December 01, 2016 Thursday
Bedtime Story
Euclidean Space
With Cartesian coordinates, came the notion of designating points
on a 2-dimensional surface and using equations and inequalities to define
geometrical shapes.
Algebra and calculus allowed dealing with Euclidian space of n
dimensions denoted by Rn.
A 3-dimensional space would be denoted by R3.
For non-mathematicians this can be very confusing as the brains of
human apes have evolved for survival and propagation of themselves in a
3-dimensional world.
For an ape that stood up and lost a few hairs, all that mattered
was to locate his meal and mate who could either be in front, or behind, or to
the right or left of him.
And perhaps over and below him.
They could not be anywhere else even over a span of 4 billion
years of evolution.
To be honest, Euclidean space is more of an abstract mathematical
concept not related to the physical space that we happen to exist in.
(If it does relate, then it is purely coincidental.)
Eugene Wigner in his article:
“The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural
Sciences” published in 1960 concluded thus:
“The miracle of the appropriateness of the language of mathematics
for the formulation of the laws of physics is a wonderful gift which we neither
understand nor deserve…”
Mathematicians see this space or for that matter a 2-dimenional plane
as a set of points that satisfies certain relationships.
Three of them are translation, rotation and reflection.
We shall discuss these 3 mathematical notations in the nights to
come.
Stay tuned to the voice of an average story storytelling chimpanzee
or login at http://panarrans.blogspot.in/
Good night and my fellow cousin ape.
Another great educator and a teacher that I am aware of is
Professor Subhashish Chattopadhyay in Bangalore, India.
While I narrate stories, Professor Subhashish an electronic
engineer and a former professor at BARC, does and teaches real mathematics and
physics.
He started the participation of Indian students at the
International Physics Olympiad.
Do visit him here:
All his books can be downloaded for free through this link:
For edutainment and English education of your children, may I
suggest this large collection of Kids Songs:
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