Numbers with Personality

I found this reading to be very thought-provoking, and really made me think about my personification with numbers. For example, I really liked the poem at the end of the reading on the number eight, as octagons are the shape of a stop sign, which has many different connotations accompanying it. It was really interesting to read this personification of the power that eight can hold, and how everyone will automatically obey her rules because of this authority that she has. 

The quote "each of the positive integers was one of his personal friends" really connected with Major's paper on Mayan numbers, as she describes the personalities and visual representations associated with the Mayan numbers. These "head variants" were described in the article as an "unnecessary tool for writing numbers", and while this may be true, I do think that this connects back to previously discussed themes of  humanity and culture in mathematics. I really like this idea of looking at numbers as more than just a numerical notation, but associating values, traits, or an identity with it. I think this approach would be specifically useful in schools, especially at the primary age, where children can associate numbers with meaning, rather than an abstract digit. I can imagine that a 6 year old child would much rather associate the number 5 as a "motherly figure" and be able to use their imagination to illustrate different connotations, rather than just thinking of it as 5. This could be very useful for learning mathematics, as the concept may seem less daunting and abstract, and may even seem "fun" for students, as they can be creative with it! For example, students could create a story with the different numbers representing different characters, and therefore will have more positivity associated with numbers when using them in more difficult applications like algebra. 

I personally have never thought about associating numbers with personality, however this prompt does remind of anniversaries and special memories being associated with dates, which I previously discussed on my blog! In terms of days of the week, I definitely think I associate personality traits with different days. For example, Mondays are personified as hard-working and organized for me, since Mondays are the first day of my week where I usually tackle a lot of school work. Fridays are personified as fun, optimistic, and happy because of the saying "TGIF" as well as it being the end of the week. Sundays are characterized as relaxing and stress free. It's interesting because I have never thought about this before, but I do make these unconscious associations with the days of the week!