MATHEMATICAL IMAGINATION LAB

For primary schools

The "Mathematical imagination lab" aims to study some fascinating topics of maths, presenting them as games.
The lab has the objective of developing in students the capacity of abstraction, stimulating at the same time the ability of applying abstract concepts to concrete situations.
The proposed modules are developed in order to show as maths is a bridge between abstract and concrete worlds: the world of imaginary entities (like a straight line, a circle, etc.) and the reality. Beauty and power of maths are in its ability of putting these worlds in contact with elegance and unexpected simplicity.

Modules

In the labyrinth of logics
The precision of the logics is at a first glance solid and indisputable, but soon you find that mysterious contradictions appear, known as the "paradoxes". A trip in one of the most challenging branch of mathematics.



The infinity
Its existence was denied in ancient times, than it became a number almost like all the others. The history of infinity and the various forms in which it appears.



From Flatland to the fourth dimension
Starting from the reading of the book Flatland, we explore the meaning of the word "dimension", and we discover that we can use objects that we can not build, though if we know every geometrical detail of them.



Impossible pictures: a trip inside topology
Fascinating pictures as the ones in Escher's drawings are the starting point for a trip inside topology. Playing with strange figures and objects, like the Moebius strip that we can build with paper, we discovers that things are not as simple as we think...



Postulates and theorems: les's build our mathematics
What is an axiom? We will discover we can invent and combine them, until we will have a mathematics that has its theorems and rules... though if it can be odd.



The fascinating world of fractals
Well defined figures as circles and triangles are the characters of classic geometry... but there are some other strange inhabitants in the world of geometric objects.