*educational content may be downloaded at the bottom of this page.
Educational problem
At school students are taught Mathematics to solve well defined problems. They
perceive Mathematics as safe since once the sample problem is taught during the
lecture, all similar problems are solvable in the same manner. However, Mathematics
are also about research. There are unsolved mathematical problems and some of them
are related with everyday life. Among those problems, there is one that can be easily
posed to mid/high school students: the “traveler problem”. In this case, the space
traveler problem
The “space traveler problem” is a classic optimization problem; students are asked to
visit many planetary systems and they have to define the optimal path: the shortest one.
In order to do that, they'd have to compute all the possible paths and select the best.
This would require enumerating all possible permutations. They will find out that this is
easy to do but takes a lot of time (!). In fact, it may take such a long time that the
problems could not be solved. Then, the concept of heuristic algorithms defined to find
good solutions for problems that cannot be solved exactly is naturally introduced. The
objective of this scenario is to familiarize students with mathematical research.
Educational scenario objectives
During this scenario, students will:
1. learn about the main planes used as reference for astrography: the equator and the
galactic plane.
2. learn the actual location of planetary systems in Space, whether they are clustered or
not.
3. learn about measuring distances and transforming between Cartesian and spherical
coordinates.
4. learn about the “space traveler problem” and some simple heuristics to find good
solutions. In this manner, they are introduced in concepts like artificial intelligence.
Download the PDF complete version by clicking on the following link: » educational_scenario_stelar_traveller_heuristics.pdf
This educational content uses the following app: «The Solar System as a MathLab» developed by Universidad Complutense de Madrid /AEGORA.
Educational content developed by Universidad Complutense de Madrid (HOU-España/AEGORA).
Validated by Discover the Cosmos + Space travel – the distances to planetary system and travel planning
Last update | 20/06/2013