attendance. Many late comers brought chairs or stood in the back of the room, with one person even standing outside and peaking in the door.
Professor Felland began by speaking of how even the title of his lecture was a lie. Its title, which described "Lies my teacher told me (about math)," was even a lie. He started off by pointing this out, and by saying that only one of the points he was making in his presentation was actually told to him by a math teacher.
After that, he described the Battle of New Orleans, and how he was once told that it was insignificant. He then proceeded to trace the history of the United States, through the rise of Andrew Jackson and the fall of the Bank of the United States to a time of recession, whose roots partially lead back to the Battle of New Orleans and the triumph there.
From there, Professor Felland began to combat the belief that the square root of -1, often defined simply as 'i,' came from the equation x-squared plus one equals zero, which has no real roots. From this, he traced the real roots of the value i back to a cubic equation with a real root of four that was unsolvable through the cubic equation. By carrying through the value of the square root of negative one, the mathematician found the missing root of four.
The last proof of the night came from a video that he saw back in about eighth grade, which showed one man standing against an entire bunch of seemingly uneducated men, all telling him that he was wrong in saying that the Earth revolved around the sun. In reality, only two men truly combated the notion, and both are thought of as two of the three best mathematicians of that day. One of them, Archimedes of Syracuse, was actually the founder of calculus and combinatorics.
Students in attendance seemed to have a very positive outlook on the lecture. Chris Kopra commented that "it was an intellectual journey through the history of teaching errors." Another student stated that Felland's "interesting perspective and unique sense of humor always serve to amuse and inform."
For the over sixty people in attendance, every word a teacher, professor, movie, or book tells them will be a looked at with a bit of skepticism.
Professor Felland began by speaking of how even the title of his lecture was a lie. Its title, which described "Lies my teacher told me (about math)," was even a lie. He started off by pointing this out, and by saying that only one of the points he was making in his presentation was actually told to him by a math teacher.
After that, he described the Battle of New Orleans, and how he was once told that it was insignificant. He then proceeded to trace the history of the United States, through the rise of Andrew Jackson and the fall of the Bank of the United States to a time of recession, whose roots partially lead back to the Battle of New Orleans and the triumph there.
From there, Professor Felland began to combat the belief that the square root of -1, often defined simply as 'i,' came from the equation x-squared plus one equals zero, which has no real roots. From this, he traced the real roots of the value i back to a cubic equation with a real root of four that was unsolvable through the cubic equation. By carrying through the value of the square root of negative one, the mathematician found the missing root of four.
The last proof of the night came from a video that he saw back in about eighth grade, which showed one man standing against an entire bunch of seemingly uneducated men, all telling him that he was wrong in saying that the Earth revolved around the sun. In reality, only two men truly combated the notion, and both are thought of as two of the three best mathematicians of that day. One of them, Archimedes of Syracuse, was actually the founder of calculus and combinatorics.
Students in attendance seemed to have a very positive outlook on the lecture. Chris Kopra commented that "it was an intellectual journey through the history of teaching errors." Another student stated that Felland's "interesting perspective and unique sense of humor always serve to amuse and inform."
For the over sixty people in attendance, every word a teacher, professor, movie, or book tells them will be a looked at with a bit of skepticism.
Be the first to comment on this story