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Are words sometimes better than formulae?

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journal contribution
posted on 2022-11-01, 12:26 authored by Colin FosterColin Foster

If, 50 years ago, you had asked a pupil in the UK what Pythagoras’ Theorem was, they might have answered: “The square on the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the squares on the other two sides”. Today, if you asked a pupil that same question, I think they would almost certainly say, “a squared plus b squared equals c squared”. It’s interesting to consider the advantages and disadvantages of each of these responses. The first response is verbal; the second is symbolic. And, in the history of mathematics, people wrote formulae in words for a long time. Have we lost something by having pupils become ‘too symbolic, too soon’?

History

School

  • Science

Department

  • Mathematics Education Centre

Published in

Mathematics in School

Volume

51

Issue

5

Pages

12 - 14

Publisher

The Mathematical Association

Version

  • VoR (Version of Record)

Rights holder

© The Mathematical Association

Publisher statement

Reproduced with the permission of the publisher.

Publication date

2022-11-01

Copyright date

2022

ISSN

0305-7259

Language

  • en

Depositor

Dr Colin Foster. Deposit date: 31 October 2022

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