• Communications of Mathematical Education
• /
• v.31 no.1
• /
• pp.149-177
• /
• 2017

Since modern mathematics textbooks were introduced in the late 19th century Korea, arithmetic experts started to teach modern mathematics using Arabic numerals at village schools and churches. After the Gabo Education Reform of 1894, western mathematics education was included in public education and the mathematics textbooks began to be officially published. We explored most of Korean mathematics textbooks from 1895 to 2016 including the changes of mathematics curriculum through 1885-1905, 1905-1910, 1911-1945, 1945-1948, 1948-1953, 1954-1999, and 2000-2016. This study presents the characters of modern mathematics textbooks of Korea since 1885.

• Journal for History of Mathematics
• /
• v.19 no.3
• /
• pp.71-84
• /
• 2006

The purpose of the study was to investigate the evolution of Korean modern mathematics in late 19th and early 20th century. This article reveals the efforts of incipient Korean mathematicians who had adopted modern mathematics from western countries and the difficulties and struggles they had to go through at that time. At the end of the article, we discussed our current status in international mathematical society.

• The Mathematical Education
• /
• v.44 no.3 s.110
• /
• pp.337-360
• /
• 2005

In this paper we develop textbook 'Modem Algebra' for training mathematics teacher of secondary schools. In order to understand mathematics teacher's viewpoint about desirable textbook 'Modem Algebra' we created a Questionnaire related with curriculum and textbook for training mathematics teacher of secondary schools. We analyze the result of the questionnaire along with recent studies on teacher education and come up with basic principles of developing textbook 'Modern Algebra'. The first version of 'Modern Algebra for Mathematics Teachers' that we have developed based on our study can be found in website 'www.teacheredu.co.kr'.

• Journal for History of Mathematics
• /
• v.31 no.3
• /
• pp.127-150
• /
• 2018

In spite of important researches and translational works of the Joseon mathematical treatises in the 80's and on, these results were almost out of reach to the school teachers as well as students due to the antiquity of their contents and the terms used. In order to make our traditional mathematics approachable to the middle and high school students, it will be educationally meaningful to reinterpret them tuned at the student's level using modern terminology and symbols. In this study, we reinterpreted 9 problems from Cheukryang Dohae, which is one of the representative mathematical books of Joseon Dynasty. We used the terminology and symbols from the school curriculum. We also reconstructed two of them using modern metrologies adapted to modern situations adding illustrations and photos, so that they are useful at the teaching site.

• Journal for History of Mathematics
• /
• v.2 no.1
• /
• pp.9-27
• /
• 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
• /
• v.30 no.4
• /
• pp.247-258
• /
• 2017

The goal of this essay is to examine metaphors for mathematics and to discuss philosophical problems related to them. Two metaphors for mathematics are well known. One is a tree and the other is a building. The former was proposed by Pasch, and the latter by Hilbert. The difference between these metaphors comes from different philosophies. Pasch's philosophy is a combination of empiricism and deductivism, and Hilbert's is formalism whose final task is to prove the consistency of mathematics. In this essay, I try to combine two metaphors from the standpoint that 'mathematics is a part of the ecosystem of science', because each of them is not good enough to reflect the holistic mathematics. In order to understand mathematics holistically, I suggest the criteria of the desirable philosophy of mathematics. The criteria consists of three categories: philosophy, history, and practice. According to the criteria, I argue that it is necessary to pay attention to Pasch's philosophy of mathematics as having more explanatory power than Hilbert's, though formalism is the dominant paradigm of modern mathematics. The reason why Pasch's philosophy is more explanatory is that it contains empirical nature. Modern philosophy of mathematics also tends to emphasize the empirical nature, and the synthesis of forms with contents agrees with the ecological analogy for mathematics.

• Journal for History of Mathematics
• /
• v.22 no.3
• /
• pp.79-102
• /
• 2009

Most who have heard of Sang-Seol Lee know him for his contribution to the Korean independence movement nearly a hundred years ago. This paper, however, will discuss Lee's other great contribution to his country; that of being "The father of modern mathematical education in Korea". Lee passed the rigorous government officer examination with the highest honor and became a teacher for the royal prince. Later he became the president of Sunkyunkwan, a national institute of higher learning since 1398, and eventually a well-known university bearing the same name. Lee was also a highly regarded Confucian scholar and well versed in foreign languages. He wanted Korea to become a modern country and felt that the areas of science and engineering were studies that needed improving in order to achieve modernization. While researching Western textbooks on the subjects he realized that Western mathematics would be especially important for Korea. With that, it became his mission to integrate Western mathematics into the Korean educational system. This paper will explain the importance of Sang-Seol Lee's contributions to mathematic education in Korea and how it helped Korea become the modern nation it is today.

• Journal for History of Mathematics
• /
• v.24 no.4
• /
• pp.61-86
• /
• 2011

In this article we introduce old and new references for 'Grundlagen der Geometrie' written by Hilbert and summarize its contents. We then compare the 1902 English translation of the first (German) edition and the 1971 English translation of the 10th (German) edition focusing on the changes of the contents, terminologies, expressions, etc. We then finally discuss about the implications of these changes in translating mathematics classics into modern Korean and in creating mathematics books in modern Korean.

• Journal for History of Mathematics
• /
• v.12 no.2
• /
• pp.135-141
• /
• 1999

It can be said that postmodernism shows a tendency to be anti-Descartes in the sense that it criticizes modern rationality which has started from Descartes. This paper suggests the relationship between modernism and postmodernism and that between. traditional Mathematics and fuzzy logic in three aspects, and shows that fuzzy logic tends to be a postmodern science in Mathematics.

• Journal for History of Mathematics
• /
• v.18 no.2
• /
• pp.31-42
• /
• 2005

Renaissance is revival of the ancient Greek and Roman cultures. So, in Renaissance period, the artists began to study Euclidean geometry and then their mind was a spirit of experience and observation. These spirits is namely modernism. In other words, Renaissance was a dawn of modern times. In this paper, we notice modern spirits and ones social backgrounds. Differential and integral calculus was created by these modern spirits. And in art field, 'painter of light', 'artist of moment' appeared. Because in the 17th and 18th centuries, the intelligentsia researched for motions, speeds and lights.