To math is human

Before reading the analytic survey my thoughts were that math history should be considered an important aspect of teaching math. Grounding math in its historical context is a more honest way of learning. It helps combat the misconception that "math is all solved". It shows by example that math is a human endeavour* (I have some more thoughts on this particular claim in my final paragraph). It shows that math exploration can be (and is often) VERY messy! And that the struggle and mess of it all is okay and expected. These are a subset of my initial thoughts prior to reading the article. As for the how of it all, I was not so sure! Luckily the analytic survey showed us that there is a fruitful landscape of historical math that we can pull from for our lessons, and we don't have to start from scratch.

Upon reading the article, I had three distinct moments of pause: one during the objections, one argument, and one example:

• Objection: What struck me first was the first objection listed in the article on page 203 that "history is not math". Perhaps it is true that history is not necessarily math; yet math is certainly connected to history and history itself has shaped math. To me this objection was a shallow perspective of what might be considered math.
• Argument: On page 209 the authors talk about how history of math can help with the question of "What's the point?" by revealing the conditions that made the math necessary. This was not something I had thought of before reading the article, yet it was so compelling I wanted to edit my pre-reading list to include it! 
• Example: By showing how different cultures and people frame the same problem and providing a vast array of proofs, the Pythagorean theorem historical package example presented on page 218 seemed to encompass all my pre-reading/gut feelings around what makes history of math worthwhile. This really convinced me the value of historical packages as it shows the students that math is more than "one right answer".

*One sentence I originally typed, and then erased, and then typed again was "math is a human endeavour". Given the recent news (that many of us have already chatted about together) that OpenAI released an AI-generated solution to the Navier–Stokes Millennium Prize Problem, I am not sure if this claim remains true. Though the data used by OpenAI was certainly human-made, the proof itself was not, and I'm not sure what this means about the future of math research, and how we might continue to relate to a proof not authored by humans. Of course computers and other technology have aided us in math research in the past, but this feels different as AI was not so much used as an aid, but was instead the author. It seems a few of us are struggling with or are curious about this question, and I'd love to hear more thoughts from others, especially as it relates to math (recent) history.

A picture I took of some spring flowers, just to lighten the mood!