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- Newsgroups: sci.math
- Path: sparky!uunet!think.com!spool.mu.edu!umn.edu!news.orst.edu!scotts
- From: scotts@math.orst.edu (Scott Settlemier)
- Subject: The Glass Plate Game
- Message-ID: <Bw38pw.95K@news.orst.edu>
- Sender: usenet@news.orst.edu
- Nntp-Posting-Host: moondance.math.orst.edu
- Organization: Oregon State University Math Department
- Date: Wed, 14 Oct 1992 01:41:51 GMT
- Lines: 67
-
- I've a friend, Dunbar, here in Corvallis who has created a game in the spirit
- of the Glass Bead Game as described in Hermann Hesse's novel by the same name.
- He's asked me to prepare a math deck for the game so I'm asking all of you for
- help. The game's primary feature is sets of cards (decks) representing ideas
- in the deck's field; one side of the card briefly describes the idea and the
- other side features some visual mnemonic for the idea. Play in the game
- consists mostly of building up interrelations amongst the ideas. What you
- could do to really help me is give me more or better ideas for cards than I've
- got right now. Below are some examples of cards and a first attempt at some
- sort of grouping for them:
-
- Theorems:
- Goedel's theorem, Weierstrass approximation theorem, fundamental
- theorem of calculus, theorema egregrium, Heine-Borel theorem, inverse
- function theorem, Kronecker's extension theorem, etc.
-
- Proofs:
- epsilon/3 proof, proof of the Weierstrass approx. theorem, etc.
- (it's hard for me to think of proofs that you could relate to other
- things.)
-
- Axioms:
- Axiom of choice, Euclid's fifth axiom, principle of the excluded
- contradiction, Peano's axioms, completeness axiom, principle of
- induction (just what is this? I believe it on intuition. is it an
- axiom?), etc.
-
- Problems:
- Halting problem, Brachystochrone problem, Zeno's paradox (I've heard
- there're others.), etc.
-
- Fields of study:
- Set theory, predicate calculus, propositional calculus, algebra,
- calculus, Galois theory, ergodic theory (Can anyone give me an
- inspired definition for this one?), topology, geometry, etc.
-
- Definite objects:
- Unit circle, Fibonacci numbers, Koch snowflake, Mandelbrot set,
- Cantor set, Platonic solids, etc.
-
- Object classes:
- Galois group, Hilbert space, Metric space, Markov process, Borel
- field, Geodesic, function, set, theorem, point, locus, kernal, image,
- algorithm, sequence, neighborhood, derivative, etc.
-
- Operations:
- Closure, differentiation, addition, counting, projection, recursion,
- induction, permutation, rotation, composition, etc.
-
- Measures:
- cardinality, dimension, magnitude, multiplicity, curl, torsion, etc.
-
- Properties:
- continuous, transcendental, algebraic, real, Cauchy, open, connected,
- convergent, periodic, congruent, reflexive, commutative, bijective,
- tangent, dense, etc.
-
- If you have any ideas for cards please send it to me at scotts@math.orst.edu
- and include the idea for the card, which category to place it under, a
- description of the idea and perhaps what would make a good visual mnemonic.
- If you have any good ideas about how to categorize the cards other than how
- I've done it above, please also tell me about it. And if you are interested in
- the final deck, please wait a couple of weeks before writing. If however you
- wish to talk to Dunbar, you can write him about the game at
- caploc@jacobs.cs.orst.edu. Thanks a lot folks.
-
-
-