Mathematics in our World (GE4 Mathematics in the Modern World)

Have you ever wondered how well jeepney drivers give you your change when you hand your fare?
How about when you buy street food? Most food vendors do not make mistakes in giving you your change
after buying a grilled hotdog on a stick for example, without even using calculators. Routine transaction like
these, knowingly or unknowingly, are mathematics at work because they involve computing numbers most of
the time. How much time do you allot for travelling to avoid getting late for class? Before that, do you track
every second you spend taking the shower, eating breakfast, changing into school clothes, or preparing your
things for school? Most importantly, do you check if you have enough for fare, food and other expenses for
school? Just like budgeting allowance, time is also mathematics at work. Are you watching your weight and
your food caloric intake? Do you read the nutrition information from the packages of chocolates, cookies,
candies and drinks you buy? Consciously or unconsciously, all of these activities engage some form of
mathematics.
The heart of mathematics is more than just numbers, numbers which many supposed to be
meaningless and uninteresting. Have you gone for beach trips or did mountain climbing perhaps and noticed in
awe the beautiful world around you? The different shapes you see around you, the changing hues of the sky
from sunrise to sunset, the clouds transforming from stratus to cumulus, the contour of the rainbow in the
horizon are all beautiful because of harmony. The degree of changing hues of color has to be exact
measurement to appear pleasing and harmonious to the human eye. “ And it is mathematics that reveals the
simplicities of nature, and permits us to generalize from simple examples to the complexities of the real world.
It took many people from many different areas of human activity to turn a mathematical insight into a useful
product” (Stewart,19995, pp.71 – 72 ).
If you cannot count the number of petals of most flowers, notice that they are either of one fetal, two
petals, three petals, five or eight. This sequence of numbers form the set { 1, 1, 3, 5, 8, 13, . . .} whose pattern
was discovered by Fibonacci, a great European mathematician of the Middle Ages. His full name in Italian is
Leonardo Pisano, which means Leonardo of Pisa, because he was born in Pisa, Italy around 1175. Fibonacci
is the shorten word for the Latin term “Fillius Bonacci’, which stands for “son of Bonaccio”. His father name was
Guglielmo Bonaccio.
The German mathematician and astronomer Johannes Kepler (known for his laws of planetary motion)
observed that dividing a Fibonacci number by the number immediately before it in the ordered sequence yields
a quotient approximately equal to 1.168. This amazing ratio is denoted by the symbol φ called the Golden ratio.
Kepler once claimed that “ geometry has two great treasures; one is the Theorem of Pythagoras; the other,
the division of line into extreme and mean ratio. The first we may compare to a measure of gold, the second
we may name a precious jewel” ( Stakhov and Olsen,2009).
The golden ratio is so fascinating that proportions of the human body such as the face follows the so
called Divine proportion. The closer the proportion of the body parts to the golden ratio, the more aesthetically
pleasing and beautiful the body is. Many painters, including the famous Leonardo da Vinci were so fascinated
with the Golden ratio that they used it in their works of art.
The world and the whole universe in imbued with mathematics. “The Pythagoreans believed that the
number of the universe was directly related to Mathematics and that the whole numbers and the ratios formed
by whole numbers could be used to describe and represent all natural events”(Aufmann, 2014). Can the
course of natural event such as winning in a contest or in a game of chance be actually explained? What is
your chance of winning the lottery?
Have you ever heard probabilities? Johann Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777 – 1855) was remarkable
mathematicians who made many contributions to the mathematics of probabilities. An important aspect of
studying probabilities is the so called combinatorics, a mathematical field pioneer by Blaise Pascal, the
mathematician whose famous Pascal’s triangle finds useful applications in algebra and statistics.
Nature has its laws. These laws, such as the law of freely falling bodies, were laid down by Isaac
Newton, Newton and Gottfried Leibniz developed modern calculus in the 17 th century. This development would
not have been possible without the Cartesian coordinate system- the fusion of geometry and algebra by Rene
Decartes (1596 – 1650). Albert Einstein (1879 – 1955), who made a name for his mass and energy equation,
E=mc 2 would not have gone farther in his theory of relativity without mathematics. Marie Sklodowska Curie
(1867 – 1934) a Polish chemist and mathematician received the 1911 Nobel Prize in chemistry for developing
techniques of isolating radioactive isotopes and discovering two radioactive elements. Biological scientist have
also recently used mathematics extensively to theoretically investigate treatment procedures by modeling and
simulating biological processes. Without mathematics, all these inventions and discoveries are not possible.
The 20th century saw many breakthroughs in the fields of sciences and engineering which creatively
and critically employed mathematics. From the first personal computer named Programma 101 that was
released in 1965, to the first Global Positioning System (GPS) satellite launched in 1989 for military use, all of
these show that Mathematics plays the vital role in the affairs of humanity. Today, there are 24 GPS satellites
in orbit helping people locate their travel destinations via applications such as Google Maps or Waze on
personal computers, tablets or cell phones.
Despite all these scientific achievements, many “millennial” are hesitant in taking science courses partly
because they feel anxious of everything intimately connected with mathematics. The interests of millennial in
gadgets, games and technologies that appeal to their senses have also interfered with the study of
mathematics and the sciences. Unknowingly however, these technologies employ mathematics: from
transactions of purchasing new gadgets, to the instructions one places on the newly bought device which
operate based on mathematical logic.
Finally, Ian Stewart (1995) explains in his book Nature’s Numbers that mathematics is a systematic way
of digging out the rules and structures that lie behind some observed pattern or regularity, and using these
rules and structures to explain what is going on. Now, think of one of the most loved animation characters Dora
the Explorer. When Dora gets lost in the jungle, what does she need? A map. Thanks to Rene Decrates, who
made the Cartesian map for without it, Dora will never find her way.
Mathematics is everywhere because it finds many practical applications in daily life. God, the
mathematician, Architect, designs everything in this universe to follow rules or formulas. Whether following
regular or irregular patterns. His creation benefits human kind, His greatest masterpiece. As Johannes Kepler
wrote “ Those laws of nature are within the grasp of the human mind; God wanted us to recognize them by
creating us after his own image so that we could share in his thoughts” (Stewart,2010).

Answer the following questions comprehensively.

1. What is mathematics for you?

2. Where do you apply the principles of mathematics?
3. Do you need mathematics every day? Why?
4. What have you learned from school on mathematics so far?
5. Do you appreciate mathematics? Why or why not?
6. Did you ever perform well in mathematics? Why or why not?

Write your answer on short bond paper, hand written or type written (font 12 Times new Roman or Arial) single
space. Margins for all sides 1 inch.
At least 3 bond papers.

Rubrics for the papers

Clarity of the discussion 50%
Content 40%
Presentation 10%

Mr. Romel M. Carandang

Instructor