‘Mathematics is as important as mother tongue’, says Viana

07/09/2024

How important is it to know mathematics? At the round table “Innovation in the history of mathematics and literary language”, which took place on Saturday afternoon (7) at the National Mathematics Festival (FestMat), Marcelo Viana, Director General of IMPA, argued that “knowing the discipline is as important as mastering the mother tongue”. Author of the book, “Stories of Mathematics. From counting on your fingers to Artificial Intelligence”, Viana met with Marcella Faria, biologist and author of “Natural Numbers”, to show how art and literature are full of mathematics. The conversation was mediated by journalist Carla Almeida.

“Mathematics is not just a subject you study in the classroom. Mathematics is a tool used every day all over the world to solve problems, generate wealth and development. Brazil is extremely short of professionals capable of doing this work to change the world,” Viana told the audience.

In the conversation, Marcela Faria defended the preservation of playfulness in the teaching of mathematics. “I have the impression that children are born mathematicians. Their questioning behavior in games, their ability to stimulate abstract rules – they are playful. And playfulness is very mathematical. What we need to do is keep that alive.”

During the chat, Viana also took the opportunity to defend the dissemination of science. The director-general of IMPA shared with the audience his experiences in this process of popularizing the discipline. As well as traveling to all the states giving lectures, in 2017 he began writing about mathematics in a column in Folha de S.Paulo. The decision was motivated by the Biennium of Mathematics, a law aimed at promoting the subject in the country. “I thought the column would end with the end of the biennium. But the experience was better than I imagined. As a result, writing every week became an addiction. Today I consider myself better informed in my own field.”

After so many years committed to the newspaper’s audience, Viana launched the book “Histórias da Matemática” in July this year. The book is a collection of texts published in Folha de S.Paulo, which follows a chronological order and shows the evolution of mathematics up to the present day. The book is published by Tinta da China and was successfully sold at the Travessa bookshop stand at the National Mathematics Festival, as was the book “Natural Numbers” by Marcella Faria. The event also included an autograph session.

Mathematics and computer graphics

And since math is in everything, it couldn’t be any different with computer graphics. It was up to IMPA researcher Tiago Novello, a member of Visgraf (IMPA’s Computer Graphics Laboratory), to show how mathematical concepts are fundamental to everyday digital materials, such as games and films.

In the lecture “The mathematics behind computer graphics”, he used practical examples to explain how equations, types of matrices and trigonometry concepts provide the basis for algorithms applied in films, virtual games and activities using virtual reality.

“Three-dimensional computer models are applied to animations, virtual reality models and 3D printing. Triangle mesh, or ‘triangle soup’, is the name of the tool used to represent surfaces in computer graphics and render elements,” he said.

But in addition to rendering the elements graphically, it is necessary to calculate the color of each pixel. Once again, mathematics is key to saving time and money. “The concept of matrices is applied to understand what the color of each pixel will be. As there are infinite points, it would be very expensive to do this individually,” said Novello.

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