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Infinite processes in elementary mathematics How much should we tell the children?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2016

Tony Gardiner
Tony Gardiner*
Affiliation:
Department of Mathematics, University of Birmingham, Birmingham B15 2TT
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Extract

Mathematics at all levels depends on infinite processes. This is a “fact of life”. But, like those other “facts of life”, this one has traditionally been hushed up—especially when teaching elementary mathematics to beginners. Of course, in our liberated age, adult mathematicians are no longer embarrassed by infinite processes, and even discuss them openly. But it is not easy to see the connection between the way they discuss infinite processes (as in, say, an undergraduate analysis course) and those parts of elementary mathematics which depend on infinite processes, and which should provide the soil in which the beginner’s seedling intuitions about infinite processes can take root. So even today most children, adolescents, and their teachers must either make do with the traditional smutty versions, or work things out for themselves.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Mathematical Gazette , Volume 69 , Issue 448 , June 1985 , pp. 77 - 87
Copyright
Copyright © Mathematical Association 1985

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References

1. Gardiner, A., Infinite processes: background to analysis. Springer (1982).Google Scholar
2. Vilenkin, N. Ya., Stories about sets. Academic Press (1968).Google Scholar