Astronomy and Mathematics Education

What ain’t mathematics education?!

Abstract: In 1996 at the first Iranian Mathematics Education Conference (IMEC1) that was held in Isfahan. I obliged myself as a mathematics educator, to inform the mathematics community at large by presenting a paper entitled “what is mathematics education?” to pave the way for the establishment of the master program of mathematics education in Iran. Now, after 16 years, we need to reflect on t...

Philosophy of Mathematics, Mathematics Education, and Philosophy of Mathematics Education

Mathematics and explanation in astronomy and astrophysics

The purpose of this paper is to expound and clarify the mathematics and explanations commonly employed in certain notable areas of astronomy and astrophysics. The first section concentrates upon the mathematics employed to represent and understand stellar structure and evolution. The second section analyses two different explanations for the structure of spiral galaxies. 1 Stellar structure and...

Mathematics, Mathematicians, and Mathematics Education

I am one of a growing number of research mathematicians who are substantially engaged with school mathematics education. Such outreach has a long and honorable tradition. In this lecture, I illustrate some of the ways that I think this can be helpful, and even essential. Upon his retirement in 1990 as president of the ICMI, Jean Pierre Kahane spoke perceptively of the intimate connection betwee...

Digital Astronomy in Education

Astronomical phenomenons involve often complex concepts and their explanation requires always the development of several levels of representation. It would be indeed difficult to explain for example, the concept of the austral seasons, in absence of representations as shown in Figure 1. Without graphical representations, our understanding would be imperfect since the volume of information provi...