• Journal for History of Mathematics
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.79-96
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• 2008

In early 21st century, universities in Korea has been asked the new roles according to the changes of educational and social environment. With Korea's NURI and Brain Korea 21 project support, some chosen research oriented universities now should produce "teacher of teachers". We look 100 years back America's mathematics and see many resemblances between the status of US mathematics at that time and the current status of Korean mathematics, and find some answer for that. E. H. Moore had produced many good research mathematicians through his laboratory teaching techniques. R. L. Moore was his third PhD students. He developed his Texas/Moore method. In this article, we analyze what R. L. Moore had done through his American School of Topology and Moore method. We consider the meaning that early University of Texas case gives us in PBL(Problem Based Learning) process.

• Journal of the Korean School Mathematics Society
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.427-448
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• 2020

The purpose of this study is to confirm the MKT(Mathematical Knowledge for Teaching) of the pre-service mathematics teachers on the normal distribution through the comparative analysis between the sub-elements of the MKT. In addition, it is to examine the factors that cause the difference of the subjects' MKT. To accomplish this, by the subject of 24 secondary pre-service mathematics teachers, in this study the test items of the MKT on the normal distribution were developed and data were collected and analyzed. As a result of the analysis of the MKT test sheet, the CCK(Common Content Knowledge) of the preparatory mathematics teacher was confirmed as a high score, whereas the SCK(Specialized Content Knowledge) and KCS(Knowledge of Content and Students) were confirmed as low scores. In addition, through these results, it could be confirmed that the difference in MKT of preparatory mathematicians occurred.

• Communications of Mathematical Education
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.977-998
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• 2009

In this article, we give a comparative study on the last 300 years of USA and Korean tertiary mathematics. The first mathematics classes in United States were offered before July, 1638, but the real founding of tertiary mathematics courses was in 1640 when Henry Dunster assumed the duties of the presidency at Harvard. President Dunster read arithmetics and geometry on Mondays and Tuesdays to the third year students during the first three quarters, and astronomy in the last quarter. So tertiary mathematics education in United States began at Harvard which is the oldest college in USA. After 230 years since then, Benjamin Peirce in 1870 made a major and first American contribution to mathematics and got an attention from European mathematicians. Major change on the role of Harvard mathematics from teaching to research made by G.D. Birkhoff when he joined as an assistant professor in 1912. Tertiary mathematics education in Korea started long before Chosun Dynasty. But it was given to only small number of government actuarial officers. Modern mathematics education of tertiary level in Korea was given at Sungkyunkwan, Ewha, Paichai, and Soongsil. But all college level education opportunity, particularly in mathematics, was taken over by colonial government after 1920. And some technical and normal schools offered some tertiary mathematics courses. There was no college mathematics department in Korea until 1945. After the World War II, the first college mathematics department was established, and Rimhak Ree in 1949 made a major and first Korean contribution to modern mathematics, and later found Ree group. He got an attention from western mathematicians for the first time as a Korean. It can be compared with Benjamin Peirce's contribution for USA.

• Communications for Statistical Applications and Methods
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• v.15 no.5
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• pp.737-752
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• 2008

About 1800, mathematicians combined analysis of error and probability theory into error theory. After developed by Gauss and Laplace, error theory was widely used in branches of natural science. Motivated by the successful applications of error theory in natural sciences, scientists like Adolph Quetelet tried to incorporate social statistics with error theory. But there were not a few differences between social science and natural science. In this paper we discussed topics raised then. The problems considered are as follows: the interpretation of individual man in society; the arguments against statistical methods; history of the measures for diversity. From the successes and failures of the $19^{th}$ century social statisticians, we can see how statistics became a science that is essential to both natural and social sciences. And we can see that those problems, which were not easy to solve for the $19^{th}$ century social statisticians, matter today too.

• Journal for History of Mathematics
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.1-20
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• 2010

Hong Jung Ha(洪正夏, 1684~?) is the greatest mathematician in Chosun dynasty and wrote a mathematics book Gu Il Jib(九一集) which excels in the area of theory of equations including Gou Gu Shu. The purpose of this paper is to find his influence on the history of Chosun mathematics. He belongs to ChungIn(中人) class and works only in HoJo(戶曹) and hence his contact to other mathematicians is limited. Investigating his colleagues and kinship relations including the affinity and consanguinity, we conclude that he gave a great influence to those people and find that three great ChungIn mathematicans Gyung Sun Jing(慶善徵, 1684~?), Hong Jung Ha and Lee Sang Hyuk(李尙爀, 1810~?) are all related through marriage.

• Journal for History of Mathematics
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.57-73
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• 2010

Transcendental numbers are important in the history of mathematics because their study provided that circle squaring, one of the geometric problems of antiquity that had baffled mathematicians for more than 2000 years was insoluble. Liouville established in 1844 that transcendental numbers exist. In 1874, Cantor published his first proof of the existence of transcendentals in article [10]. Louville's theorem basically can be used to prove the existence of Transcendental number as well as produce a class of transcendental numbers. The number e was proved to be transcendental by Hermite in 1873, and $\pi$ by Lindemann in 1882. In 1934, Gelfond published a complete solution to the entire seventh problem of Hilbert. Within six weeks, Schneider found another independent solution. In 1966, A. Baker established the generalization of the Gelfond-Schneider theorem. He proved that any non-vanishing linear combination of logarithms of algebraic numbers with algebraic coefficients is transcendental. This study aims to examine the concept and development of transcendental numbers and to present students with its open problems promoting a research on it any further.

• Journal of Educational Research in Mathematics
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.1-31
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• 2007

Negative numbers have been one of the most difficult mathematical concepts, and it was only 200 years ago that they were recognized as a real object of mathematics by mathematicians. It was because it took more than 1500 years for human beings to overcome the quantitative notion of numbers and recognize the formality in negative numbers. Understanding negative numbers as formal ones resulted from the Copernican conversion in mathematical way of thinking. we first investigated the historic and the genetic process of the concept of negative numbers. Second, we analyzed the conceptual fields of negative numbers in the aspect of the additive and multiplicative structure. Third, we inquired into the levels of thinking on the concept of negative numbers on the basis of the historical and the psychological analysis in order to understand the formal concept of negative numbers. Fourth, we analyzed Korean mathematics textbooks on the basis of the thinking levels of the concept of negative numbers. Fifth, we investigated and analysed the levels of students' understanding of the concept of negative numbers. Sixth, we analyzed the symbolizing process in the development of mathematical concept. Futhermore, we tried to show a concrete way to teach the formality of the negative numbers concepts on the basis of such theoretical analyses.

• Journal for History of Mathematics
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• v.2 no.1
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• pp.9-27
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• 1985

Islam toot a great interest in the utility sciences such as mathematics and astronomy as it needed them for the religious reasons. It needeed geometry to determine the direction toward Mecca, its holiest place: arithmetic and algebra to settle the dates of the festivals and to calculate the accounts lot the inheritance; astronomy to settle the dates of Ramadan and other festivals. Islam expanded and developed mathematics and sciences which it needed at first for the religious reasons to the benefit of all mankind. This thesis focuses upon the golden age of Islamic culture between 7th to 13th century, the age in which Islam came to possess the spirit of discovery and learning that opened the Islamic Renaissance and provided, in turn, Europeans with the setting for the Renaissance in 14th century. While Europe was still in the midst of the dark age of the feudal society based upon the agricultural economy and its mathematics was barey alive with the efforts of a few scholars in churches, the. Arabs played the important role of bridge between civilizations of the ancient and modern times. In the history of mathematics, the Arabian mathematics formed the orthodox, not collateral, school uniting into one the Indo-Arab and the Greco-Arab mathematics. The Islam scholars made a great contribution toward the development of civilization with their advanced the development of civilization with their advanced knowledge of algebra, arithmetic and trigonometry. the Islam mathematicians demonstrated the value of numerals by using arithmetic in the every day life. They replaced the cumbersome Roman numerals with the convenient Arabic numerals. They used Algebraic methods to solve the geometric problems and vice versa. They proved the correlation between these two branches of mathematics and established the foundation of analytic geometry. This thesis examines the historical background against which Islam united and developed the Indian and Greek mathematics; the reason why the Arabic numerals replaced the Roman numerals in the whole world: and the influence of the Arabic mathematics upon the development of the modern mathematics.

• Journal for History of Mathematics
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.167-180
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• 2007

In this study, we explored the role of analysis in the algebra development. For this, we classified ancient geometric analysis into an analysis by reduction and a Pappusian problematic analysis. this shows that both analyses have the function of reduction. Pappus' analysis consists of four steps; transformation, resolution, construction, demonstration. The transformation, by which conditions of given problem is transformed into other conditions which suggest a problem-solving, seems to be a kind of reduction. Mathematicians created new problems as a result of the reductional function of analysis, and became to see mathematics in the different view. An analytical thinking was a background at the birth of symbolic algebra, the reductional function of analysis played an important role in the development of symbolic algebra.

• Journal for History of Mathematics
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.1-15
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• 2011

Approximation is a very useful approach in mathematics research. It was the same in traditional Chinese and Chosun mathematics. This study derived five characteristics from approximation approaches which were found in Chinese and Chosun mathematical books: improvement of approximate values, common and inevitable use of approximate values, recognition of approximate values and their reasons, comparison of their exactness, application of approximate principles. Through these characteristics, we can infer what Chinese and Chosun mathematicians recognized approximate values and how they manipulated them. They took approximate approaches by necessity or for the sake of convenience in mathematical study and its applications. Also, they tried to improve the degree of exactness of approximate values and use the inverse calculations to check them.