SECRETS OF ANCIENT MATHEMATICS
If you hate math and think you're 'bad at math', or if you love it and even 'good at it' but never actually learned about its history, then either way this course is right for you. We explore questions such as who was Pythagoras and why do we learn his 'theorem' in school? Why was the first 'textbook' by Euclid a geometry textbook? What were the philosophical, historical and cultural environments in which mathematics developed and why? Are our modern and contemporary relationship to mathematics different from that of the ancients? What changed? What were the basic questions that led to the development of mathematical ideas? Is reality itself mathematical, or is it just our best way of 'describing' nature? No matter what your relationship to math might be, this course will change and educate your perspective - you'll never see mathematics the same way again!
(A 'Personalized ESL' component may be added as well.)