Stirling Anna Krisztina and Szörényi Sára at the MIDK2024 conference

Nowadays, calculators have largely replaced mental calculations. In education, this phenomenon has presented opportunities to pose new problems, but it has also led to students relying on calculators to the point that the only numbers they comprehend are the same as the ones calculators show them: finite decimal fractions with 10-12 digits. The exact values of irrational numbers are difficult to represent in a way that students can easily understand. If we want to assign meaning to abstract symbols representing irrational numbers, it is useful to turn to geometry. In our presentation, we will demonstrate some common difficulties surrounding irrational numbers, some advantages and disadvantages of using calculators, and problems and geometric constructions representing irrational numbers.