Assignment 1 Reflection

The calculations involving a circle are usually very messy compared to other simple shapes such as triangles and rectangles. Going into this project, I was curious on how the ancient Egyptians calculated the area of a circle. I was surprised to see that they tried to fit the area of a circle inside a square with side lengths that was 8/9 of the circle's diameter. Looking back at my math classes, the teachers just gave me a formula with little to no explanation, just saying that it works. These experiences, along with many others, hindered my curiosity and appreciation for modern mathematics. I would have never thought to try to approximate the circle by an octagon, and especially, squaring the circle. Even though the Egyptians weren't completely correct in their methods, they were able to estimate extremely well using simple numbers and reasoning despite not knowing what pi is. Nowadays, I find that estimation and numerical reasoning is lacking among students, especially among the students that I have tutored. I hope that I will be able to incorporate the lessons that I have learned from this project to help students develop their mathematical thinking and reasoning, and develop an appreciation for modern math.

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