The first speaker in this year’s upcoming Kennedy Lecture Series will be Dr. Keith Devlin, of Stanford University, to debate technological revolutions.
The well-known professor, mathematician and co-founder of educational video game company InnerTube Games will speak to Ohio University students about his studies regarding the striking similarities of two technological revolutions which occurred centuries apart.
Entitled “Leonardo and Steve,” the lecture will compare the lives of Leonardo Fibonacci, a 13th century man famous for spreading modern arithmetic throughout Europe, to Steve Jobs and his technological boom, which originated in Silicon Valley during the 1980s. In Devlin’s mind the similarities are uncanny, “almost as if Steve Jobs were a reincarnation of Leonardo,” he said.
The main concept of both Fibonacci and Jobs’s work, making mathematics technology accessible to the masses, has inspired Devlin’s work as well. According to his personal website, his current work focuses on “the use of different media to teach and communicate mathematics to diverse audiences.”
Devlin’s company, InnerTube Games, teaches mathematics through the medium of games and music, thus simplifying the learning process and making arithmetic accessible to those who would otherwise become confused by traditional methods of learning. As Devlin points out, mathematic symbols can get in the way of learning by over complicating matters. He suggests that students “play arithmetic” and learn by experience instead. In this way, he suggests that students can learn quickly, efficiently, and painlessly.
If You Go:
WHAT: Kennedy Lecture Series: Dr. Keith Devlin
WHEN: Nov. 12, 7:30 p.m.
WHERE: Templeton Blackburn Alumni Memorial Auditorium
ADMISSION: Free
