[Maths-Education] colour edition "African Pythagoras"

[Paulus Gerdes]

Dear friends and colleagues,



I have the pleasure to announce the publication of the first colour edition
of my book “AFRICAN PYTHAGORAS: A Study in Culture and Mathematics
Education”

(ISBN 978-1-257-16100-3, 124 pp., available as printed book and as download
from: http://stores.lulu.com/pgerdes)



“*AFRICAN PYTHAGORAS: A study in culture and mathematics education*” shows
how diverse African ornaments and artefacts may be used to create an
attractive context for the discovery and the demonstration of the
Pythagorean Theorem and of related ideas and propositions.



The first black-and-white edition of “*African Pythagoras”* was published in
1992 in Portuguese, and in 1994 in English.  Some parts of the book were
reproduced in Chapter 2 ‘From African designs to discovering the Pythagorean
Theorem’ (pp. 54-86) of the author’s book “*Geometry from Africa:
Mathematical and Educational Explorations”* (Mathematical Association of
America, Washington DC, 1999) (‘Outstanding Academic Book,’ Choice Magazine,
2000).



The 2011 edition of “*African Pythagoras”* is the first colour edition and
contains as afterword a review by Jens Hoyrup (Roskilde University,
Denmark).



>From the afterword:

“Teachers and textbook authors will … find substance and an abundance of
ideas for the introduction of many essential aspects of geometrical
reasoning, not least geometrical reasoning about real-world phenomena.  There
is no reason that only African teachers should draw on this inspiration, …
[as] sub-Saharan African geometrical art … possesses a universal value of
which the mathematics education of the global village should take
advantage.”



Keywords:



Africa, African culture, African art, Pythagoras, Pythagorean Theorem,
Pappus, geometry, proof, heuristics, magic squares, Latin squares,
trigonometry, fractals, mathematics, mathematics education, mathematics
teacher education, ethnomathematics, ethnogeometry, symmetry



Best regards,



Paulus Gerdes



March 27, 2011


-- 
Paulus Gerdes
Vice-President for Southern Africa, African Academy of Sciences
Chairman, AMU Commission for the History of Mathematics in Africa
President, International Studygroup for Ethnomathematics
C.P. 915, Maputo, Moçambique