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Ronnie Brown
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Have a look at the exhibition on knots on http://www.popmath.org.uk . I have used this and other material for talks advertised as "How mathematics gets into knots" for ages 8-80: I was then criticised for suggesting one should stop at 80!

The material I used in a recent general lecture in Kansas (see my my preprint page) on the Dirac string trick, and the related belt trick and Phillipine wine trick, and on the pentoil, can be done for any age; it is essential to involve the audience in doing the tricks, or demos. One can also do addition of knots, and analogies between knots and numbers, getting over the point that while knots and numbers are quite different, the relations between knots can be analogous to the relations between numbers. Note also that my apparatus for the Dirac String Trick was home made: two piece of board, coloured ribbon, bulldog clips to attach the ribbon (in case it gets too tangled). My pentoil was made in a science workshop from copper tubing.

In giving such a presentation to children and teachers once, a teacher came up to me afterwards and said:"That is the first time in my mathematical career that anyone has used the word "analogy" in relation to mathematics!" Thus a real concern is that there is so little discussion about mathematics, and its context.

Ronnie Brown
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