I have created a video to show anyone (including, say, a fifth grader) how to fold what I call a "delta sailboat", an easily folded origami model I designed.
I am working on a project to develop a sculptural and three-dimensional language for talking about fundamental concepts in calculus. I want to use this visual language to draw attention to some of the remarkably beautiful ideas at the heart of calculus. My work focuses on Leibniz's groundbreaking paper, which he published in 1684, and which introduced a new method for finding the slope of a tangent. (Knowing the slope of a tangent enables one to perform many very powerful feats in mathematics. With it one becomes a lion tamer.) My video allows almost anyone (including a fifth grader) to work with a key concept of calculus, the concept of the differential. The folder is able to deploy differentials usefully without knowing what the word "differential" means. The folder need not know the jargon of calculus (such as being able to say what "dy/dx" means) or have the related mathematical skills. Please share with me any reactions you might have to this video--positive, negative, critical, or just perplexed. The video has two parts. Part 1 (an introduction--under 5 minutes): https://youtu.be/AWBRlBhW1nc?feature=shared Part 2 (step-by step instructions--under 15 minutes): https://youtu.be/U4ALJIQPSOo?si=EstPw_tB1T4w7oKd Happy folding! Cliff Cliff Landesman, PhD https://visit.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/event/locke-unlocked
