This post is part of my coverage of the Science Online 2010 conference.

Maria Droujkova and Blake Stacey hosted this small session on tools for visualizing mathematics and building an online mathematics community. Stacey started off by dazzling us with Greg Egan’s Light Mill applet, which provides a two-dimensional simulation of a Crookes Radiometer, one of those light bulb-like objects with a fan inside that spins when placed in sunlight (I also learned they spin backwards when placed in the refrigerator). The simulation shows the movement of atoms driving the turning of the fan blades.

Greg Egan’s Light Mill Applet
Credit:

Then Stacey demonstrated a python script he wrote in 15 minutes to simulate the Moon’s orbit around the Earth to scale using VPython (I’ve been fiddling with the processing java framework for similar apps). While such simulations are simple and can’t compete with video games, Droujkova made the insightful observation that when you are the programmer, capable of tweeking the variables and logic within your simulation, the simple program becomes far more engaging and enlightening.

Droujkova pulled up a Theory of Change mind map she had worked on, illustrating how a network of people interested in mathematics in local areas can affect big change.

Theory of Change
(Click to Enlarge)
Credit: Maria Droujkova

In it, she identifies five communities of math enthusiasts, of which I would consider myself in the “Humanistic” category:

1. Executable mathematics: mathematics you interact with, an abacus, logarithmic ruler, rubics cube, mathematical objects become social objects that people can play with and interact with, Google Analytics, (My own recent examples: Daqarta Audio analyzer and Eureqa Data inference program) GraphJam
2. Psychology of mathematics: covers math anxieties, values of mathematical sophistication (precision, logical arguments), meta-cognitive skills (problem solving),
3. Mathematical Authoring: science fairs, competitions, there is nothing for students to demonstrate mathematics until graduate school, give kids an opportunity to build their own math objects (The Government 2.0 session mentioned President Obama bringing winners of science fairs to the Whitehouse)
4. Humanistic Mathematics: make mathematics a spectator sport, demonstrate the beauty of mathematics in art, music, spectator sport, stories, youtube, illusions
5. Community Mathematics: compared to science mathematics has no online coverage, math 2.0, networks, social objects, (Google Android’s Maths Workout combines social networking with math challenges and Arthur Benjamin, the Mathemagician)

Droujkova pointed out that, if you think there’s a lack of public interest in science online, think of how it feels to be in mathematics. She has set up a math interest group in order to organize people with diverse interests in mathematics and foster an ongoing dialogue.

Additional:

See the wiki for this session, which has links to additional resources.

You can see a PDF of my raw notes from this session here.