HP4E (was quadrays / 4D)

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kirby urner

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May 23, 2016, 10:17:47 AM5/23/16

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I summarized some of the recent stuff on 4D (its many meanings)

for readers of my Coffee Shops Network blog:

http://coffeeshopsnet.blogspot.com/2016/05/future-math.html

New yet related topic ("buckyballs"):

Background: CP4E

Back in the 1990s, Guido von Rossum was wanting to bring his

new language, Python, to a wider public and knew that would entail

writing a cross-platform REPL. A "repple" (as people say it) is a

"chat window" wherein the human types and the AI-bot responds,

not trying to pass any Turing Tests, just evaluate the humans' inputs.

In order to get a year off work to just focus on this cross-platform

tool, Guido wrote a grant proposal called Computer Programming

for Everyone, which was funded. The resulting REPL is named

IDLE, a pun on the name of Eric Idle, one of the Monty Python troupe.

Python culture is riddled with allusions to Monty Python, for which

comedy troupe it was named (by Guido), though of course the snake

meaning is inescapable.

Boosting STEM Literacy with HP4E

Guido's Computer Programming for Everyone (CP4E), the funded

IDLE-begetting proposal, was my model for HP4E, at least in the

form of the naming. "Hexapents for Everyone" was aimed at popularizing

a "disco ball" pattern that's not so much in homage to the quadrilateral

as we're used to (lat / long).

Hexagons and twelve pentagons make for a really nice "disco ball"

tiling and more acceptance of that meme into popular culture could

have some real payoffs in terms of boosting STEM literacy. For

example buckyballs are hexapents, and from buckyballs we move

to nanotubes and graphene as important topics.

What I discovered in my HP4E work was that the computer gamer

community, groomed on games such as Civilization and various

war simulations, was already very familiar with the flat hexagons

grid. Many gamers independently wrapped their minds around how

to extend such a grid to the globe, many coming to the hexapent as

a strong solution. I've been collecting some of these links and

encourage math teachers to add this meme to their inventory.

Kirby

kirby urner

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May 23, 2016, 10:25:39 AM5/23/16

to mathf...@googlegroups.com

On Mon, May 23, 2016 at 7:17 AM, kirby urner <kirby...@gmail.com> wrote:

I summarized some of the recent stuff on 4D (its many meanings)
for readers of my Coffee Shops Network blog:

http://coffeeshopsnet.blogspot.com/2016/05/future-math.html

New yet related topic ("buckyballs"):

Background: CP4E

Back in the 1990s, Guido von Rossum was wanting to bring his

Sorry, van Rossum, not von Rossum

-- he and I have crossed paths several times, must concertedly at a 2006

summit called by Mark Shuttleworth to brainstorm more about CP4E as

this might apply in the ecosystem known as South Africa (RSA on UN

charts).

Shuttleworth is sometimes called the Bill Gates of South Africa, and it's

true Mark has a lot of nice things to say about Windows, blowing the

stereotype that Linux people (Canonical is a Shuttleworth company)

are reflex-conditioned to behave in a bigoted way towards all things

Microsoft, no so.

Mark had us come to England as his guests (Alan Kay was there) for three

solid days of head banging, facilitated by a guy nicknamed "Gunner" (he

kept things moving and light).

We'd had a Math Summit in Oregon earlier (Sir Roger Penrose a keynote

speaker), and perhaps on that basis I was seen as a pivotal figure in the

curriculum-writing business? In any case, it was my privilege to be privy

to such an important pow wow.

Kirby