Nov 17 - Dancing Euclidean Proofs

First stop: "Euclid's proofs(and geometric proofs in general) are visual in nature, and these visualizations can be embodied through artistic representation in one way or another(as drawings, sculptures, paintings, textile arts—and as artistic performances,including dance." I think this is amazing. It reminded me of  Sir Ken Robinson's TED talk on whether schools kill creativity: https://www.ted.com/talks/sir_ken_robinson_do_schools_kill_creativity?language=en . He mentions people have to move to think, and talks about dancing as something we must all do. What a great way to incorporate this idea and mathematics.

Second stop: "asking  ourselves  questions  such  as What  is  most  beautiful?  What  makes  the  proof  most  clear?  What  is practical?" This seems like a good way to get students to think outside the box. Sometimes we are stuck in the abstract world of math and drawn figures. Asking questions like these seems to be a new way of abstracting what is important, and more so what is "clear".

Third stop: "While  dancing  the  proofs adds a temporal dimension to Euclid’s original representation, the positionality of the dancers and audience(in the same plane)involves some loss of the third spatial dimension." This is so interesting I have no words to describe it. It is part of the above idea of thinking outside of the box. When we add other dimensions we see things from a completely new point of view which can aid in many things, especially when we are stuck working on a problem. About the idea of showing them to a live audience, maybe a simple mirror could work?