Search arXiv⌕ Search
Home/Archive/arXiv

arXiv · 0706.3342

The Forgotten Night: The Number Devil Explores Spherical Geometry

Marissa L. Weichman
View original source ↗Read source document ↗Export metadata ↓

Abstract

This is a missing chapter from Hans Magnus Enzensberger's mathematical adventure The Number Devil (Henry Holt and Company, New York, 1997). In the book, a math-hating boy named Robert is visited in his dreams by the clever Number Devil, who teaches him to love all things numerical. However, we all forget our dreams from time to time. Here is one adventure that Enzensberger overlooked, where the Number Devil introduces Robert to geometry not-of-Euclid, great circles, parallel transport, the pendulum of Foucault, and the genius of Euler.

Explore related subjects

math.HOphysics.ed-ph

Keep this discovery

Explore connections, maps & timelines

BibTeXRIS

Marissa L. Weichman. 2007-06-22. The Forgotten Night: The Number Devil Explores Spherical Geometry. https://arxiv.org/abs/0706.3342

Cite the original work for its findings. Save a collection to share your selection of sources.

KEEP EXPLORING

Related papers

arXiv2026

From a Student's Question to the Half-Derivative: A Constructivist Teaching Model - Part I

This paper presents a conceptual, cognitive-constructivist model for teaching the half-derivative. The model starts from a student's question and frames it as the problem of generalizing the familiar operation of differentiation. On a suitably chosen space of monomials, under the assumptions of linearity and of lowering the exponent by one half, the requirement that the operator applied twice give the ordinary derivative produces a recurrence for the coefficients. The freedom of normalization becomes visible, and an additional convention yields a formula compatible with the monomial rule of the Riemann-Liouville half-derivative. The domain of the operator and its relation to the Riemann-Liouville and Caputo operators are treated separately. The mathematical results rest on the author's earlier preprints; the contribution of this paper is their transformation into an instructional pathway organized in phases, with diagnostic questions, an analysis of typical errors, and comparative problems. The model is a design proposal: its effectiveness has not yet been established by systematic empirical research. The interactive Socratic implementation and the detailed diagnostics are the subject of Part II.

math.HO↗
arXiv2026

The grounded spirituality of mathematics

We propose that mathematics is done largely as a means of both coping with and celebrating our physicality in the natural world. Inspired by David Abram's "Becoming Animal", we suggest that -- in opposition to the popular image of an otherworldy Platonic realm-- the spiritual component of doing mathematics is grounded on and in the Earth. We explore this as a means of questioning the widespread adoption of AI in the workflows of research mathematics.

math.HO↗
arXiv2026

An oral history of FPSAC

As its 40th anniversary nears, we present a history of the International Conference on Formal Power Series and Algebraic Combinatorics (FPSAC), through interviews with figures from its past, present, and future.

math.HO↗