Joseph Mazur— Mathematics
Learning mathematics at Marlboro is learning to spot the reflections
of one course in another, Joe Mazur maintains. "One finds that a
mathematical form that represents competition in an ecology course is
often the same one that represents a chemical reaction or a knight's move
on a chess board."
Joe likes to tell his students that the notice over Plato's academy -- "Let no one unversed in geometry enter these doors" -- was not some whimsical administrator's plan for a balanced curriculum but an example of the early understanding that mathematics and knowledge are inseparable. It is no accident, he says, that in Aristotle's time the word mathematics meant "any subject worthy of knowledge." This revelation often surprises students. But according to Joe's vision of mathematics, it is no surprise. "Mathematics does not exist only to serve science as a language," he claims. "The fact is, mathematics was an integral part of life. Today, too, it pervades everything."
To find our more about Joe's recent research, see his personal web page at http://members.authorsguild.net/mazur/
B.S., Pratt Institute, 1967; Ph.D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1972; Marlboro College, 1972 -