mathematics

Jorge Nuno Silva

Jorge Nuno Silva is a mathematics topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Jorge Nuno Silva rather than just read about it. In short: Jorge Nuno Silva (born 1956) is a Portuguese mathematician who taught at the University of Lisbon, starting in 1995 and retiring in 2023. His interests encompass the pedagogy of mathematics, history of mathematics, history of board games, mathematical games, and recreational mathematics.

Key takeaways

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Reference excerpt

Jorge Nuno Silva (born 1956) is a Portuguese mathematician who taught at the University of Lisbon, starting in 1995 and retiring in 2023. His interests encompass the pedagogy of mathematics, history of mathematics, history of board games, mathematical games, and recreational mathematics. He is the chief editor for Recreational Mathematics Magazine and Board Game Studies Journal.

Education In 1974, Silva completed his secondary education at the National Lyceum of Viana do Castelo. Subsequently, in 1976/77, he enrolled at the University of Lisbon School of Medicine. In 1983, he earned his Bachelor of Science degree in Pure Mathematics from the University of Lisbon Faculty of Sciences (FCUL). In 1991 he obtained a Master of Arts degree at UC Berkeley, writing Some Notes on Game Bounds under the direction of Elwyn Berlekamp. In 1994 he got a Ph.D. at the University of California, Berkeley with the dissertation, "Some Notes on the Theory of Hilbert Spaces of Analytic Functions on the Unit Disc" under doctoral advisor Donald Erik Sarason.

Teaching From 1995 until his retirement in April 2023 he was a professor at the University of Lisbon. First at the Department of Mathematics (1995-2006), and then at the Department of History and Philosophy of Science (2006-2023). He is a teacher trainer for Associação Ludus and the Portuguese Mathematical Society.

Mathematics promotion In 1998 Silva wrote Berkley Problems of Mathematics, a compendium of problems which is widely used by PhD candidates as a reference. He is president of the Ludus Association (Associação Ludus), an organization for popularizing the culture and history of mathematics. He is a member of Centro Interuniversitário de História das Ciências e da Tecnologia (CIUHCT) Silva has been involved in efforts to popularize mathematics around the world. In a 2009 interview he stated his guiding philosophy: "Mathematics is, by its very nature, the pure joy of thinking, and the same goes for board games. There is a lack of challenging activities in our Western culture. Games can close this gap; there are many interrelationships between mathematics, history, and culture." In an interview with Diário de Notícias he said, "One day a great game will be invented to teach Mathematics and the world will change." Silva is the co-founder of the Circo Matemático which, since its founding in 2011, has toured more than a dozen countries on four continents promoting the popularization of mathematics. In Portugal he has had an enormous effect on mathematics in public education and he often appears on Rádio e Televisão de Portugal (RTP) as an expert on games.

Books 1998: Berkeley Problems in Mathematics (with Paulo Ney de Souza), Springer (1998), ISBN 0387204296 1998: Some Notes on Game Bounds, Dissertation.com (1998), ISBN 1581120214 1998: Some Notes on the Theory of Hilbert Spaces of Analytic Functions of the Unit Disc, Dissertation.com (1998), ISBN 1581120230 2013: Mathematical Games, Abstract Games (with Joao Neto), Dover Puzzle Books (19201398), ISBN 0486499901 2013: O Livro de Jogos de Afonso X, o Sábio, Apenas 2013, ISBN 978-989-618-421-6 2017: Proceedings of the Board Game Studies Colloquium (2017), ISBN 1977599338 2022: As Loterias Lisbonenses (1834) de Francisco António Marques Giraldes Barba, 2a edição, Ludus 2022, ISBN 979-883-7880902 2022: Tratado da Prática de Aritmética (1519) de Gaspar Nicolas. FCG 2022 (with Pedro Freitas), ISBN 978-972-31-1646-5

Papers "Konane has infinite nim-dimension" (with Carlos Pereira dos Santos) Integers: Electronic Journal of Combinatorial Number Theory, January 2008 "On Mathematical Games", The British Journal for the History of Mathematics: Bulletin 26 (2), (2011) "Composition Operators on a Local Dirichlet Space", (with D Sarason), J. Ana. Math. 87, 433-450 Breakfast with John Horton Conway, Newsletter of the European Mathematical Society 57, September 2005, pp. 32–34. Mathematical games in Europe around the year 1000, Gerbertus, Vol I, 2010, pp. 205–217 Martin Gardner (1914-2010), Newsletter of the European Mathematical Society 79, March 2011, pp. 21–23 Mathematics of Soccer, Recreational Mathematics Magazine 1, 2014 (with Alda Carvalho and Carlos Santos) http://rmm.ludus-opuscula.org/Home/ArticleDetails/92 A very mathematical card trick, Recreational Mathematics Magazine 2, September 2014, pp. 41–52 (with Carlos Santos and Pedro Duarte) Nimbers in Partizan Games, Games of No Chance 4, R.J. Nowakowski (Ed.), MSRI Publications Series, Vol 63, 215–223, 2015 (with Carlos Santos) Allégorie de la Géométrie. A Mathematical Interpretation, Recreational Mathematics Magazine. Volume 3, Issue 5, Pages 33–45, ISSN (Online) 2182-1976, DOI: 10.1515/rmm-2016-0003, April 2016 (with Alda Carvalho and Carlos Pereira dos Santos) Measuring Drama in Goose-like Games, Board Game Studies Journal. Volume 10, Issue 1, Pages 101–119, ISSN (Online) 2183-3311, DOI: 10.1515/bgs-2016-0005, September 2016 (with João Pedro Neto) The geometer dog who did not know calculus, in The College Mathematics Journal, Vol. 48(5), November 2017 (with Alda Carvalho and Carlos Pereira dos Santos) Measuring Drama in Snakes & Ladders, in Game & Puzzle Design, vol. 3, no. 2, 2017, pp. 56–63. (with João Pedro Neto) Foundations of Digital Archæoludology, 31 May 2019 (with Cameron Browne et al.) http://arxiv.org/abs/1905.13516 Mathematical Treasure: Gaspar Nicolas’s Tratado da Prática D’arismetyca, Convergence, MAA, July 2021 Playing Symmetries. Portuguese Sidewalks, in Symmetry: Art and Science | 12th SIS-Symmetry Congress [Special Issue]. Viana, V., Nagy, D., Xavier, J., Neiva, A., Ginoulhiac, M., Mateus, L. & Varela, P. (Eds.). Symmetry: Art and Science. Porto: International Society for the Interdisciplinary Study of Symmetry, 2022. (with Carvalho, A., Santos, C., Teixeira, T.) The Recreational Problems of Tratado de Prática Darysmetica by Gaspar Nicolas, 1519, Research in History and Philosophy of Mathematics (the CSHPM 2021 volume) 2023, pp. 47–56. (with Pedro Freitas) The Loterias Lisbonenses of Francisco Giraldes Barba, in British Journal for the History of Mathematics, 2023 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/26375451.2023.2258331 (with Pedro Freitas)

References

External links Jorge Nuno Silva's home page Jorge Nuno Silva on Google Scholar Jorge Nuno Silva at the Mathematics Genealogy Project Jorge Nuno Silva at Amazon

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Jorge Nuno Silva

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Jorge Nuno Silva claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In mathematics, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Jorge Nuno Silva before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Jorge Nuno Silva ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Jorge Nuno Silva

In research: Jorge Nuno Silva appears in mathematics research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Jorge Nuno Silva in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Jorge Nuno Silva is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1956 births, 20th-century Portuguese mathematicians, 21st-century Portuguese mathematicians, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Jorge Nuno Silva outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Jorge Nuno Silva in 20 minutes

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Frequently asked questions

What is Jorge Nuno Silva in simple terms?

Why does Jorge Nuno Silva matter?

Because it connects several mathematics ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Jorge Nuno Silva?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Jorge Nuno Silva.