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

Sat Sep 16 00:01:55 UTC 2023

Hello everyone,
I'm just now catching up to this conversation, but I am a sophomore at Harvard studying applied mathematics, and the approach of having digital materials that refer to hard-copy tactile graphics has worked quite well for me. I use a windows computer with JAWS and a Focus 40 braille display to access the non-graphical digital material, which is usually in Word or HTML format, and I use tactile graphics that correspond to said materials produced by the assistive technology center on campus. I much prefer this approach to carrying around full braille books, as it is generally more efficient.
I also use Desmos, an online graphing calculator that is accessible with JAWS and that has audio tracing features that provide good representations of most single-variable functions. I hope that this perspective helps, and best of luck on your math journey!
Regards,
Campbell Rutherford

-----Original Message-----
From: BlindMath <blindmath-bounces at nfbnet.org> On Behalf Of Neil Soiffer via BlindMath
Sent: Friday, September 15, 2023 7:45 PM
To: Ray McAllister <raymcal at att.net>
Cc: Neil Soiffer <soiffer at alum.mit.edu>; Blind Math list for those interested in mathematics <blindmath at nfbnet.org>
Subject: Re: [BlindMath] I'm blind! I love math! I want to go higher than high school geometry.

That's a very good point and potentially a very good compromise. Getting graphics to emboss well has been an area of research for over a decade.
Getting the detail level right, along with keeping the braille labels from interfering with the diagram are hard, but by hand and automatically. There are interesting technologies that solve some of the problems by having a touchpad behind the graphics or having a camera mounted above them so the labels can be spoken or more information given by speech.

Perhaps David Farmer can comment on how much effort the people producing the PreTeXt books have put into making the diagrams come out well in braille.

Neil Soiffer

On Fri, Sep 15, 2023 at 2:50 PM Ray McAllister <raymcal at att.net> wrote:

> The Braille display won’t handle 2d diagrams, is the issue.  Now, 
> there is this in-between option:  Have an embossed supplement which 
> would have all the 2d diagrams, but nothing else.  And it would all be 
> labeled.  So, you read the main e-book on a Braille display, and then 
> it would say, See Figure 2-8, and then you’d open the embossed book, 
> Figure 2-8 and study it.  But the supplement would only be the diagrams.
>
>
>
> Ray.
>
>
>
>
>
> *From:* Neil Soiffer [mailto:soiffer at alum.mit.edu]
> *Sent:* Friday, September 15, 2023 5:21 PM
> *To:* Blind Math list for those interested in mathematics
> *Cc:* Ray McAllister
> *Subject:* Re: [BlindMath] I'm blind! I love math! I want to go higher 
> than high school geometry.
>
>
>
> While I'm sure having the embossed book would be great, as I'm sure 
> you know, the book would be huge. It would likely be a bit expensive to emboss.
> Your school might pay for it though.
>
>
>
> If you have a refreshable braille display, you can read the book, 
> including the math in Nemeth on the braille display. You'll get the 
> best quality Nemeth if you use NVDA with the MathCAT addon. If you are 
> a JAWS user, the current beta of JAWS includes an option to use 
> MathCAT, so you'll get more accurate Nemeth if you turn that option 
> on. Even if you don't, the Nemeth will probably be understandable even 
> if it doesn't meet the spec in some cases.
>
>
>
> Math is fun and with the work of the PreTeXt project, there is a lot 
> more that is accessible than there used to be. Good luck,
>
>
>
> Neil Soiffer
>
>
>
>
>
> On Fri, Sep 15, 2023 at 5:08 AM Ray McAllister via BlindMath < 
> blindmath at nfbnet.org> wrote:
>
> I don't find your email address anyhwhre,, but I am very good with Nemeth.
> I don't have an embosser of any type, so someone would have to emboss 
> the things and Free-Matter-for-the-Blind them to me.  My email address 
> is raymcal at att.net for private emails.
>
> Thanks,
> Ray.
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: BlindMath [mailto:blindmath-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of 
> David W.
> Farmer via BlindMath
> Sent: Friday, September 15, 2023 7:28 AM
> To: Ray McAllister via BlindMath
> Cc: David W. Farmer
> Subject: Re: [BlindMath] I'm blind! I love math! I want to go higher 
> than high school geometry.
>
>
> 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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