The Role of Sequence in the Experience of Mathematical Beauty

In this article, I analyze the aesthetic dimensions of a sequence of mathematical events found in an unusual first grade lesson in order to demonstrate how sequencing may affect an individual's experience of mathematical beauty. By approaching aesthetic as a sense or felt quality of an experience in context [16, 19], this analysis explains how sequence can affect the way mathematical objects or actions are experienced by an individual. Thus, rather than questioning whether or in what ways a set of mathematical objects are beautiful or not, this paper addresses under what conditions is the mathematics in play beautiful. It is argued that with a better understanding of the temporal dimension of mathematical beauty, educational experiences with mathematics can be designed to captivate attention and nurture interest and positive disposition by students toward mathematics.