• The Mathematical Education
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• v.50 no.2
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• pp.213-231
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• 2011

The purpose of this study is to analyze the 6th graders' understanding of the concepts of variable on various aspects of school algebra. For this purpose, the test of concepts of variable targeting a sixth-grade class was conducted and then two students were selected for in-depth interview. The level of mathematics achievement of the two students was not significantly different but there were differences between them in terms of understanding about the concepts of variable. The results obtained in this study are as follows: First, the students had little basic understanding of the variables and they had many cognitive difficulties with respect to the variables. Second, the students were familiar with only the symbol '${\Box}$' not the other letters nor symbols. Third, students comprehended the variable as generalizers imperfectly. Fourth, the students' skill of operations between letters was below expectations and there was the student who omitted the mathematical sign in letter expressions including the mathematical sign such as x+3. Fifth, the students lacked the ability to reason the patterns inductively and symbolize them using variables. Sixth, in connection with the variables in functional relationships, the students were more familiar with the potential and discrete variation than practical and continuous variation. On the basis of the results, this study gives several implications related to the early algebra education, especially the teaching methods of variables.

• Journal for History of Mathematics
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.151-164
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• 2015

The purpose of this paper is to develop a teaching and learning material integrated two subjects Pythagorean theorem and Fibonacci numbers. Traditionally the former subject belongs to geometry area and the latter is in algebra area. In this work we integrate these two issues and make a discovery method to generate infinitely many Pythagorean numbers by means of Fibonacci numbers. We have used this article as a teaching and learning material for a science high school and found that it is very appropriate for those students in advanced geometry and number theory courses.

• Bulletin of the Korean Mathematical Society
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• v.56 no.2
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• pp.391-397
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• 2019

In this paper, we give a simple proof of the improved Johnson bound for A(n, d), the maximum number of codewords in a binary code of length n and minimum distance d, given by Mounits, Etzion and Litsyn.

• Journal of the Korean Mathematical Society
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• v.49 no.4
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• pp.855-865
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• 2012

Recently, we have introduced a group invariant, which is related to the number of elements $x$ and $y$ of a finite group $G$ such that $x{\wedge}y=1_{G{\wedge}G}$ in the exterior square $G{\wedge}G$ of $G$. This number gives restrictions on the Schur multiplier of $G$ and, consequently, large classes of groups can be described. In the present paper we generalize the previous investigations on the topic, focusing on the number of elements of the form $h^m{\wedge}k$ of $H{\wedge}K$ such that $h^m{\wedge}k=1_{H{\wedge}K}$, where $m{\geq}1$ and $H$ and $K$ are arbitrary subgroups of $G$.

• Journal for History of Mathematics
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.1-7
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• 1998

Lee, Sang-Hyuk(1810-\ulcorner) said that Cha-Geun-Bang means algebra come from the West. In the chapter 'Che-Lyu' of the second volume of his book Cha-Geun-Bang-Mong-Gu, he gave the list of questions which could be expressed by the equation of one variable and explained the solution for them. All questions were formulated by equations of degree 2, 3, 4 which have terms on both sides of equal sign and they mostly have natural number solutions. The explanation of each question describes the procedure to make the equation in detail, but only presents the solution with few step to solve.

• Journal of the Korean Mathematical Society
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• v.39 no.1
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• pp.127-135
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• 2002

Let I be an ideal in a Gorenstein local ring A with the maximal ideal m. Then we say that I is an equimultiple good ideal in A, if I contains a reduction Q = ( $a_1$, $a_2$,ㆍㆍㆍ, $a_{s}$ ) generated by s elements in A and G(I) =(equation omitted)$_{n 0}$ $I^{n}$ / $I^{n＋1}$ of I is a Gorenstein ring with a(G(I)) = 1 - s, where s = h $t_{A}$ I and a(G(I)) denotes the a-invariant of G(I). Let $X_{A}$$^{s}$ denote the set of equimultiple good ideals I in A with h $t_{A}$ I = s, R(I) = A [It] be the Rees algebra of I, and $K_{R(I)}$ denote the canonical module of R(I). Let a I such that $I^{n＋l}$ = a $I^{n}$ for some n$\geq$0 and $\mu$$_{A}$(I)$\geq$2, where $\mu$$_{A}$(I) denotes the number of elements in a minimal system of generators of I. Assume that A/I is a Cohen-Macaulay ring. We show that the following conditions are equivalent. (1) $K_{R(I)}$(equation omitted)R(I)＋as graded R(I)-modules. (2) $I^2$ = aI and aA : I$\in$ $X^1$$_{A}$._{A}$./.

• The Mathematical Education
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• v.53 no.1
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• pp.93-110
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• 2014

Algebra deals with so general properties about number system that it is called as 'generalized arithmetic'. Observing students' activities in algebra classes, however, we can discover that recognition of the generality in algebraic proofs is not so easy. One of these difficulties seems to be caused by variables which play an important role in algebraic proofs. Many studies show that students have experienced some difficulties in recognizing the meaning and the role of variables in algebraic proofs. For example, the confusion between 2m+2n=2(m+n) and 2n+2n=4n means that students misunderstand independent/dependent variation of variables. This misunderstanding naturally has effects on understanding of the meaning of proofs. Furthermore, students also have a difficulty in making a transition from algebraic proof to numerical cases which have the same structure as the proof. This study investigates whether middle school students can recognize dependent generality and make a transition from proofs to numerical cases. The result shows that the participants of this study have a difficulty in both of them. Based on the result, this study also includes didactical implications for teaching the generality of algebraic proofs.

• Bulletin of the Korean Mathematical Society
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• v.50 no.4
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• pp.1243-1259
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• 2013

In this paper, we study the root system of rank 2 hyperbolic Kac-Moody algebras. We give some sufficient conditions for the existence of imaginary roots of square length $-2k(k{\in}\mathbb{Z}_{>0}$. We also give several relations between the integral points on the hyperbola $\mathfrak{h}$ to show that the value of the symmetric bilinear form of any two integral points depends only on the number of integral points between them. We also give some generalizations of Binet formula and Catalan's identity.

• Journal for History of Mathematics
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• v.31 no.1
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• pp.1-17
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• 2018

In this expository paper, we present an abridged report on the max-plus eigenspaces of max-plus matrices with its brief history. At the end of our work, a number of examples are presented with maple codes, and then we make a claim from the observation of these examples, which is on the euclidean dimension of the max-plus eigenspaces of strongly definite matrices.

• The Journal of Korean Institute of Communications and Information Sciences
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• v.37A no.12
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• pp.1031-1037
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• 2012

We study an algorithm that can efficiently find square roots and cube roots by modifying Tonelli-Shanks algorithm, which has an application in Number Field Sieve (NFS). The Number Field Sieve, the fastest known factoring algorithm, is a powerful tool for factoring very large integer. NFS first chooses two polynomials having common root modulo N, and it consists of the following four major steps; 1. Polynomial Selection 2. Sieving 3. Matrix 4. Square Root. The last step of NFS needs the process of square root computation in Number Field, which can be computed via square root algorithm over finite field.