Thursday, September 20, 2012
The hardest one that we actually tried to discuss in class was probably 'shape' (it's probably for the best that we didn't touch the hypercube). That said, it was also my favorite to discuss, simply because not everybody agreed on what a shape is supposed to look like, and so the argument went beyond phrasing and semantics.
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I thought the dispute was more over points than shapes. Was anyone unsatisfied with the definition we'd come up with?
ReplyDeleteI was actually really confused by our shape definition until Mr. Lanier explained it to me after class. The confusing part for me had to do with "a collection of points, in which there can be a path drawn between any two points", because I didn't understand that the entire shape was full of points, not just the perimeter. I hope what I'm saying makes sense...
ReplyDeleteOur definition was good because it overcame a really hard challenge, in this case, of eliminating monsters. But at least in my opinion, it was phrased in a confusing way.
William:
ReplyDeleteI think you touch on an interesting issue - the difference between a shape which has a perimeter enclosing an area, and which both the perimeter and the area are part of a shape, and a shape which has a perimeter enclosing an area but only the perimeter is part of the shape. In terms of representation, a drawing of a shape doesn't distinguish between the two.
Also, if our definition of shape isn't the clearest it can be, we should change it. But I think it is the simplest way of saying what we mean.