SME 430: History of Mathematics

Week 13: Calculus (Part 2)

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 Itinerary
✦ Announcements
✦ Biographies
✦ Timeline
✦ Buffon’s Needle Activity
✦ Honors Option: Women in Mathematics
✦ Break
✦ Discussion
✦ Activity
✦ Closing

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 Final Exam
✦ Take Home (20 points) - (Education)
✦ At the end of the last day of class, we’ll provide a prompt
for you to respond to, due by the start of the Final Exam
✦ Essay (40 points) - (History of Mathematics)
✦ Will provide prompt with several different important
contributions from the history of mathematics. Pick one
and describe how it impacted the course of mathematics
✦ Math (40 points) - (Historical Mathematics Problems)
✦ Will provide list of math problems (some bigger, some
smaller) based on work we’ve done in class. Will have
you pick some specific combination to answer.
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David Bernhard Joseph Louis
Hilbert Riemann Lagrange

Biographies
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Timeline
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http://www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/
Timelines/TimelineC.html

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Buffon Needle Activity

D
1/2 (sinθ)
θ

length of the needle = 1

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Graph of Possible Outcomes

1/2
1/2(sinθ)
D

0 θ π

D
1/2 (sinθ)
θ

length of the needle = 1

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 Calculating π
What is the area of the total possible ways we could drop
our toothpick? (N)
What is the area of the total possible ways we could drop
our toothpick with it crossing a line? (C)
What is C/N? What is N/C? What is 2N/C?

1/2
1/2(sinθ) N=1120
D C=737
2*(1120)/(737)=3.04
0 θ π
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 Buffon’s Needle Applet

✦ http://www.math.uah.edu/stat/applets/
BuffonNeedleExperiment.xhtml

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Women in Mathematics
Break - Back in 10 minutes
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Break - 10 min
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 Discussion of Reading
✦ How did calculus help solve some of Zeno’s
paradoxes?
✦ What is the sum S of S=1 - 1 + 1 - 1 + 1 - 1...
✦ What is Archimedes Method of Equilibrium/
Method of Exhaustion?
✦ How may these have contributed to the
creation and structure of calculus.
✦ What are some of the contributions that Newton
and Leibniz made to the creation of calculus?
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 Calculus Activity

✦ Split into 5 Groups

✦ Each group will be assigned one problem to
investigate
✦ Be prepared to present your problems to the
class

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 Homework
✦ Read Sketches...
✦ 21 - What’s in a Game (The Start of
Probability Theory) - p. 163-168
✦ 22 - Making Sense of Data (Statistics
Becomes a Science) - p. 169-174
✦ Respond to the Discussion Forum on ANGEL

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1. How did calculus help solve some of Zeno’s paradoxes?

a. Calculus proved Zeno wrong

2. What is the sum S of S=1 - 1 + 1 - 1 + 1 - 1...

a. S = (1-1) + (1-1) + (1-1) +…= 0

b. S = 1 – (1+1) – (1+1) -… = 1

c. S = -1 + (1-1) + (1-1)…= -1

d. So the solution = no sum. It is a divergent series

3. What is Archimedes Method of Equilibrium/Method of Exhaustion?

a. Method of Exhaustion: regular polygons inside of a shape inscribed

inside of a circle

b. Method of Equilibrium: like the playdough experiment – take a

certain amount of playdough with a certain thickness, find the area of
a circle, then transcribe the playdough into a square or other polygon
with an easy area formula and make it the same thickness

4. How may these have contributed to the creation and structure of calculus.

a. Working with infinity

b. Finding the area under curves

c. Limits

d. Breaking it up into parts/integration by parts

5. What are some of the contributions that Newton and Leibniz made to the
creation of calculus?

a. Newton: Laws of Motion

b. Newton: Principia, fluxions

c. Leibniz: Symbols for integration

d. Leibniz: Rules for integration and anti-derivatives