Dreams of Calculus: Perspectives on Mathematics Education

Johan Hoffman · Claes Johnson · Anders Logg

Jun 2011 · Springer Science & Business Media

About this ebook

The purpose of this book is to stimulate a much needed debate on ma- ematics education reform. We do not claim that we present anything near the whole truth, and that there are not many other points of view. We thus invite to debate and urge other people to express their views. As scientists we believe that it is our duty to present our own standpoints and conc- sions as clearly as possible, to open for scrutiny and discussion, rather than ambiguous politically correct views, which are di?cult to question. This book may be viewed as an introduction to our mathematics e- cation reform project Body&Soul based on a synthesis of Body (com- tational mathematics) and Soul (analytical mathematics). We do make a case for computational mathematics, which is the new world of mathem- ics opened by the computer, now waiting to enter mathematics education. But we do also propose a synthesis of this new world, with the kernel being computational algorithms, and the traditional world of analytical ma- ematics, with analytical formulas as the kernel. In fact, algorithms are expressed using analytical formulas before being translated into computer code, and good analytical formulas are necessary for understanding and insight.