Mathematics teachers are sometimes strange fellows. Imagine what it would be like to have a teacher who dances a little strangely and has conversations with someone who doesn't exist, "like" a rag doll? It seems even stranger. Or maybe not. Maybe the teacher in question is just a “fantastic citizen”. This is how professor Régis Varão, from the Institute of Mathematics, Statistics and Scientific Computing (Imecc) at Unicamp, addresses the channel's viewers “Fantastic Mathematical World”, which he recently released on the platform. On the channel, Varão publishes videos produced by him, which seek to bring people closer to the experience of mathematics.
Researcher in the area of Dynamic Systems and Ergodic Theory, graduated from Unicamp, master and doctor from the National Institute of Pure and Applied Mathematics, (IMPA) and post-doctorate from the University of São Paulo and the University of Chicago, Varão is averse to the stereotype of very closed and serious university professor, bordering on inaccessible. Wearing shorts, a t-shirt and sneakers, young and playful, he can be seen playing the guitar or performing a very “different” Spanish dance on YouTube. (look here video recorded at a flamenco dance event as part of the institute's anniversary celebration).
On the mathematics channel he talks to an imaginary production and interacts with the mascot Joaquim. Does it seem like a joke? But far from it. Varão only put the channel on air after the idea had matured a lot. He learned to edit and record on his own, improvising a studio at home, with his cell phone positioned on a ladder. He thought carefully about the themes, which are content for students from high school onwards, or even university students, since there are already channels focused on video classes or basic mathematics.
“These are advanced topics, to promote mathematics in the university environment”, he states. In one of the videos Varão comments on the possibility of a right-handed person becoming left-handed depending on the geometry of the universe. Another video deals with another subject that also seems impossible, but not from a mathematical point of view, which is dividing a ball into some pieces and, using only these pieces, building two balls identical to the first.
“I would like people to watch the videos and feel closer to mathematics, which is the science that is least represented in publicity. Mathematics seems very abstract and is even, in some sense, a game of abstraction. In other senses, no,” she comments. The channel was published on the Imecc website and also by the Brazilian Mathematics Society and has been growing. In one month, there are already around a thousand subscribers and around 9 thousand views. Some videos already have more than two thousand views.
Video about splitting a ball:
