Sunday, December 10, 2017

NUMBERS MATTER

WHY DO NUMBERS MATTER? Why do numbers matter? Numbers measure. They count. They weigh. They outline. Numbers demarcate, define, delineate, and distinguish. Numbers are much older than any letters. Men began marking time by moon phases; so too were women, whose feminine menstrual cycles in relation to the moon, were marked thousands of years before letters and writing were invented in Africa. The world's first mathematicians may very well have been African women, according to authorities, who have studied the Lebombo Bone from Southern Africa. This notched lunar bone is 44,000 years old, say leading mathematicians. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lebombo_bone I spent almost an entire afternoon reviewing square roots and prime numbers, when, reading gingerly through THE GEOMETRY OF ART AND LIFE by Matila Ghyka (1944). His exacting discussion on golden rectangles, phi, golden section etc, brought me to realize that my math needed a tune-up! It needed to be seriously refreshed! My repressed mathematical deficiencies had yet found me! So, being only on page 8, where I had earlier glided over his discussion on square roots, I began back there with the basics of square roots a worthy inquiry. A square root of a number is that part of a number, that if multiplied by its part, yields the first number . https://www.google.com/search?q=sqare+root&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en&client=safari&dlnr=1&sei=4z4sWo6oKavLjwTg6bLQCg Only certain numbers have square roots resulting in whole numbers. The vast majority of square roots are irrational numbers, not whole. The square root of 5, for example, is 2.23606797749979, irrational. A square root of a whole number, or integer, is rarely equal to one-half of an integer, like 2 is of 4. The integer is determinative of all. https://www.mathplanet.com/education/pre-algebra/right-triangles-and-algebra/square-roots-and-real-numbers It is vitally important that African Americans overcome mathematic Inhibitions, fears, phobias, which are almost epigenetic, post-1954, when school integration's social dynamics took away math models, African American math teachers. African American women especially need to reclaim their numerical and geometric legacy to mankind! What the women do, where black women are, black men by hormones follow. The book HIDDEN FIGURES (2016) by Margot Shetterly is illustrative . Mathematically competent people are usually free people; since they are able to compute, graph, devise, decipher, hypothecate, and discern what is in their foremost interests, including the compounded interest rates and returns on capital outlay. Having competence in forms of mathematical knowledge helps one to avoid many hidden snares, and pitfalls of the slick or savvy! And for those seeking reparations, math competence is most indispensable!