Open AccessComputational Thinking in Mathematics and Computer Science: What Programming Does to Your Head
Author(s) -
Al Cuoco,
E. Paul Goldenberg
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
journal of humanistic mathematics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2159-8118
DOI - 10.5642/jhummath.202101.17
Subject(s) - computer science , mathematics education , point (geometry) , interpretation (philosophy) , phenomenon , computer programming , computational thinking , mathematics , epistemology , programming language , artificial intelligence , philosophy , geometry
How you think about a phenomenon certainly influences how you create a program to model it. The main point of this essay is that the influence goes both ways: creating programs influences how you think. The programs we are talking about are not just the ones we write for a computer. Programs can be implemented on a computer or with physical devices or in your mind. The implementation can bring your ideas to life. Often, though, the implementation and the ideas develop in tandem, each acting as a mirror on the other. We describe an example of how programming and mathematics come together to inform and shape our interpretation of a classical result in mathematics: Euclid's algorithm that finds the greatest common divisor of two integers.