What is Mathematics? and What is Mathematical Thinking?
Mathematics is actually one of my favorite subject since I was in Elementary School. At that time, I just thought that it was an easy subject comparing to others subjects. Why I can said this? Because I just didn’t really like other subjects that related to memorizing things. I cannot memorize much things because it will disappear after that. Memorizing was my weakness. So the only subject that no need memorizing process is only mathematics. I really like the thinking way of mathematics because once I understand the concept, I can use it in many problems. So, it can save my energy. Another reason why I like mathematics is because when I met a math problem, I can develop my creativity to solve that problem. I can use many ways, not only one way, to solve math problem. Mostly I use visualization by looking and drawing some pictures related to the problem. Those are just my simple thinking about mathematics when I was a child.
According to Reys, et all. (2009), Mathematics is a study of patterns and relationship. Looking at the patterns of Fibonacci numbers, the beauty of mathematics is appeared inside it. Starting from 1,1,2,3,5,8,… and so on, the Fibonacci number exist in nature. For example is the number of seeds in the central of the sunflower. The number twenty one of seeds will be seen, then looking further running clockwise there is a thirty four number of seeds. This appropriate with the pattern of the Fibonacci sequence. This will be seen if we look at the pattern , we will see the beauty math of it. So, Mathematics is about pattern, how we can think by looking at the pattern and relating that to others condition that is related.
