Bridging the gap between Mathematics and Physical sciences

Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Speaker: Tevian Dray

Title: Bridging the gap between Mathematics and Physical sciences

Abstract: As with Britain and America, mathematicians are separated from other scientists by a common language. Casual discussions with those in other disciplines suggest far more agreement than exists in fact. In a nutshell, mathematics is about functions, but science is about physical quantities. This has far-reaching implications not only for the 
 teaching of lower-division mathematics "service" courses, but also for the training of mathematicians. For the last decade, I have led the Vector Calculus Bridge Project, an 
 NSF-supported effort to bridge this gap at the level of second-year calculus. The unifying theme we have discovered is to emphasize geometric reasoning, not (just) algebraic computation. As part of this project, we designed and classroom-tested curricular materials at Oregon State University, and also developed resources for mathematics faculty to help them appreciate the needs of their physical science and 
 engineering students. These resources include a series of papers emphasizing the importance of a coherent, geometric approach to the material, group activities and an instructor's guide focused on student development of geometric reasoning, and a series of faculty development workshops. In this talk, we will illustrate the language 
 differences between mathematicians and physicists in particular, and what this implies for the teaching of mathematics.

Further information about the Bridge Project can be found at: http://www.math.oregonstate.edu/bridge