Category Archives: 2.2 Education Systems & Prof. Responsibilities

I Need Some Space…

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It hurts quite a bit when you stub your toe. Try being hit by a whole galaxy! Because that’s exactly what’s going to happen. The galaxy Andromeda (our closest spiral galaxy) is speeding towards us a massive 260,000 miles an hour…

Before you start planning for doomsday you might want to consider galactic distances. It is absolutely true that Andromeda is speeding towards us at an incredibly high speed, however, due to the gargantuan distance between us it will be more than 4 billion years before it gets anywhere near us. So you can stop breathing into a paper bag now.

This beautifully demonstrates the vastness of the universe in which we live. Something which we consider massive (take the earth for instance of which the diameter is 1.2756 × 10^7 or 12756000 meters in diameter) is tiny compared to the size of the universe (9.2 × 10^26 meters or 10 billion kilometres in diameter). This also illustrates the importance of fundamental areas of mathematics such as base systems. For example when using very large or very small numbers we use standard notation (used above) instead of attaching many zeros to a number to demonstrate its size. An example that shows why we switch when using extreme numbers is; imagine trying to give directions to Edinburgh using only millimetres. This would be very confusing, so instead we switch to using kilometres.

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Pictured: Ngc 2207, Spiral Galaxy

However telling you that the universe is 10 billion kilometres wide does nothing really to explain just how massive it is. An area which I find fascinating is light years. This is the distance which light will have travelled within a year. As I am sure you are away, light travels unbelievably quickly (just think about how fast a room changes from light to dark when you switch a light on, it is near instantaneous). The actual distance light can travel in a year is 9.46 × 10^15 meters or 9.5 trillion miles. Now, the nearest star to our sun is Proxima Centauri, and I stress that this is the nearest to us. For light (the fastest moving thing we know of) to travel from Proxima Centauri to us would take 4 years (Yes, that does mean we see 4 years into the past when looking at Proxima Centauri). Now imagine how long it would take for light to travel across the universe! Or how long it would take for a human spacecraft to travel that far!

Before we were given an input on astronomy earlier this week, I knew very little of the content explored within this blog. This is something I think is a shame, as I’m sure this is an area I would have found hugely interesting as a child in primary, much more so than simply learning the names of the planets in our solar system and that they all go round the sun (though of course I concede this is vital knowledge to have).

As a future practitioner this is an area I would very much like to explore with my class. To learn about the solar system which we live in, but to also introduce the notion of fundamental mathematics within this subject area to further explore the world of astronomy and mathematics in an exciting and engaging way.

Base Jumping

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Imagine we had been born with 12 fingers. An odd thought I admit but allow me to explain. We work in a base 10 number system in mathematics which uses ten digits (0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9), but it wasn’t always this way and nor is it this way everywhere in the world. Binary, for example, is a base 2 number system and in the north of England a system known as ‘Yan tan’ exists for counting sheep which contains 20 individual digits and hence is a base 20 number system. We even switch to a different base when telling the time! (Base 60, 24, or 12).

So the question I am really asking is ‘Why base 10?’ Certainly it has been suggested that by switching to a base 12 number system containing 12 digits (0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,Χ,ε) we could simplify the learning and teaching of maths in many areas such as fractions. For instance the fraction 1/3 in our current system is written 0.333333….(a recurring number). 1/3 written in base 12 would be written 0.4 and besides being far more aesthetically pleasing this decimal is much easier to use in calculations. It is because of this easier division of fractions we work in dozens when buying and selling food. The implications of this are that the conversion of fractions to decimal, a subject once feared by teacher and student alike, becomes not only easier to teach but easier to learn. The full extent of the advantages of a base 12 number system can be found here.

So if simpler number systems exist, again I ask ‘Why base 10?’ It comes down to 10 simple things. Our fingers. We have 10 of them. Our love of counting on our fingers has dictated the use of a second rate number system. I do concede that during the initial learning of mathematics being able to count on our hands is incredibly helpful. However in retaliation to this children could just as easily be taught to count on the joints of their fingers on each hand, which, luckily enough, there happen to be 12 of…

Finger_counting_Russia_12

So, it would seem that a shift in our number system is in order. But is it really that much better? I have already, paraphrasing the Dozenal Society PDF (linked earlier in this post), stated that fractions would become easier to convert to decimal values however this is not entirely true. 1/5 in our current number system coverts to 0.2. 1/5 in the dozenal system becomes 0.41666667. Not exactly easy to work with.

In conclusion, is the slightly easier fractional system (and only in some cases) really worth completly upending our entire concept of number for? …Well, in my opinion, no. The transition for children already versed in our current system would be confusing and messy and I suspect we won’t be switching any time soon.