Project/Paper 2  Particulars

The second  project/paper  will deal with one of the 13 mathematicians I wrote on the board today (3/4/99).  Read over chapters 12 through 18, and find two of these people that your group can agree on to study.  Email your choices to me.  After you have been assigned one of the choices,  reread very carefully (don't forget:  I pay $5 for a significant error in the text on your topic) the articles in the text dealing  with your mathematician (look in the index for multiple locations in the text.)  Also, look up a reference (either from the references given in your text and/or off the internet.)  Settle on what mathematics you want to present.    It may include  some interesting algorithms,   diagrams,   theorems,  proofs,  or   problems.   You should try to think of some natural original questions of your own about your topic to include in your paper.  You don't have to solve these, but you could investigate them.

As before, the project/paper is to be prepared in a Maple worksheet.     It  should include text, Maple calculations, and Maple graphics.  It must be at least 2*n pages (check with print preview) with the font set at 12 point Times New Roman and the output removed, where  n < 4 is the number of people on the team submitting the project/paper.
I did not enforce this rule last time, but I will this time.    Include references you used in your project.  Your bibliography must have at least two references (your text and one other source).

As I mentioned in class,  I encourage you include an animation of some sort in your worksheet.   Animations are useful to model things to improve or test ones understanding of those things.    I have not seen a topic yet which cannot be investigated using animations (sometimes it is a stretch tho).

When your project is done, email it to me as an attachment. I will be glad to make mathematical or Maple suggestions, if you will send me a preliminary version.   You should complete the second project by April 1 at the latest, but the earlier the better.  I will ask at least 5 teams to present their projects.

4/6 project 2 assignments

Overby, Conger, Schoer    ----    al-Kwarizmi  and the development of algebra
Weddle,  Scott, Keith       ----    Cardan and the solution to the cubic
Reed, Ard,  Attig             ----    Oresme,   a forerunner of Newton
Mattingly, Kiernan, Igyarto ---- Napier's logs
Renea, Damron ---- Cavalieri and his principle
Oberg, Bailey   ----  Fermat's method of descent:  some examples
Rakes, Zerheusen, Meece ----- Desargues' projective geometry and classification of conics
Clark, Whitt  ---- Pascal's cycloid contest and hexagon theorem
Williamson  --- Descarte's family of folium curves.
Brown -- Copernicus' heliocentric theory.