Embodied mathematics by interactive sketching

The language and formalization of mathematics historically evolved as an interplay between abstractions and their grounding in real world objects and events. The embodied mathematics philosophy posits that our mathematical capabilities are centered around our embodied experiences, and abstract math concepts are layers of metaphors that are based on simple arithmetic capabilities such as categorizing objects, subitizing, and part-whole analysis. Unfortunately, current practice of abstract math often requires us to memorize rules of manipulation, which are cognitively arbitrary, severed from intuitive grounding, and have mechanics and metaphors of their own. While journeying into mathematics, many of us therefore lose the intuitive underpinnings of abstractions. In this dissertation, I develop a design framework and an interactive sketch interface to combine computer algebra algorithms with layers of sketched, visually interpretable compositions.

Name thesis:degree_name

Doctoral

Department dc:contributor.department

Program in Media Arts and Sciences (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2020

Author dc:creator

• Saquib, Nazmus

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Deb Roy.

• Program in Media Arts and Sciences

Statement dc:rights

• MIT theses may be protected by copyright. Please reuse MIT thesis content according to the MIT Libraries Permissions Policy, which is available through the URL provided.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/129275

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/129275