### 1.1.1 Why ask the question?

I often start my lecture course with a quiz. I ask the students to shout out five famous writers, poets, classical musicians, artists and then mathematicians. When they come to the mathematicians, two things happen.

1. They rarely get five although they had no trouble with the rest
2. The ones they all get are maybe 2000 years old i.e. Euclid, Pythagoras etc.

This gives me the impression that students think of mathematics in the same way as Latin - i.e. old, archaic, set in aspic, unchangeable.

My view is different but how could one demonstrate this easily