Who is Your Favorite
Mathematician?
A Web-based project for AP Calculus AB
Designed by
Mrs. Kamkutis
Solon High School
Math History Project
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Schedule
Task
Good Questions to Ask/Answer
List of Mathematicians
Examples for Works Cited List
Conclusion
Schedule
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April 21st– Introduce Project and Begin Research
April 30– Deadline for choosing mathematician
May 3-5 – Research/preparation in Library or on Computer
April 6 – Presentations
May 7 – Presentations
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Task
• Choose a Mathematician who has had an historical impact (from the list
provided or an approved alternate).
• Prepare a 10-15 minute presentation that includes the following:
– A biography of the mathematicians life (5 points)
– A synopsis of the mathematician’s contribution to the field of mathematics
(5points)
– A mathematical presentation (which may be a computation, diagram, proof,
etc.) which illustrates one of the mathematician’s efforts. (5points)
– I WILL TAKE OFF IF YOU GO OVER YOUR TIME LIMIT!
• Turn in a typewritten outline of your presentation (on the day you give
it), including:
– Title of presentation and your name (2 points)
– The three presentation topics above with details (8 points)
– Bibliographic references, including publications and websites (5 points). You
must have at least 4 sources of which at least one is not web-based.
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Good Questions to Ask/Answer
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What factors motivated your mathematician?
How did your mathematician’s life experience, beliefs
and interests influence his/her work?
How do the mathematical advances of your
mathematician’s day differ from today’s mathematical
research? (What was it like to be a mathematician then
as compared to now?)
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List of Mathematicians
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The Greek Period
o Pythagoras of Samos
o Archimedes of
Syracuse
o Euclid of Alexandria
o Aristotle
o Plato
o Eratosthenes of Cyrene
o Thales of Miletus
o Hippocrates of Chios
o Zeno of Elea
Dark ages to Renaissance
o Fibonacci, Leonardo
o Bhaskara
o Copernicus, Nicolaus
o Al-Khwarizmi
16th and 17th Centuries
o Kepler, Johannes
o Pascal, Blaise
o Fermat, Pierre de
o Napier, John
o Descartes, Rene
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18th Century
o Newton, Isaac
o Leibniz, Gottfried
Wilhelm von
o Chatalet, Gabrielle
o Euler, Leonard
o Bernoulli (Jacob or
Johann or both)
Early
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19th
Century
Agnesi, Maria
Gauss, Johann
Galois, Evariste
Fourier, Jean Baptiste
Herschel, Caroline
Lagrange, Joseph-Louis
Laplace, Pierre-Simon
Cauchy, Augustin
Poisson, Simeon
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Early 19th Century
o Boole, George
o Riemann, Georg
o Kovalevskaya, Sofia
o Lovelace, Augusta
o Cantor, Georg
o Somerville, Mary
20th Century
o Hilbert, David
o Mandelbrot, Benoit
o Uhlenbeck, Karen
o Heinrich, Bruce
o Cartwright, Mary
o Noether, Emmy
o Nash, John Forbes
o Shannon, Claude
o Turing, Alan
o Von Neumann, John
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Back to Task page
Examples for Works Cited List
Basic Format for Online Source:
Author, “Title” (Last Revision Date); n. pag. Online: Internet. Today’s Date as DD Month YYYY (web
address)
Brown, Kevin. "Constructing the Heptadecagon" (January 12, 1999); 8 pars. Online: Internet. 15 February
1999 (http://www.seanet.com/~ksbrown/kmath487.htm)
Gonzalez, Humberto M. Humberto's Home Page. (1996); n. pag. Online: Internet. 23 November 1998
(http://www.geocities.com/WallStreet/1642/)
Weisstein, Eric W. "Euclid's Fifth Postulate." (9 August 1998); 5 pars. Online: Internet. 11 August 1998
(http://www.astro.virginia.edu/~eww6n/math/ParallelPostulate.html)
Other Types of Sources:
Clapham, Christopher. The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Mathematics. New York: Oxford University Press,
1990.
Dunnington, G. Waldo, Ph.D. Carl Friedrich Gauss: Titan of Science. New York: Hafner Publishing Co.,
1955.
Moritz, Robert Edouard, Ph. D., Ph. N. D. Memorabilia Mathematica or The Philomath's Quotation-book.
New York: The MacMillan Company, 1914.
Borrowed from: Cung, Nelly. "Carl Friedrich Gauss." (3 October 2001); n. pag. Online: Internet. 21 May 2003
(http://www.geocities.com/RainForest/Vines/2977/gauss/gauss.html)
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Conclusion
Through this project, you will gain a
better appreciation for the
mathematicians of the past and the
mathematics that they have developed
for your use. You will gain insight into
what it means to be a mathematician by
attempting to understand work that has
already been done. (Imagine how
difficult it would be to come up with
these concepts as original work!)
Through your presentation of a
mathematical concept to the class, you
will strengthen your understanding of
that concept.
Adapted from:What is Your Favorite Proof of the
Pythagorean Theorem? By Crystal L. Furman
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