Big History and Mathematics

One of the speakers at the Dialog Conference of the Swedish Mathematics Commission June 11,
is Fred Spier, one of the founders of the ”Big History Project”, who will tackle the problem:

• How can we form a mathematics education which inspires and creates curiosity? 

In his book BIG HISTORY and the Future of Humanity, Fred Spier gives a Short Time Line of Big History including the following highlights:

1. 3.8 - 3.5 billion years BP: Emergence of life.
2. 2 million years BP: Emergence of Homo Erectus
3. 200.000 years BP: Emergence of Home Sapiens
4. 500 years ago BP: 1st wave of globalization
5. 250 years ago BP: 2nd wave of globalization (Industrialization)
6. 60 years ago BP: 3rd wave of globalization (Informatization). 

Here the the last three steps 4 - 6 closely connect to mathematics:

• 1st wave: Clock, navigation.
• 2nd wave: Analytical Geometry and Calculus by Descartes, Leibniz and Newton
• 3rd wave: Digital electronic computer: Computational Mathematics.

Mathematics education is still steadily rooted in the paradigm of the 2nd wave, and that is the reason why mathematics education no longer inspires and creates curiosity.