Comments on: Episode 402 - “Hollywood Homicide” airdate: 10/05/07 http://blog.weallusematheveryday.com/2007/10/10/episode-402-%e2%80%9chollywood-homicide%e2%80%9d-airdate-100507/ The weekly blog of the "We All Use Math Every Day" program - a partnership between Texas Instruments and CBS, in association with the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM). Fri, 21 Nov 2008 04:04:05 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.2.2 By: amathurin http://blog.weallusematheveryday.com/2007/10/10/episode-402-%e2%80%9chollywood-homicide%e2%80%9d-airdate-100507/#comment-27 amathurin Fri, 12 Oct 2007 14:19:02 +0000 http://blog.weallusematheveryday.com/2007/10/10/episode-402-%e2%80%9chollywood-homicide%e2%80%9d-airdate-100507/#comment-27 For the last few years I have used the movie Pi at the end of semester in my Discrete Math class as a vehicle for discussing the question "What is Mathematics?" and "Why do we study Mathematics?" While the movie itself is a bit unusual, it provides some great springboards for class discussion. For the last few years I have used the movie Pi at the end of semester in my Discrete Math class as a vehicle for discussing the question “What is Mathematics?” and “Why do we study Mathematics?”

While the movie itself is a bit unusual, it provides some great springboards for class discussion.

]]> By: pvennebush http://blog.weallusematheveryday.com/2007/10/10/episode-402-%e2%80%9chollywood-homicide%e2%80%9d-airdate-100507/#comment-25 pvennebush Thu, 11 Oct 2007 18:11:55 +0000 http://blog.weallusematheveryday.com/2007/10/10/episode-402-%e2%80%9chollywood-homicide%e2%80%9d-airdate-100507/#comment-25 I like your "Beauty in Mathematics" section, Kathy. I can think of a lot of examples where the math came first, and then unforeseen applications were found later. Buckyballs come to mind as a classic example. It wasn't until many years after Buckminster Fuller created teh geodesic dome that chemists realized that the C60 molecule was a buckyball. There have also been some recent stories about how some math theory attributed to Augustin Cauchy about matrices, previously believed to have no applicability to the real world, was found to describe some natural resource issues. http://www.innovations-report.com/html/reports/interdisciplinary_research/report-18338.html Similarly, G. H. Hardy wanted his work to be thought of as "pure" mathematics only, supposedly because he didn't like how a lot of mathematical theory had been applied to wars. But the Hardy-Ramanujan asymptotic formula (dealing with integer partitions) has been applied to quantum physics, and other pieces of his work have been applied to other sciences. I like your “Beauty in Mathematics” section, Kathy. I can think of a lot of examples where the math came first, and then unforeseen applications were found later.

Buckyballs come to mind as a classic example. It wasn’t until many years after Buckminster Fuller created teh geodesic dome that chemists realized that the C60 molecule was a buckyball.

There have also been some recent stories about how some math theory attributed to Augustin Cauchy about matrices, previously believed to have no applicability to the real world, was found to describe some natural resource issues.
http://www.innovations-report.com/html/reports/interdisciplinary_research/report-18338.html

Similarly, G. H. Hardy wanted his work to be thought of as “pure” mathematics only, supposedly because he didn’t like how a lot of mathematical theory had been applied to wars. But the Hardy-Ramanujan asymptotic formula (dealing with integer partitions) has been applied to quantum physics, and other pieces of his work have been applied to other sciences.

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