The History of Babylonian Word Problems

 Personally, I interpret practicality as the ability to put an idea into concise language which can be agreed and practiced by everyone into real-life situation. In contrast, my interpretation of abstraction is some ideas or concept that brings up inquiry, discussions, and debates where it cannot be put into a simple form of representation yet that everyone can agree on or apply it to real-life situation. Hence, practicality and abstraction sound like they are two contrasting term. Although, they do not seem to be as contrasting when applied to mathematical context. The idea of applied mathematics is known to be the "practical" one whereas pure mathematics is known to be the "abstract" one. However, I believe that the basis of every mathematical concept holds abstract nature as mathematics is not something that involves discoveries of physical object. It is rather a discovery of a method or a way to represent an abstract idea. Hence, applied mathematics and pure mathematics share grey area together, and depending on the historical context that we are referring to, how we categorize applied mathematics and pure mathematics is subject to change.

I do believe that our interpretations are strongly influenced by our familiarity with contemporary algebra. Despite different historical context and real-life situation, I would automatically thought of algebraic way to interpret Babylonian word problems. 

In terms of describing Babylonian word problems within the concept of applied mathematics and pure mathematics, Gerofsky suggests Babylonian mathematics were practical in nature as their mathematics were closely related to their everyday lives. However, I believe that discovering their own mathematical system to transfer agricultural, commercial, legal, and other daily problems into mathematical language is abstract.

I personally never thought about word problems showing practicality or abstraction, but it is really interesting to learn how mathematical concepts have been applied and interpreted from thousands of years ago. 

References:

Gerofsky, S. (2004). Chapter 7: The History of the Word Problem Genre. A Man Left Albuquerque                             Heading East: Word Problems as Genre in Mathematics Education (First Edition, pp. 113-120).                  Peter Lang.

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Comments

  1. Amanda Fritzlan10 November 2022 at 16:24

    Yubin, your ideas of the play between abstraction and practicality are expressed in a lovely way. It is curious to think about the ways that mathematics can be expressed, and if all of these ways are abstract.

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