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'Infinity' forum melds mathematics and philosophy
The Advocate
The Dead Mathematicians’ Society is trying to help students figure out how to connect math with the rest of their life — and it appears that Wednesday’s presentation on infinity hit the mark.
The “Infinity” discussion forum attracted about 180 students, a surprising number according to one of the event coordinators, philosophy/religion instructor Andy Gurevich.
“The goal is to keep the life of the campus strong with student activity,” said Gurevich. “Getting students more involved allows the college as an institution to remain strong.
From a learning perspective, we intended to do that, but we also wanted to make sure students were able to apply what they learn to their every day lives.”
The event also featured math instructor Jon Spindor and, according to Gurevich, the two instructors wanted to find ways to combine philosophy, religion and math. The idea of infinity was one they were able to cultivate into reality, Gurevich said.
“A lot of people don’t know how to intertwine math into their lives,” said Gurevich. “So one of the things we wanted to do was give people who come to learn ideas of how other disciplines are applicable toward every day life . . . the mathematic basis of philosophy, and the philosophical basis of mathematics.”
This is not the first such forum that went successfully, Gurevich said, as he and Spindor created a similar forum last spring about the concept of “zero.”
“‘Zero’ went really well last year,” Gurevich said.
“These get-togethers are really great because it gets both the math and humanities departments working together to enhance the student experience.”
Gurevich said the “Zero” forum went so well that he and Spindor were thinking of making it the subject of their next discussion forum, which will be held winter term.
“We’d like to do one every term,” said Gurevich. “Other ideas we had were ‘entropy’ and ‘paradox.’ I think those would be fun.”
Gurevich said the discussions are done in such a way to engage students in a “collaboration that doesn’t necessarily have a definite ending.”
“It’s important to test the limits of human knowledge,” said Gurevich.
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