Poughkeepsie Chapter of the Association For Computing Machinery

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Topic

Why Mathematics Is Taught So Ineffectively

Speaker

Irvin M. Miller, Ph.D.

When

Monday,       7:30 PM

Where

Marist College, Hancock Center (Building 16 on map), Room 2020 (no, not Room 2023). We thank Marist College for hosting the chapter's meetings. Parking: 1) Lot north of Hancock Center. We are permitted to park there in spite of the signs. 2) Lot on south-east corner of Route 9 and Fulton Street. Take staircase at south-west corner of lot, and tunnel under Route 9.

More Information

This program is free and open to the public. Attendees should RSVP at Meetup.com.

All are welcome to join us beforehand for dinner at the Palace Diner at 6:00 PM.

For further information, go to Pok.ACM.org (QR code below):

QR code RSVP to ACM Poughkeepsie at   Meetup.com

About the Topic

In this presentation you will be shown how mathematics is taught misleadingly and incorrectly, and why students and you have difficulty understanding and using it. You will be shown by proofs why this is so and how to teach students to challenge what they are taught and to study and practice more effectively. We will show how mathematicians probably discovered new concepts. Early mathematicians abhorred negative numbers; imaginary numbers were misnamed. We will be starting with negative impact of teaching that zero is nothing and how negative numbers and fractions were defined and rules of operation developed. Through my own experiences I will described how I corrected my college professors and aced exams when the rest of the class failed. I will describe my experiences with teaching students. You will be encouraged to challenge what I am presenting and teaching me something I did not understand. You are encouraged to watch the PBS NOVA episode Zero to Infinity (requires PBS “Passport” subscription), or James Tanton's What is Multiplication. In this presentation, you will be shown the dozens of examples of mathematical nonsense that was presented in the PBS video.

About the Speaker

Irvin Miller has a Ph.D. in Physics and a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering. He was the leading expert in computer graphics at IBM. Dr. Miller is President and Director of The Math and Physics Exploration – one of two math museums in the United States. He currently teaches enriched mathematics to students in the Wappingers School District.

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