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

Fri Sep 15 18:51:16 UTC 2023

On 9/15/23, Janet Tabora <janetctabora at gmail.com> wrote:
> 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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>>> www.avast.com
>>>
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>>
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>