MAM2000 (Essays)

Essays on Dimensions

The following articles are publications from various sources that deal with the issues of dimension. They are reproduced here (with permission from the publishers) as surveys of different parts of the material presented at the various sites throughout the poster.

	These are chapters 1 & 2, "Introducing Dimensions" and "Scaling and Measurement", of the nine chapters in the book Beyond the Third Dimension: Geometry, Computer Graphics, and Higher Dimension, by Thomas F. Banchoff. It appeared as part of the Scientific American Library in hardcover in 1990, and then in softcover in 1996, and is distributed by W. H. Freeman and Company. These two chapter have been augmented by some questions for study and suggestions for projects.
	This is chapter 2, "Dimension" from the book On the Shoulders of Giants: New Approaches to Numeracy, edited by Lynn Arthur Steen for the Mathematical Sciences Education Board of the National Research Council. It was published by the National Academy Press in 1990, and includes other chapters on pattern, quantity, uncertainty, shape, and change. This chapter presents the pedagogy behind the material in Beyond the Third Dimension above.
	This is an electronic version of an article that first appeared in Scientific American, April 1986, in the "Computer Recreations" section, written by Alexander Dewdney, "Four-Dimensional Dementia". It explains how to make your own "Hypercube" movie.
	This article, "The Mathematician as Child and Children as Mathematicians," appeared in the February 2000 issue of Teaching Children Mathematics. In it, elementary school teachers can find discussions about ways to present geometric material on dimensions to elementary school children.

Mathematics Awareness Month is sponsored each year by the Joint Policy Board for Mathematics to recognize the importance of mathematics through written materials and an accompanying poster that highlight mathematical developments and applications in a particular area.