1. History of Mathematics Course
Delaware Valley University November 14, 2015
An Interesting Mixture: Incorporating Statistical History
into a
History of Mathematics Course
Kevin S. Robinson, PhD Millersville University of Pennsylvania

2. History of Mathematics
INVITATION TO PRESENT …
From - Ximena Catepillan, Ph.D. ­ Professor
When - Fall 2014, Spring 2015 – One Day Presentation
Course - MATH 301/603 credits 3.0
History of Mathematics
Course Description:
The progression of mathematical concepts in the context of the thought and civilization of the time, from the Babylonians to the 20th century. Focus on the contributions of the Hellenic and Alexandrian Greeks as a point of departure for the evolution of geometry, number theory, analysis and logic. Proofs of some of the great theorems. Prereq: COMM 100, ENGL 110, MATH 151 or 156 or 161 or 163, and junior status.
General Education - Perspectives Course: interdisciplinary and/or multicultural course. to apply analytical and critical thinking abilities in resolving major social, cultural, scientific/technological and/or aesthetic problems.

3. Preliminaries Readings: 1) Read Math Through The Ages
Chapter 21 what's in a game - the start of probability theory
Chapter 22 making sense of data - statistics becomes a science
2)Read 2 Articles:
Polling, Polling, Polling – November 2008 Devlin's Angle by Keith Devlin
Significance,
December 2012

4. Preliminaries Grappling: RED vs. BLUE
Does uniform color give athletes an advantage over their competitors? To investigate this question, Hill and Barton (Nature, 2005) examined the records in the 2004 Olympic Games for four combat sports: boxing, tae kwon do, Greco-Roman wrestling, and freestyle wrestling.
Competitors in these sports were randomly assigned to wear either a red or a blue uniform. The researchers investigated whether competitors wearing one color won significantly more often than those wearing the other color. They analyzed results for a total of 457 matches. The researchers found that the competitor wearing red defeated the competitor wearing blue in 248 matches, and the competitor wearing blue emerged as the winner in 209 matches. The skeptics claim this is ridiculous saying that nothing is going on - The researchers claim that something is going on …
What is the thought process of the skeptics?, What is the argument of the skeptics?
What is the thought process of the researchers?, What is the argument of the researchers?
What is/are the crucial assumption(s) for the skeptics/researchers?

5. Presentation In-class – 75 Minutes
Discuss Preliminaries … Highlight: DATA – CHANCE – UNCERTAINTY …
Demonstrations – Active, Participation … Coin (two-headed), Die (unfair), …
Motivation of DATA …
Motivation of Probability, Modeling Randomness …
Motivation of Decisions and Estimating
in the Face of Uncertainty …
Presentation of Statistical Development Timeline … (Example Slides Follow …)

6. Girolamo Cardano lived from 1501 to 1576, Italy
Cool Fact:
consulted by Leonardo da Vinci on questions of geometry
In addition to Cardano's major contributions to algebra he also made important contributions to probability, hydrodynamics, mechanics and geology. His book Liber de Ludo Aleae was published in 1663 but the book on games of chance was probably completed by 1563.
Cardano makes the first ever foray into the, until then untouched, realm of probability theory. It is the first study of things such as dice rolling, based on the premise that there are fundamental scientific principles governing the likelihood of achieving the elusive 'double six', outside of mere luck or chance.

7. Normal Distribution (1808)
Carl Friedrich Gauss
&
Pierre-Simon Laplace
A very readable article about the Normal Distribution:
Misconception:
Something is “wrong” if the distribution is non-normal ...
Often, distributions other than the normal
are more appropriate for a given set of data.
Normality is a myth; there never has, and never will be, a normal distribution.
Roy C. Geary ( )
Roy C. Geary was undoubtedly the most eminent Irish statistician and economist of the twentieth century.

8. the greatest biologist since Darwin
Sir Ronald Aylmer Fisher to English
a genius who almost single-handedly created the foundations for modern statistical science
&
the greatest biologist since Darwin
… important contributions to statistics, include the analysis of variance (ANOVA), method of maximum likelihood,
experimental design.
Cool Fact:
Fisher had poor eyesight, which made reading difficult; so he learned through listening to others read aloud to him. He started out studying mathematics (and excelling at it) but began to focus on statistics because of his interest in evolutionary theory.

9. RESOURCE – Timeline of Statistics
Download Here:

10. FOLLOW-UP ASSIGNMENT Part 1 From the timeline of statistics –
select an individual (bubble) not covered in class and create a PowerPoint slide.
Provide additional information that is not on the timeline of statistics –
be creative, be investigative, …
the PowerPoint slide (as attachment) to –
place STAT HIST in the subject line.

11. FOLLOW-UP ASSIGNMENT Part 2
Do voters make judgments about political candidates based on his/her facial appearance? Can you correctly predict the outcome of an election, more often than not, simply by choosing the candidate whose face is judged to be more competent-looking? Researchers investigated this question in a study published in Science (Todorov, Mandisodka, Goren, and Hall, 2005). Participants were shown pictures of two candidates and asked who has the more competent looking face. Researchers then predicted the winner to be the candidate whose face was judged to look more competent by most of the participants. For the 32 U.S. Senate races in 2004, this method predicted the winner correctly in 23 of them. The skeptics claim this is ridiculous that nothing is here - The researchers claim that something is here.
a) What is the thought process of the skeptics? …
b) What is the thought process of the researchers? …
Include your responses to a) and b) in your to
– place STAT HIST in the subject line.

12.
•Presentation (PowerPoint) - EPaDel MAA November 2015
•Presentation (PowerPoint) - DATA, DECISIONS, UNCERTAINTY -- A HISTORY
•Preliminaries (PDF)
•Follow-Up (PDF)
•Timeline of Statistics Information