Paulus Gerdes

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Paulus Pierre Joseph Gerdes (born November 11, 1952 in the Netherlands ; † November 10, 2014 ) was a Dutch mathematician and university professor who is one of the founders of research on ethnomathematics , especially in Africa.

Life

Gerdes studied mathematics and physics at the University of Nijmegen with a bachelor's degree in 1972. He was politically active on the left. After a stay in Vietnam he studied cultural anthropology with a bachelor's degree in 1974 and mathematics with a master's degree in 1975. In the Netherlands, he taught at the Center for Developing Countries ( Centro do Terceiro Mundo ) and had connections to anti- apartheid groups and Liberation Movements in South Africa . At the end of 1976 he went to Mozambique and later became a citizen of the country.

In 1986 he received his doctorate at the University of Dresden with the Portuguese dissertation O Despertar do Pensamento Geométrico (On the origins of geometric thinking) and in 1996 at the University of Wuppertal a second time with a dissertation on Sona geometry (Geometria Sona: reflexões sobre tradições de desenhar na areia entre os povos da Á frica ao Sul do Equador).

From 1976 he was professor and head of the pedagogical faculty at Eduardo Mondlane University in Maputo and from 1989 rector of the higher pedagogical institute, which under his direction became the Pedagogical University of Mozambique. He was also on the founding commission of the third University of Mozambique, the Lúrio University in Nampula . In 1989 he founded the Centro de Pesquisas em Etnomatemática - Cultura, Matemática e Educação and gathered many students around him who dealt with ethnomathematics. Before he died of a rare infectious disease, he organized the fifth international congress for ethnomathematics in Maputo.

He became known for researching the sona geometries of the Bantu tribe of the Chokwe , complex sand drawings with which narrators illustrated their stories. He also published some of the stories with the accompanying drawings as a children's book, which was published in Brazil in 1990 and later also in German. The African Sona (Lunda) designs also served as a starting point for geometric research. But he also dealt with geometric shapes and mathematical symmetries in various craft forms in Africa. In an essay he combined the hexagonal weave patterns of African baskets with the mathematics of fullerenes . He also emphasizes the educational role of ethnomathematics for teaching in non-western countries.

From 1996 to 1998 he was visiting professor at the University of Georgia and he was visiting professor in Brazil, Peru, France and Spain. Since 1996 he has headed the Commission for the History of Mathematics in Africa (AMUCHMA) of the African Mathematical Union. From 1991 to 1995 he was secretary of the Southern African Mathematical Sciences Association (SAMSA).

From 2000 to 2004 he was President of the International Association for Science and Cultural Diversity and from 2000 he was the successor to Ubiratàn D'Ambrósio, President of the International Group of Ethno-Mathematical Studies. He was a member of the International Academy for the History of Science and from 2005 Vice President of the African Academy of Sciences.

He also dealt with the history of mathematics, for example he published in 1985 and 2014 on Karl Marx's mathematical manuscripts on analysis and on the African-American slave and arithmetic artist Thomas Fuller .

Fonts

  • Marx demystifies calculus, Minneapolis: Marxist Educational Press 1985
  • How to recognize hidden geometrical thinking: a contribution to the development of anthropological mathematics, in: For the Learning of Mathematics, Volume 6, Issue 2, 1986, pp. 10-12, 17
  • A widespread decorative motif and the Pythagorean theorem, in: For the Learning of Mathematics, Volume 8, Issue 1, 1988, pp. 35-39
  • On ethmomathematical research and symmetry, in: Symmetry: Culture and Science, Volume 1, 1990, pp. 154-170
  • Ethnogeometry: cultural anthropological contributions to the genesis and didactics of geometry, Bad Salzdetfurth: Franzbecker 1990
  • Sona geometry: Reflections on the tradition of sand drawings in Africa south of the equator, Maputo 1994 (Dissertation in Wuppertal)
  • On mathematics in the history of Sub-Saharan Africa, Historia Mathematica, Volume 21, 1994, pp. 345-376
  • Une tradition géométrique en Afrique - les dessins sur le sable, Paris: L'Harmattan, 3 volumes, 1995
  • Women and Geometry in Southern Africa, Maputo University of Education 1995
  • Lunda Geometry: Designs, Polyominoes, Patterns, Symmetries, Maputo Pedagogical University 1996
  • On mirror curves and Lunda designs, Computes & Graphics, Volume 21, 1997, pp. 371-378
  • On culture, geometrical thinking and mathematics education, in: AB Powell, M. Frankenstein (ed.), Ethnomathematics, Albany, SUNY Press 1997, pp. 223-248
  • Ethnomathematics presented using the example of Sona geometry, Spektrum Akademischer Verlag 1997
  • Women, Art and Geometry in Southern Africa, Trenton, New Jersey: Africa World Press 1998
  • Otthava: Making Baskets and Doing Geometry in the Makhuwa Culture in the Northeast of Mozambique, Maputo 2010
  • Geometry from Africa: Mathematical and Educational Explorations, Mathematical Association of America 1999
  • Le cercle et le carré: Créativité géométrique, artistique et symboliques de vannières et vanniers d 'Afrique, d' Amérique, d'Asie et d'Oceanie, Paris: L'Harmattan 2000
  • Lusona: recreacoes geometricas de Africa, Maputo, Lisbon 2002 (Portuguese)
  • Awakening of geometrical thought in early culture, MEP Press, Minneapolis 2003 (extended version of his dissertation in Dresden)
  • Ethnomathemática- Reflexoes sobra matematica e diversidade cultural, Ribeirao, Edicoes Humus 2007 (Portuguese)
  • with Ahmed Djebbar: Mathematics in African Histories and Cultures: an annotated Bibliography, Lulu, Morrisville, North Carolina 2007
  • Lunda Geometry: Mirror Curves, Designs, Knots, Polyominoes, Patterns, Symmetries, Maputo 2007
  • Drawings from Angola: Living Mathematics, Maputo 2007
  • African Basketry: a gallery of twill-plaited designs and patterns, Maputo 2007
  • Adventures in the world of matrices, New York: Nova Science Publishers 2007
  • Paths of leopards, antelopes and hunters. Living Mathematics in Angolan Sand Drawings, Maputo 2008 (his children's book)
  • Sipatsi: Basketry and Geometry in the Tonga culture of Inhambane (Mozambique, Africa), Lulu, Morrisville, North Carolina 2009
  • Exploration of technologies, emerging from African cultural practices, in mathematics (teacher) education, ZDM, Volume 42, 2010, pp. 11-17
  • The philosophical-mathematical manuscripts of Karl Marx on Differential Calculus: An introduction, 2nd edition, Maputo 2014

literature

  • Arthur B. Powell: A Luta continua! An ethnomathematical appreciation of Paulus Pierre Joseph Gerdes, For the Learning of Mathematics, Volume 35, No. 1, 2015, pp. 30–32
  • Ubiratan d'Ambrosio: In memoriam Paulus Gerdes (1952-2014), Historia Mathematica, Volume 43, 2016, pp. 129-132

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Gerdes, Molecular modeling of fullerenes with hexastrips, Chemical Intelligencer, Volume 4, Issue 1, 1999, pp. 40-45. Also Mathematical Intelligencer, Volume 21, 1999, Issue 1, pp. 6-12.
  2. ↑ John Fauvel, Paulus Gerdes, African slave and calculating prodigy: Bicentenary of the death of Thomas Fuller, Historia Mathematica, Volume 17, 1990, pp. 141-151
personal data
SURNAME Gerdes, Paul
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Gerdes, Paulus Pierre Joseph (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Dutch mathematician and university professor
DATE OF BIRTH November 11, 1952
PLACE OF BIRTH Netherlands
DATE OF DEATH November 10, 2014