[Edu-sig] Brainstorming about GNU Math

[ajsiegel at optonline.net]

Kirby writes -

>And it's not just programming
>that's kept at bay, but computer graphics and animation.  The
>pre-college mainstream remains strangely bereft of serious-minded
>spatial geometry

It's frustrating how close and far we are from each other on this particular
point, at the same time.

Can we negotiate??

You insist - it seems to me (not directly in the quote above, but generally) - 
on making this a Fuller thing, and as such, something visionary, a bit rebelous, 
and certainly outside/beyond the  of thinking of  mainstream math educators.

I have been able to demonstrate to you that a mathematician as mainstream as 
Felix Klein was pitching this exact point about spatial geometry- not abstractly in 
the laboratory but in seminars he conducted for pre-college math educators - at 
least 30 years before Fuller had a word to say on the subject.

Different world views, you and I, I guess getting in the way.  Klein is much more
"from the mountain top" then Fuller, in my world - especially when we are talking 
about geometric ideas.

And since we are talking about working within the academy, I think it important we 
have our facts straight, in terms of attribution of ideas.

And from a pure *getting things accomplished* point of view, why present ideas 
in a way that makes them seem less mainstream, more tied to the insights of a 
Unique Genius, then they actually are, when one looks at the facts.

Its just good math - in Kleins's presentation, at least.

Art