Celebrating Earth Day the Math Way

In honor of Earth Day, I wanted to take a moment to share part of a TedX talk from Australian math educator Eddie Woo. He shares the most magical explorations of what math is and how it is apparent in so many miraculous ways. Math is SO much more than we give it credit for.

An exerpt: “I used to believe that math was about rote-learning inscrutable formulas to solve abstract problems that didn’t mean anything to me. But at university, I began to see that mathematics is immensely practical and even beautiful. That it’s not just about finding answers, but also about learning to ask the right questions. It gradually dawned on me that mathematics is a sense. Mathematics is a sense, just like sight and touch. It’s a sense that allows us to perceive realities which would be otherwise intangible to us. Now, I want to show you a mathematical reality that I guarantee you’ve seen before but perhaps never really perceived. It’s been hidden in plain sight your entire life. This is a river delta. It’s a beautiful piece of geometry. And when we hear the word geometry, most of us think of triangles and circles. But geometry is the mathematics of all shapes. And this meeting of land and sea has created shapes with an undeniable pattern. It has a mathematically recursive structure. Every part of the river delta, with its twists and turns, is a micro-version of the greater whole. So I want you to see the mathematics in this. But that’s not all. There’s a mathematical reality woven into the fabric of the universe that you share with winding rivers, towering trees and raging storms. These shapes are examples of what we call fractals, as mathematicians. Fractals get their name from the same place as fractions and fractures. It’s a reference to the broken and shattered shapes we find around us in nature. And once you have a sense for fractals, you really do start to see them everywhere – a head of broccoli. The leaves of a fern. Even clouds in the sky. Like the other senses, our mathematical sense can be refined with practice. It’s just like developing perfect pitch or a taste for wines. You can learn to perceive the mathematics around you with time and the right guidance.”

Talk about Noticing and Wondering…..