21 Dec
The Significance of the Long Division
I am going to quote from a new book by Reuben Hersh and Vera John-Steiner (p. 26). Alice Schaefer (1915-2009), a US mathematician, head of the mathematics department at Wellesley College from 1962 to 1980, happened to skip from third to fourth grade. At the time her teacher said that, although she and one of her classmates were expected to do all right in the fourth grade, he doubted that the two girls would be able to do long division. Alice was indignant. She subsequently recounted that she was determined to learn long division in the fourth grade. Remarkably, the experience gave rise to her first feelings about mathematics.
References
- R. Hersh, V. John-Steiner, Loving + Hating Mathematics, Princeton University Press, 2011.
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