February 9, 2007
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Annals of Scholarship
The Romance
of Mathematics
On teachers of “core mathematics classes for non-majors, mathematics appreciation courses, and other lower level courses”:
“We are accustomed to being marginalized by society, our
political leaders, and even our college and university administrations
who often fail to see the scholarship involved in teaching. But how
dare the Notices ignore us?”– Complaint in the March 2007 Notices of the American Mathematical Society by “Julian F. Fleron, Ph.D., Professor of Mathematics, Westfield State College”
Let us examine Fleron’s alleged scholarship:
“Before each of my classes I put a quote on the board. The quote is
either related to the mathematics we are studying, related to
mathematics more generally, or related to learning and education.
Student response has been tremendous, and I have found it to be very
beneficial.” –Julian FleronFleron offers us, without specifying an exact source, the following quotation:
“Mighty is geometry; joined with art, resistless.
Euripides.“A search for the source leads us to a quotation from 1914, a time when teaching did sometimes involve scholarship:
“1568. Mighty are numbers, joined with art resistless. EURIPIDES. Hecuba, Line 884.”
– Memorabilia Mathematica, by Robert Edouard Moritz, The Macmillan Company, 1914
But even in 1914, the scholarship, if one can call it
that, was misleading. The 1914 quotation (which at least refers
accurately to numbers, not geometry) is blatantly taken out of
context to imply a connection with the mathematical art of number
theory (as practiced by, say, G. H. Hardy) that is certainly not found
in Euripides. The details:HECUBA Sheltered beneath these tents is a host of Trojan women.
AGAMEMNON Dost mean the captives, the booty of the Hellenes?
HECUBA With their help will I punish my murderous foe.
AGAMEMNON How are women to master men?
HECUBA Numbers are a fearful thing, and joined to craft a desperate
foe.AGAMEMNON True; still I have a mean opinion of the female race.
This dialogue may have some relevance to today’s rumored
selection at Harvard of a woman (Drew Gilpin Faust as Hecuba) to
replace a man (Larry Summers as Agamemnon) in the president’s office.
The dialogue’s only relevance to mathematics is in its reference to the
perennial conflict between the sexes. Perhaps
that conflict will serve to illustrate the title given by the Notices to Fleron’s complaint: “Teaching the Romance of Mathematics.”
