Abstract
This workshop provided an opportunity to experience and reflect on the ways that the devices of narrative, dialogue, drama and theatre can bring mathematical ideas and history to life in the classroom. We aimed to make the case and be inspirational too, by demonstrating theatre in action, involving as many participants as possible in the production and enactment of a short pre-scripted play, followed by discussion and feedback. The scene is set in a scribal school in ancient Egypt, with two scribes solving and recording solutions to problems based on those in the Rhind Mathematical Papyrus, dating from about 1800 BCE. In the play, the problems are related to the cultural context of the time, and the methods include multiplication and division in the Egyptian style, algebraic manipulation and the rule of false position. A narrator and a modern mathematics teacher introduce and interpret what the scribes are doing, and eight mathematicians from different ages and cultures appear in cameo, giving their names for ‘the unknown’ in equation-solving, while the narrator explains the meaning of the terms involved. The dialogue is lively and accessible, with emotions and humour, aiming to stimulate an interest in authentic contextual history of algebra as well as motivate the learning of algebra.
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Notes
- 1.
- 2.
Much of what the Egyptian scribes do in this scene is based on the contents of the Rhind Mathematical Papyrus (RMP ca. 1800 BCE), sometimes called the A’h-mose Papyrus, which is about 18 feet long and 13 inches wide. It was rolled up as a scroll, and they wrote on it with quill-pen, from right to left. More details may be found in Chapter 1 of Katz 2007 and in Chace 1979.
- 3.
The Rhind Mathematical Papyrus begins with this table, which occupies a great deal of its space. A full transcription of the table appears in Katz 2007, p. 20.
- 4.
These conventions follow standard expositions of ancient Egyptian mathematics such as given by Annette Imhausen in Katz 2007. It is optional, in any classroom presentation, to focus on the modern expressions in Slides 3 and 4 and to simplify Slides 4 and 8 by replacing the overbar transcription in \({\overline 2},~{\overline {10}},~ {\overline 4}\), with the modern \(\frac {1}{2},~\frac {1}{10},~\frac {1}{4}\).
- 5.
See Rossi 2010 for more on the way ancient Egyptian mathematics related to the material culture and activities of daily life—agriculture and food production, building and quarrying, metal-work, etc.
- 6.
This is RMP Problem 3. That they were brewery workers is my addition. It should be noted that the problems of the mathematical papyri are not always of any obvious practical use. The mathematics was motivated originally by everyday needs but evolved well beyond these; the extant texts are all school exercises for training purposes.
- 7.
Wages were in grains and shekels, but we use pennies for simplicity. See Rossi 2010 for more on measurement units.
- 8.
Egyptologists use special conventions and letters for transcribing ancient Egyptian script, although the ancient pronunciation cannot be known for certain. I have used the standard, simple word ‘Aha’, which is a reasonable guess at how they might have pronounced their word for the unknown – especially if the ‘h’ is pronounced as the Arabic ‘h ̇’. The Egyptian technical term for quantity would be written today as ah ̇a.
- 9.
Problem 26 in the RMP. The transcription is by Annette Imhausen and appears in Katz 2007, p. 26. The words in boldface are written in red ink in the original, and the words and numbers in brackets are added by me.
- 10.
This is true of most of what we would call ‘algebra’ in extant ancient Egyptian mathematical papyri. See Chapter 2 in Katz and Parshall 2014 for more on this.
References
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Acknowledgements
Thanks to the conference organizers and, in particular, to Isobel Falconer who encouraged me in many ways and assisted with the casting. Thanks also to Calum and Kate for technical help in mounting a live virtual workshop. I would like to record here my gratitude to each of the cast members for volunteering and giving time and creative energy to engage with their roles and rehearse. The four main parts were spoken by Kristín Bjarnadóttir, Moira Chas, Tony Gardiner, Adam Fletcher; and the smaller parts were spoken by Pilar Gil, Yashashwi Singhania, Troy Astarte, Maria Zack, Emma Baxter, Emmanuel Olowe, Fenny Smith and Kenneth Falconer. Thanks, also, to all workshop participants for feedback during a lively discussion.
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Hitchcock, G. (2023). Entrance into All Obscure Secrets: A Workshop on Bringing Episodes in the History of Mathematics to Life in the Classroom by Means of Theatre, Incorporating a Short Play Set in an Ancient Egyptian Scribal School. In: Zack, M., Waszek, D. (eds) Research in History and Philosophy of Mathematics. Annals of the Canadian Society for History and Philosophy of Mathematics/ Société canadienne d’histoire et de philosophie des mathématiques. Birkhäuser, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-21494-3_18
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