Abū al-Wafā’ Latinus? A study of method

This article studies the legacy in the West of Abū al-Wafā’s Book on those geometric constructions which are necessary for craftsmen. Although two-thirds of the geometric constructions in the text also appear in Renaissance works, a joint analysis of original solutions, diagram lettering, and probability leads to a robust finding of independent discovery. The analysis shows that there is little chance that the similarities between the contents of Abū al-Wafā’s Book and the works of Tartaglia, Marolois, and Schwenter owe anything to historical transmission. The commentary written by Kamāl al-Dīn Ibn Yūnus seems to have had no Latin legacy, either.     

The chords theorem recalled to life at the turn of the eighteenth century

This paper is a historical account of the chords theorem, for conic sections from Apollonius to Boscovich. We comment the most significant proofs and applications, focusing on Newton's solution of the Pappus four lines problem. Newton's geometrical achievements drew L'Hospital's attention to the chords theorem as a fundamental one, and led him to search for a simple and direct proof, that he finally obtained by the method of projection. Stirling gave a very elegant algebraic proof; then Boscovich succeeded in finding an almost immediate geometrical proof, and showed how to develop the elements of conic sections starting from this theorem.     

The Apollonius contact problem and Lie contact geometry

A simple classification of triples of Lie cycles is given. The class of each triad determines the number of solutions to the associated oriented Apollonius contact problem. The classification is derived via 2-dimensional Lie contact geometry in the form of two of its subgeometries—Laguerre geometry and oriented M?bius geometry. The method of proof illustrates interactions between the two subgeometries of Lie geometry. Two models of Laguerre geometry are used: the classic model and the 3-dimensional affine Minkowski space model.     

Rethinking the discovery function of proof within the context of proofs and refutations

Proof and proving are important components of school mathematics and have multiple functions in mathematical practice. Among these functions of proof, this paper focuses on the discovery function that refers to invention of a new statement or conjecture by reflecting on or utilizing a constructed proof. Based on two cases in which eighth and ninth graders engaged in proofs and refutations, we demonstrate that facing a counterexample of a primitive statement can become a starting point of students’ activity for discovery, and that a proof of the primitive statement can function as a useful tool for inventing a new conjecture that holds for the counterexample. An implication for developing tasks by which students can experience this discovery function is mentioned.     

Constructions of Solutions to Generalized Sylvester and Fermat–Torricelli Problems for Euclidean Balls

The classical problem of Apollonius is to construct circles that are tangent to three given circles in the plane. This problem was posed by Apollonius of Perga in his work “Tangencies.” The Sylvester problem, which was introduced by the English mathematician J.J. Sylvester, asks for the smallest circle that encloses a finite collection of points in the plane. In this paper, we study the following generalized version of the Sylvester problem and its connection to the problem of Apollonius: given two finite collections of Euclidean balls, find the smallest Euclidean ball that encloses all the balls in the first collection and intersects all the balls in the second collection. We also study a generalized version of the Fermat–Torricelli problem stated as follows: given two finite collections of Euclidean balls, find a point that minimizes the sum of the farthest distances to the balls in the first collection and shortest distances to the balls in the second collection.     

Densification via polynomials,languages, and frames

It is known that every countable totally ordered set can be embedded into a countable dense one. We extend this result to totally ordered commutative monoids and to totally ordered commutative residuated lattices (the latter result fails in the absence of commutativity). The latter has applications to density elimination of semilinear substructural logics. In particular we obtain as a corollary a purely algebraic proof of the standard completeness of uninorm logic; the advantage over the known proof-theoretic proof and the semantical proof is that it is extremely short and transparent and all details can be verified easily using standard algebraic constructions.     

Existential definability of modal frame classes

We prove an existential analogue of the Goldblatt-Thomason Theorem which characterizes modal definability of elementary classes of Kripke frames using closure under model theoretic constructions. The less known version of the Goldblatt-Thomason Theorem gives general conditions, without the assumption of first-order definability, but uses non-standard constructions and algebraic semantics. We present a non-algebraic proof of this result and we prove an analogous characterization for an alternative notion of modal definability, in which a class is defined by formulas which are satisfiable under any valuation (the so-called existential validity). Continuing previous work in which model theoretic characterization for this type of definability of elementary classes was proved, we give an analogous general result without the assumption of the first-order definability. Furthermore, we outline relationships between sets of existentially valid formulas corresponding to several well-known modal logics.     

The taxicab locus of Apollonius: promoting exploratory routes to the punchline using rich undergraduate tasks

ABSTRACT

A key motivational tactic in undergraduate mathematics teaching is to launch topics with fundamental questions that originate from surprising or remarkable phenomena. Nonetheless, constructing a sequence of tasks that promotes students' own routes to resolving such questions is challenging. This note aims to address this challenge in two ways. First, to illustrate the motivational tactic, the taxicab manifestation of a locus attributed to Apollonius is introduced and a natural question arising from comparison with the analogous Euclidean locus is considered, namely, does the taxicab locus of Apollonius ever coincide with a taxicab circle? Second, a companion sequence of rich undergraduate tasks is elaborated using theoretical design principles, with the tasks culminating in this fundamental geometric question. This note therefore provides a design approach that can be replicated in undergraduate teaching contexts based around similarly motivating mathematical phenomena.     

An explanatory,transformation geometry proof of a classic treasure-hunt problem and its generalization

This paper discusses an interesting, classic problem that provides a nice classroom investigation for dynamic geometry, and which can easily be explained (proved) with transformation geometry. The deductive explanation (proof) provides insight into why it is true, leading to an immediate generalization, thus illustrating the discovery function of logical reasoning (proof).     

Balance in complete cohomology

The balance of complete cohomology for modules that admit complete resolutions has been established by Christensen and Jorgensen (2013), as well as by Enochs, Estrada and Iacob (2012), by using two types of constructions on a given bicomplex. In this paper, we show that these constructions are closely related to each other. We also present an alternative proof of balance, which is based on the corresponding assertion for ordinary cohomology.     

A FIXED POINT APPROACH TO THE STABILITY OF A GENERALIZED APOLLONIUS TYPE QUADRATIC FUNCTIONAL EQUATION

Using the fixed point method, this article proves the Hyers-Ulam-Rassias stability of a generalized Apollonius type quadratic functional equation in Banach spaces. The conditions of these results are demonstrated by the quadratic functional equation of Apollonius type.     

Iterative Denoising

One problem in many fields is knowledge discovery in heterogeneous, high-dimensional data. As an example, in text mining an analyst often wishes to identify meaningful, implicit, and previously unknown information in an unstructured corpus. Lack of metadata and the complexities of document space make this task difficult. We describe Iterative Denoising, a methodology for knowledge discovery in large heterogeneous datasets that allows a user to visualize and to discover potentially meaningful relationships and structures. In addition, we demonstrate the features of this methodology in the analysis of a heterogeneous Science News corpus.     

Computerized proof techniques for undergraduates

The use of computer algebra systems such as Maple and Mathematica is becoming increasingly important and widespread in mathematics learning, teaching and research. In this article, we present computerized proof techniques of Gosper, Wilf–Zeilberger and Zeilberger that can be used for enhancing the teaching and learning of topics in discrete mathematics. We demonstrate by examples how one can use these computerized proof techniques to raise students' interests in the discovery and proof of mathematical identities and enhance their problem-solving skills.     

A New by the Characterization of Mobius Transformations Use of Apollonius Points of （2n-1）-gons

In this paper, we give a new characterization of Mobius transformations. To do this, we extend the notion of Apollonius points of a triangle and of a pentagon, to the notion of Apollonius points of an arbitrary （2n-1）-gon.     

Extensions to the boundary of Riemann maps on varying domains in the complex plane

We give a short proof of the convergence to the boundary of Riemann maps on varying domains. Our proof provides a uniform approach to several ad-hoc constructions that have recently appeared in the literature.     

Another Constructive Axiomatization of Euclidean Planes

H. Tietze has proved algebraically that the geometry of uniquely determined ruler and compass constructions coincides with the geometry of ruler and set square constructions. We provide a new proof of this result via new universal axiom systems for Euclidean planes of characteristic ≠ 2 in languages containing only operation symbols.     

Special-valued l-groups and Abelian covers

This paper presents a new and independent proof of the theorem (proven first by Kopytov and Gurchenkov [7] and again by Reilly [10]) that covers of the Abelian l-variety are either representable or are Scrimger covers. The proof in this paper is based upon the l-Cauchy constructions of Ball [1]; once these are applied to the problem, the proof becomes elementary.     

Proof validation and modification in secondary school geometry

Proof validation is important in school mathematics because it can provide a basis upon which to critique mathematical arguments. While there has been some previous research on proof validation, the need for studies with school students is pressing. For this paper, we focus on proof validation and modification during secondary school geometry. For that purpose, we employ Lakatos’ notion of local counterexample that rejects a specific step in a proof. By using Toulmin’s framework to analyze data from a task-based questionnaire completed by 32 ninth-grade students in a class in Japan, we identify what attempts the students made in producing local counterexamples to their proofs and modifying their proofs to deal with local counterexamples. We found that student difficulties related to producing diagrams that satisfied the condition of the set proof problem and to generating acceptable warrants for claims. The classroom use of tasks that entail student discovery of local counterexamples may help to improve students’ learning of proof and proving.     

Theorem on the alternative for a nonstationary differential encounter-evasion game : PMM vol. 42, no. 6, 1978, pp. 1123–1126

A position encounter-evasion differential game with non-stationary geometric constraints on the players' controls is analyzed. It is proved that the alternative is valid for this game, stating that either the position encounter game or the position evasion game is always solvable. The proof uses constructions analogous to the corresponding ones from [1].