Sinclair Posted June 28, 2017 Report Share Posted June 28, 2017 Hi Guys, I'm having trouble choosing a topic for my Math HL IA. I'm currently considering Graham's number, Euler's Identity, and time travel and the speed of light, ideas I got from this site https://ibmathsresources.com/maths-ia-maths-exploration-topics/ I'd like to know if any of these ideas would be suitable for my IA, or if not then any possible suggestions Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ABKor752 Posted June 28, 2017 Report Share Posted June 28, 2017 These seem like perfectly fine ideas for a Math IA, provided that you expand them adequately in a 6-12 page essay. The first two ideas seem to be about abstract math, which I am a bit unfamiliar with in terms of how to write a Math IA. Regardless, the IA is all about EXPLORATION. The IB wants to see you take an idea, explore what is interesting about it, and show how engaged you are with the topic. I guess, for example, you could take Euler's Identity and possibly prove it (but that requires a bit of higher maths and information from the calculus option), but you do not have to prove it. Instead, you could take it and perhaps change some of the variables in the left-hand side of the equation ei(pi)+1 and see how that changes the outcome, make a table/graph of the results on the right-hand side of the change, and try to model it with a suitable graph. That is just an idea, but I hope you get the point. Take an idea, and find a way to engage with it through exploration. It should also be noted that a very common thing to do in Math IA's is modelling, where you try to find a best-fit model for some data, which is what I just showed in the last example. Not sure if that helped, but I still wish you luck as you write your IA! 1 Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
kw0573 Posted June 28, 2017 Report Share Posted June 28, 2017 3 hours ago, ABKor752 said: It should also be noted that a very common thing to do in Math IA's is modelling, where you try to find a best-fit model for some data, which is what I just showed in the last example. Best fit modelling by itself is insufficient for HL IA. Good IA topics should link multiple disciplines of math (eg vectors and trig) and in the topics you have mentioned, it is easiest with euler's identity. 1 Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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