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Myth emati CS. Christos H. Papadimitriou UC Berkeley : christos. mythematics noun, plural but plural&singular in use, nlgsm/slpn
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Myth ematiCS Christos H. Papadimitriou UC Berkeley : christos
mythematics noun, plural but plural&singular in use, nlgsm/slpn from Gr myth (= story that serves to unfold a world view or explain a practice, belief, or natural phenomenon) more correct form: mytheumatics 1 a : the use of story-telling in the teaching of computer science and mathematics ITICSE, July 2,2003
plan “there is no idea worth explaining that cannot be explained by a good story” Anonymous • narrative as epistemic modality • why MythematiCS? • three modes (historical/biographical context, illustration, embedding) • programming vs. story-telling • a story ITICSE, July 2,2003
narrative knowledge • Narrative Psychology (J. S. Bruner, introductory book by M. L. Crossley) “a viewpoint within Psychology interested in how humans understand their world and their experience by constructing stories and assimilating stories by others” • Bruner: Two modes of thinking: Paradigmatic (logico-deductive, classificatory) vs.Narrative (storied) ITICSE, July 2,2003
narrative knowledge (cont.) • Narrative richness considered a precondition for the self (and vice-versa) • Stories are interesting • For 99% of the course of humanity stories appear to have been the principal mode of social knowledge and education • The neurology of narrative: episodic memory and the hippocampus ITICSE, July 2,2003
why MythematiCS? • Incredibly, many people do not find CS interesting. • Math: much-much more so ( Doxiadis embedding) • Even if we thought that there are enough people who find CS fascinating, it is important to expand/diversify our span. ITICSE, July 2,2003
why MythematiCS? (cont.) • Story-telling is alive and well precisely in places and cultures that are in dire need of CS and math education • Multimodality and variety is desirable in education ITICSE, July 2,2003
the three modes • Historical/biographical context is probably already used in math and CS education (e.g., Archimedes, Galois, Ada, Turing) • Artefact stories, too: Eniac, OS360, programming languages, crypto, grep, internet,open source ( steve weber source) • Stories of authorship, rivalry and scooping ITICSE, July 2,2003
narrative illustration • E.g., exponential growth, depth-first search • Incompleteness: A play and a theorem (later) • Natural (hi)story: Dijkstra’s algorithm as wave propagation in a wire model • Low-intensity narrative illustration: word problems, evocative terminology (e.g., traveling salesman problem, taxicab rip-off problem, two-phase locking) ITICSE, July 2,2003
extreme narrative mode: embedding in a story ITICSE, July 2,2003
math is inevitable, hard, fun, and sexy ITICSE, July 2,2003
how to prove it? and whodunnit? only the parrot knows… ITICSE, July 2,2003
beautiful loser mathematician ITICSE, July 2,2003
Turing’s Net ghost teaches CS to star-crossed lovers ITICSE, July 2,2003
Εκδόσεις Λιβάνη Ιούλιος 2003 ITICSE, July 2,2003
Salgarism Embedding story writing is a constant struggle with it… ITICSE, July 2,2003
story-telling and programming:a comparison • Stories too must compile and run (“work”, get published, be read) • Stories can have bugs • And the construction problems they present are maddeningly combinatorial ITICSE, July 2,2003
“I’m gonna tell you a story”( LOGICOMIX ) B. Russell D. Hilbert L. Wittgenstein G. Cantor G. Frege eniac K. Gödel & friend A. M. Turing E. Post J. Von Neumann ITICSE, July 2,2003
Madness in their method?(a re-telling) B. Russell D. Hilbert L. Wittgenstein G. Cantor G. Frege K. Gödel & friend A. M. Turing E. Post ITICSE, July 2,2003
play by Doxiadis illustrates Gödel’s theorem ITICSE, July 2,2003
thank you! ITICSE, July 2,2003