Researching the Origins of Mathematics

 James Falcone, Verrazzano Class of 2020, Completed Major in Mathematics Education

            Math has always been a strong subject area for me, and it is my favorite subject. To me, the greatest feeling is seeing a complex math problem with a whole bunch of different numbers to work with and simplifying everything until it all works out.  My previous teachers and professors used to say that in order to better understand math, we must know where it originated.  Last year, I took a History of Math course and I really enjoyed the material. I decided that my Capstone project would be a brief history of how the different levels of mathematics came to be as they are today. 

When doing the research for my Capstone I was met with a plethora of different sources for each topic of math that I wrote about.  I was so overwhelmed with the sheer amount of information that I found that I had no idea where to start. For each section of my project I did research on at least 3 different websites then used the one that lined up the most with what I had learned in my History of Math course. There were points where I felt as if my head was ready to explode and I just wanted to walk away from the whole thing and never look back. 

            The early stages of my paper were hard to write about because the information that I found on them was not that interesting. It wasn’t until the Trigonometry section and the Calculus section that I thoroughly enjoyed the material.  Because of this, I found it much easier to write about these specific topics. These were also the topics that I found the most informative pictures of, and I believe that good photos can help my audience to better understand exactly what it is that I am trying to say. The diagrams and pictures that I found also helped with keeping my own thoughts on track and act as checkpoints to separate the different topics in my paper. Even though there were times that I wanted to give up and walk away from this paper, I enjoyed writing it and I am happy to say that I have finally completed writing it.  Finally, I can officially call myself a graduate of the Verrazzano Honors Program.