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IMAGE: In one of his courses, Dr. Isaac Elishakoff conducts a simple test to check the knowledge retained by his students from differential equations. It turns out that most never got...
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Credit: Florida Atlantic University
To provoke more interest and excitement for students and lecturers alike, a professor from Florida Atlantic University's College of Engineering and Computer Science is spicing up the study of complex differential mathematical equations using relevant history of algebra. In a paper published in the
Journal of Humanistic Mathematics, Isaac Elishakoff, Ph.D., provides a refreshing perspective and a special "shout out" to Stephen Colbert, comedian and host of CBS's The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. His motivation? Colbert previously referred to mathematical equations as the devil's sentences and an unnatural commingling of letters and numbers - with the worst being the quadratic equation - an infernal salad of numbers, letters and symbols.