| 1. |
- Pejlare, Johanna, 1976
(författare)
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On Axioms and Images in the History of Mathematics
- 2007
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This dissertation deals with aspects of axiomatization, intuition and visualization in the history of mathematics. Particular focus is put on the end of the 19th century, before David Hilbert's (1862–1943) work on the axiomatization of Euclidean geometry. The thesis consists of three papers. In the first paper the Swedish mathematician Torsten Brodén (1857–1931) and his work on the foundations of Euclidean geometry from 1890 and 1912, is studied. A thorough analysis of his foundational work is made as well as an investigation into his general view on science and mathematics. Furthermore, his thoughts on geometry and its nature and what consequences his view has for how he proceeds in developing the axiomatic system, is studied. In the second paper different aspects of visualizations in mathematics are investigated. In particular, it is argued that the meaning of a visualization is not revealed by the visualization and that a visualization can be problematic to a person if this person, due to a limited knowledge or limited experience, has a simplified view of what the picture represents. A historical study considers the discussion on the role of intuition in mathematics which followed in the wake of Karl Weierstrass' (1815–1897) construction of a nowhere differentiable function in 1872. In the third paper certain aspects of the thinking of the two scientists Felix Klein (1849–1925) and Heinrich Hertz (1857–1894) are studied. It is investigated how Klein and Hertz related to the idea of naïve images and visual thinking shortly before the development of modern axiomatics. Klein in several of his writings emphasized his belief that intuition plays an important part in mathematics. Hertz argued that we form images in our mind when we experience the world, but these images may contain elements that do not exist in nature.
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| 2. |
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| 3. |
- Bergqvist, Tomas, 1962-, et al.
(författare)
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Upper secondary students’ task reasoning
- 2008
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Ingår i: International Journal of Mathematical Education in Science and Technology. - : Informa UK Limited. - 0020-739X .- 1464-5211. ; 39:1
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Upper secondary students’ task solving reasoning was analysed, with a focus on grounds for different strategy choices and implementations. The results indicate that mathematically well-founded considerations were rare. The dominating reasoning types were algorithmic reasoning, where students tried to remember a suitable algorithm, sometimes in a random way, and guided reasoning, where progress was possible only when essentially all important strategy choices were made by the interviewer.
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| 4. |
- Dyrvold, Anneli, 1970-
(författare)
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Difficult to read or difficult to solve? : The role of natural language and other semiotic resources in mathematics tasks
- 2016
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- When students solve mathematics tasks, the tasks are commonly given as written text, usually consisting of natural language, mathematical notation and different types of images. This is one reason why reading and interpreting such texts are important parts of being mathematically proficient, at least within the school context. The ability utilized when dealing with aspects of mathematical text is denoted in this thesis as a mathematical reading ability; this ability is useful when reading mathematical language, for example, in task text. There is, however, a lack of knowledge of what characterizes this mathematical language, what students need to learn regarding the mathematical language, and exactly which mathematical language that tests should preferably assess. Therefore, the purpose of this thesis is to contribute to the knowledge of aspects of difficulty related to textual features in mathematics tasks. In particular, one aim is to distinguish between a difficulty that has to do with a mathematical ability and another that has not. Different types of text analyses are utilized to capture textural features that might be demanding for the students when reading and solving mathematics tasks. Aspects regarding vocabulary are investigated both in a literature review and in a study where corpora are used to analyse word commonness. Other textual analyses focus on textual features that concern mathematical notation and images, besides natural language. Statistical methods are used to analyse potential relations between the textual features of interest and both task difficulty and task demand on reading ability. The results from the research review are sparse regarding difficult vocabulary, since few of the reviewed studies analyses word aspects separately. Several of the analysed textual features are related to aspects of difficulty. The results show that tasks with more words that are uncommon both in a mathematical context and in an everyday context, may favour students with good reading ability rather than students with good mathematical ability. Another textual feature that is likely to be demanding for students, is if the task texts contains many meaning relations, for example, when several words refer to the same or similar object. These results have implications for the school practice both regarding textual features that are important from an educational perspective and regarding the construction of tests. The research does also contribute to an understanding of what characterizes a mathematical language.
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| 5. |
- Viirman, Olov, et al.
(författare)
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Different views – some Swedish mathematics students’ concept images of the function concept
- 2010
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Ingår i: Nordisk matematikkdidaktikk. - Göteborg : NCM. - 1104-2176. ; 15:4, s. 5-24
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Tidskriftsartikel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This study analyses what kind of concept images a group of engineering and teacher students have of the function concept, and how these concept images are related to the historical development of this concept. The study was conducted using questionnaires, and 34 students at a Swedish university participated. It is found that the students primarily rely on operational conceptions of the function concept, with only a minority of students possessing structural conceptions. The definitions given by the students mostly resemble an 18th or 19th century view of functions. The study also indicates that the character of the definitions given in the textbooks used by the students affect their concept images.
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| 6. |
- Viirman, Olov
(författare)
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The functions of function discourse : University mathematics teaching from a commognitive standpoint
- 2014
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Ingår i: International journal of mathematical education in science and technology. - : Taylor & Francis Group. - 0020-739X .- 1464-5211. ; 45:4, s. 512-527
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This paper addresses a topic within university mathematics education which has been somewhat underexplored: the teaching practices actually used by university mathematics teachers when giving lectures. The study investigates the teaching practices of seven Swedish university teachers on the topic of functions using a discursive approach, the commognitive framework of Sfard. In the paper a categorization of the construction and substantiation routines used by the teachers is presented, for instance various routines for constructing definitions and examples, and for verifying whether an example satisfies a given definition. The findings show that although the overall form of the lectures is similar, with teachers using ‘chalk talk’, and overt student participation limited to asking and answering questions, there are in fact significant differences in the way the teachers present and do mathematics in their lectures. These differences present themselves both on the level of discursive routines and on a more general level in how the process of doing mathematics is made visible in the teachers’ teaching practices. Moreover, I believe that many of the results of the study could be relevant for investigating the teaching of other mathematical topics.
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| 7. |
- Wang, Siyang, et al.
(författare)
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CONVERGENCE OF FINITE DIFFERENCE METHODS FOR THE WAVE EQUATION IN TWO SPACE DIMENSIONS
- 2018
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Ingår i: Mathematics of Computation. - : American Mathematical Society (AMS). - 0025-5718 .- 1088-6842. ; 87:314, s. 2737-2763
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- When using a finite difference method to solve an initial-boundary-value problem, the truncation error is often of lower order at a few grid points near boundaries than in the interior. Normal mode analysis is a powerful tool to analyze the effect of the large truncation error near boundaries on the overall convergence rate, and has been used in many research works for different equations. However, existing work only concerns problems in one space dimension. In this paper, we extend the analysis to problems in two space dimensions. The two dimensional analysis is based on a diagonalization procedure that decomposes a two dimensional problem to many one dimensional problems of the same type. We present a general framework of analyzing convergence for such one dimensional problems, and explain how to obtain the result for the corresponding two dimensional problem. In particular, we consider two kinds of truncation errors in two space dimensions: the truncation error along an entire boundary, and the truncation error localized at a few grid points close to a corner of the computational domain. The accuracy analysis is in a general framework, here applied to the second order wave equation. Numerical experiments corroborate our accuracy analysis.
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| 8. |
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Discrete Geometry and Mathematical Morphology : First International Joint Conference, DGMM 2021, Uppsala, Sweden, May 24–27, 2021, Proceedings
- 2021
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Samlingsverk (redaktörskap) (refereegranskat)abstract
- This book constitutes the proceedings of the First IAPR International Conference on Discrete Geometry and Mathematical Morphology, DGMM 2021, which was held during May 24-27, 2021, in Uppsala, Sweden.The conference was created by joining the International Conference on Discrete Geometry for computer Imagery, DGCI, with the International Symposium on Mathematical Morphology, ISMM.The 36 papers included in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 59 submissions. They were organized in topical sections as follows: applications in image processing, computer vision, and pattern recognition; discrete and combinatorial topology; discrete geometry - models, transforms, visualization; discrete tomography and inverse problems; hierarchical and graph-based models, analysis and segmentation; learning-based approaches to mathematical morphology; multivariate and PDE-based mathematical morphology, morphological filtering.The book also contains 3 invited keynote papers.
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| 9. |
- Viirman, Olov
(författare)
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Discursive practices of two university teachers on the concept of ’linear transformation’
- 2011
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Ingår i: Developing mathematical thinking. - Ankara : PME. - 9789754292626 - 9789754292985 ; , s. 311-320
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- This paper reports on an ongoing study focusing on the teaching of functions in undergraduate courses in mathematics at three Swedish universities. In this paper two excerpts of lectures on linear transformations are analysed, using commognitive theory. The two teachers' discursive uses of the terms 'linearity' and 'linear transformation' are described, and potential consequences for student learning are presented. One lecture displays a strong mathematical content while lacking contextualization, while the other is well grounded in everyday experience, but with a lack of attention to mathematical detail potentially detrimental to student learning.
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| 10. |
- Johnson, Tomas, 1979-, et al.
(författare)
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On a computer-aided approach to the computation of Abelian integrals
- 2011
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Ingår i: BIT Numerical Mathematics. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0006-3835 .- 1572-9125. ; 51:3, s. 653-667
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- An accurate method to compute enclosures of Abelian integrals is developed. This allows for an accurate description of the phase portraits of planar polynomial systems that are perturbations of Hamiltonian systems. As an example, it is applied to the study of bifurcations of limit cycles arising from a cubic perturbation of an elliptic Hamiltonian of degree four.
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