[BlindMath] I'm blind! I love math! I want to go higher than high school geometry.

[Janet Tabora]

Hi everyone, I know this might be off topic to what this conversation
is about on this tread. However, I have similar
questions regarding learning higher math on my own and where I can get
resources that are screen reader friendly. I know both nemeth code and
UEB.I will be taking College math and higher math courses in the
following semesters at my community College and that is why I want to
learn
them ahead of time. Thank you all so much!
My best Janet.
On 9/15/23, David W. Farmer via BlindMath <blindmath at nfbnet.org> wrote:
>
> Dear Ray,
>
> The PreTeXt protect, specifically David Austin and Rob Beezer,
> is currently working on an accessible version of the book
> Active Prelude to Calculus.  This includes Nemeth braille and
> accessible diagrams, with the diagrams having both a tactile
> representation and a description with words.
>
> The level of the mathematics seems appropriate for you, and I am
> sure they would be happy to have you as a proofreader.  You did
> not mention whether you can read Nemeth.  I am not sure what type
> of embosser these diagrams require.
>
> If you email me off-group, the four of us can talk about how
> to proceed.
>
> Regards,
>
> David
>
>
> On Fri, 15 Sep 2023, Ray McAllister via BlindMath wrote:
>
>> Hi, I'm totally blind, and have loved math and been good at math since my
>> father started teaching me when I was 3 and 4 years old.  I could do
>> long-hand division problems in my head at age 6.  I won math competitions
>> in
>> high school.  One day, bored, in church, in high school, I figured out,
>> in
>> my head, how to find the 5 5th roots of a number, using intuition,
>> completing the square, and the quadratic formula to break x^5 = y^5 down.
>> Last year, when I had Covid, I wanted to make sure nothing was happening
>> to
>> my brain, so I started playing with magic square patterns, with inner
>> magic
>> squares, a border square, basically.  I got up to 10x10 on my own, and
>> then
>> wrote a computer program to take it up to 1000x1000 which means that I
>> have
>> this Excel spread sheet here with a list of numbers from 1 to 1 million
>> that
>> is a magic square, all rows, columns, and diagonals adding up to the same
>> number, with about 40,000 smaller magic squares inside it.
>>     My path has been rather weird.  While I'm as good at math as many
>> people are socially, soecially, I'm as dyslexic as most people seem to be
>> with math.  Since higher math wasn't as accessible, as my small high
>> school
>> didn't offer trig and precalculus, and things weren't as accessible, I
>> ended
>> up following another passion, ministry, and ultimately got a pH.D. in Old
>> Testament, helping code advanced Hebrew symbols into Braille, which I was
>> part of the team that won the 2016 Bolotin award from the NFB.  Well, my
>> Ph.D. is getting me nowhere now, and my mind, at 48, is beginning to turn
>> toward math again, if anything, for a hobby.  I was able to go onto Khan
>> Academy and go through Trig, and while I can't see the diagrams, I was
>> able
>> to figure out a number of proofs in my head.  I've had to get my student
>> loans forgiven, so I'm not allowed to take out any more federal loans, and
>> I
>> wouldn't anyway for any more training.  I'm still wondering what kind of
>> path there could be for me in math, for fun, career, whatever.  I can't
>> afford any of those fancy graphical embossers.  I'd love to go at least
>> through Calculus, somehow.  I just work so naturally with numbers.  I
>> feel
>> so held back by the world that just never seems to move fast enough for
>> me,
>> if anyone out there understands.
>>
>> I have, though, been thinking of a way higher math, at least, at times,
>> could be described in text for someone who is blind and doesn't have all
>> the
>> fancy equipment.  Sy lrsdy, for trig, has anyone played around the
>> Cartesian
>> coordinate plane?  If you don't know how that works by the time you reach
>> trig, you're in a lot more trouble than missing triangle images.
>> Basically,
>> you could say,  We have a triangle, point A is on the origin.  Point B is
>> at
>> (4, 0) and point C is at (1, 7).  Segment a is the line hooking points B
>> and
>> C.  Segment b hooks points A and C.  Segment c hooks points A and B.  You
>> can do all kinds of things with this, including run a line segment d down
>> from point C, straight vertically to the X axis to split this into 2
>> right
>> triangles.  You can, then, write out proofs for things, and the blind
>> reader
>> need only remember this diagram.  I wrote out a proof for the Law of
>> Sines
>> using this system, and a couple more points and line segments I had to
>> come
>> u pwith on Line c. I haven't found any place with Braille books on this
>> stuff I can access.  Of course, if someone's special ed office hired a
>> transcriber to transcribe a math book, has anyone thought of finishing
>> the
>> job and getting it in the National Library Service once the blind student
>> is
>> done with the material?
>>
>> I welcome discussion on this.
>>
>> Write soon,
>> Ray McAllister.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
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>>
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