nuary 11, 2018 with Dr. Timothy Melvin Infinity, a topic not many would want to talk about since, well, it could go on forever. In this café we were introduced to and were able to explore the many things infinity is related to. We were lucky to have Dr. Timothy Melvin, a professor from SRJC as our guide for going beyond... We started with a brief history of the concept of infinity begin recognized first by Zeno of Elea ,Greek philosopher of South Italy, who was born in 490 BC. He designated this small character, “ℵ” which is a Hebrew letter pronounced alef to represent the concept of something being infinite- as in having no end. John Wallis, an English mathematician in 1657,crafted the current symbol - something similar to a sideways figure * that again has no end to it. Now on to the concept of infinity- an easy example is to think of counting numbers - it starts at one and keeps on going and going. Dr. Melvin demonstrated this idea by discussing the continuum, a hypothesis originally suggested by Georg Cantor. He was born in March 3, 1845 in St. Petersburg, Russia and died January 6, 1918. He went to Humboldt University of Berlin and wrote 5 books in his lifetime that relate to math and science. Infinity, a topic not many would want to talk about since, well, it could go on forever. In this café we were introduced to and were able to explore the many things infinity is related to. We were lucky to have Dr. Timothy Melvin, a professor from SRJC as our guide for going beyond... We started with a brief history of the concept of infinity begin recognized first by Zeno of Elea ,Greek philosopher of South Italy, who was born in 490 BC. He designated this small character, “ℵ” which is a Hebrew letter pronounced alef to represent the concept of something being infinite- as in having no end. John Wallis, an English mathematician in 1657,crafted the current symbol - something similar to a sideways figure * that again has no end to it. Now on to the concept of infinity- an easy example is to think of counting numbers - it starts at one and keeps on going and going. Dr. Melvin demonstrated this idea by discussing the continuum, a hypothesis originally suggested by Georg Cantor. He was born in March 3, 1845 in St. Petersburg, Russia and died January 6, 1918. He went to Humboldt University of Berlin and wrote 5 books in his lifetime that relate to math and science. His proposal stated that there will not be an infinite set with a cardinal number, between the small set of infinite integers ℵ0 and the large set of infinite real numbers “c” (the continuum). ℵ1=c During the café we followed along as Dr. Melvin explained the classic diagonal math grid that has now become Canto’ theorem- The set of counting numbers is less than the size of the real numbers. After having a snack of delicious Infinity looped pretzels, the after cafe began with a series of problems to solve to help our minds think in a more infinite way. A good place to start was with definitions and notations of set theory ( for those of us with distance-diagonal or not- from mathematics class). Then we worked some set problems-( put link to assignment here) where we worked on the cardinality of set and compared that to power set to see what similarities we might find. More fun was in store for the second set of problems where we explored infinite sets to see if we might find a paradox or two. There were some students and adults that embraced this moment to explore ideas and have mathematical conversations with someone that could help make sense of it-and a few that got a bit lost - but we all were challenged to think and explore in new ways. The crowd was small but enthusiastic with about 35 attendees, but as Judy Barcelon, STEM Coordinator commented-” we saw new faces tonight - they asked good questions about black holes and transcendental numbers and almost everyone stayed for the after cafe !” Dr Melvin has been teaching in the Mathematics department at SRJC for the past 5 years and before that in Washington and Montana. His list of scheduled classes ranges from Elementary Statistics to the Nature of Mathematics with a true passion for linear and abstract algebra. He welcomes the chance to discuss the philosophy and foundation of mathematics and can be reached at [email protected] Submitted by Melissa V and edited by Judy B- Piner High STEAM club. After Café attendees--working hard and chomping on pretzels ! |
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Judy BarcelonPiner High STEM Coordinator....and for the moment...Cafe moderator ! Archives
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