This paper is from Session 3F: Similarities and contrasts in teaching mathematical and statistical thinking
which comes under Topic 3: Learning to teach statistics
(Thursday 15th, 11:00-12:30)
Chance and necessity: the languages of probability and mathematics
Presenter
Abstract
The idea of viewing mathematics as a language of communication has been espoused for many years. In England, this was the starting point for the influential report on the teaching of mathematics by Cockcroft. A much earlier reference is that of Tobias Dantzig in his seminal book, Number–The Language of Science; this would now perhaps be called, Mathematics–The Language of Scientific and Social Disciplines. In some ways, probability can be seen part of mathematics and would be a strong sub-discipline which drives and underpins much work in the social sciences, as well as in science such as quantum mechanics and genetics. The original subsets of mathematics were number, algebra, and geometry, though there are many other fields of mathematics now; it can be argued that probability is quite distinctive, as is statistics. This paper will explore the similarities and differences between the languages of probability and mathematics.
