Not having even a basic level of mathematical literacy is a huge disadvantage in today's world, in a way that not knowing beans about art or music could never be.
I don't know what he teaches or how he does it or what he's on, but in my case that's just blatantly false. Our teachers love shoving complex stuff in our face just for the pleasure of watching us tirelessly trying to solve the problems.
But I still hate maths "as-is".
QuoteI don't know what he teaches or how he does it or what he's on, but in my case that's just blatantly false. Our teachers love shoving complex stuff in our face just for the pleasure of watching us tirelessly trying to solve the problems.
Grade school math teachers are rarely mathematicians. He's referring to professors and other researchers, although if you only deal with them through classes, they aren't going to be much better either.
I do understand and somewhat agree with you, but there are far too many people who don't even get the elementary-level stuff down. If you've ever walked into a store where the cash registers weren't working (and sometimes even when they are), you've probably experienced it in vivid detail. At least it gives the rest of us something to laugh at. :pQuoteNot having even a basic level of mathematical literacy is a huge disadvantage in today's world, in a way that not knowing beans about art or music could never be.
Is it really? In scientific or engineering professions, sure, but most people will rarely encounter anything beyond elementary school stuff in real life. He is quite right on that point. And I say that as someone who does applied math. :p
Then again, who said I was speaking about grade school? :P
If you've ever walked into a store where the cash registers weren't working (and sometimes even when they are), you've probably experienced it in vivid detail. At least it gives the rest of us something to laugh at.
"Mathematicians enjoy thinking about the simplest possible things, and the simplest possible things are imaginary."
"Mathematicians enjoy thinking about the simplest possible things, and the simplest possible things are imaginary."
I'm sorry, I prefer my "imaginary" 7'2" tall about 250 lbs lean with lavender skin, long ears projecting about 10 inches behind the head with 'huge tracts of land'.
"Mathematicians enjoy thinking about the simplest possible things, and the simplest possible things are imaginary."
I'm sorry, I prefer my "imaginary" 7'2" tall about 250 lbs lean with lavender skin, long ears projecting about 10 inches behind the head with 'huge tracts of land'.
.....the f*ck?
And I was like, without physics, what is the POINT of math???
As it stands, you don't encounter much in the way of genuinely interesting math until the graduate level (so most people never see it at all), but that is really an issue with the way the math education system is structured.
I disagree. There is some very basic and beautiful math way before you hit that level.
I had the good fortune to like playing with numbers when I was younger and participating in many math olympiads. To me, that method of learning math was very satisfying, even more so, since many problems were rehashed to be solved with a completely different path of thought and assumed knowledge in latter years.
Once I hit graduate level, there were lot of new interesting subjects, but the time required to play with them was too short unfortunately to have a sort of native understanding of them.
Okay, let's make it even simpler. Think about the cashier who looks at you with an utterly clueless look on their face when you hand them a $20 bill and a quarter for a $15.25 charge. :pQuoteIf you've ever walked into a store where the cash registers weren't working (and sometimes even when they are), you've probably experienced it in vivid detail. At least it gives the rest of us something to laugh at.
That isn't exactly a typical example, and even then nobody would want to sit there and add numbers together. I certainly wouldn't do it. :p
Okay, let's make it even simpler. Think about the cashier who looks at you with an utterly clueless look on their face when you hand them a $20 bill and a quarter for a $15.25 charge.
For anyone looking for more discussion on this, a Google search turned up some interesting back-and-forth in the comments of this blog post.
You know, it might be that it's never been presented right, but I'm going to sit here right now and tell you that despite all your lamenting on how the material is taught. Kids hate math because IT IS boring. I'm 31 years old and am more scared of an algebra(nevermind calculus!) class than I would be walking down a side street in Brooklyn or Harlem wearing a swastika. I get lost when they try and teach me how to factor an equation to solve it, and they can't wait for me to get it because there's 29 other people in the class that do get it, so I get left behind and that's that. The highest grade I ever made in a math class was a C, and that was a geometry class where I could use a little imagination to think of the problem in real, concrete terms.
I'll reiterate, kids don't hate math because it's presented boringly, kids hate math because IT IS BORING.
I think I can tell if something is boring or not, initmate knowledge is not always required to make that determination.
Math *is* purely utilitarian. Math only exists because it is needed to help us understand the universe.
Math *is* purely utilitarian. Math only exists because it is needed to help us understand the universe.
Answer me a question that my sandbag of a peabrain can comprehend.
What good does math for it's own sake accomplish?
Art(real art such as statues, paintings, music, ect) is made because it appeals to human sensibilities of beauty and emotion.
Math on it's own is a bunch of numbers on a page with no meaning unless it's in service to another discipline.
I think something becomes an art when the person doing it imbues the process with the aesthetic sense that drew them to the pursuit in the first place. Art is not a category of particular human endeavors; it is a way of engaging with our world. Nothing is an art in and of itself, but just about anything a person does can be an art.
Answer me a question that my sandbag of a peabrain can comprehend.
What good does math for it's own sake accomplish?
Art(real art such as statues, paintings, music, ect) is made because it appeals to human sensibilities of beauty and emotion.
Math on it's own is a bunch of numbers on a page with no meaning unless it's in service to another discipline.
I wish that didn't sound so snobby...Every mathematician I've ever met is floored by the idea that I don't get it. Odds are I can't get it.
... My God, that's Maths?Oh my God. My head just ****ing exploded.
Math on it's own is a bunch of numbers on a page with no meaning unless it's in service to another discipline.Someone didn't like High School maths huh? ;)
Art(real art such as statues, paintings, music, ect) is made because it appeals to human sensibilities of beauty and emotion.
Math on it's own is a bunch of numbers on a page with no meaning unless it's in service to another discipline.
Someone didn't like High School maths huh? ;)I think I established that when I said the best grade I ever made in a math class was a C.
Let's straighten our terminology a bit, shall we, "truth" is a subjective(oft times collective) mental construct that may or may not coincide with "fact" which is something that is empirically demonstrable. Mathematics falls into the second far more securely that it does the first. So, please, for the lone dummy in the audience, keep it straight.
... because it can be proven or disproven purely through its own postulates.This coming from a guy who rags on religion.
I am insulted by the idiotic claims in this thread that Math is not an art and cannot be an art. Math is what makes every single CGI-anything possible in the first place. Pixel shaders is the art of using various mathematical equations to produce an artistic output. Saying that math is the opposite of art is like sticking your fingers in your ears and screaming LALALALALALALA I CAN'T HEAR YOU.The thing is, that's an example of mathematics being used to produce artwork, not mathematics as artwork in and of itself. :p
But then you guys do that anyway.
Well, one doesn't need to be a mathematician to be able to admire and enjoy its abstract aesthetics. Definitely an art :)I am insulted by the idiotic claims in this thread that Math is not an art and cannot be an art. Math is what makes every single CGI-anything possible in the first place. Pixel shaders is the art of using various mathematical equations to produce an artistic output. Saying that math is the opposite of art is like sticking your fingers in your ears and screaming LALALALALALALA I CAN'T HEAR YOU.The thing is, that's an example of mathematics being used to produce artwork, not mathematics as artwork in and of itself. :p
But then you guys do that anyway.
what we really need is to invent prettier numbers and require all math to be done in awesome arabic-style calligraphy.
Well, one doesn't need to be a mathematician to be able to admire and enjoy its abstract aesthetics. Definitely an art :)
Well, one doesn't need to be a mathematician to be able to admire and enjoy its abstract aesthetics. Definitely an art :)
Umm, yeah you do... :doubt:
Several of us in this thread who are not mathematicians have already expressed our admiration for the aesthetics of math. So, no, you don't.
I still want to know how life has improved by Mathematics as a product of it's own existence, not in the use of some other discipline such as chemistry, physics or engineering.
You could take a dump on a blank piece of paper, use it to write some equations and then claim it's a break through in modern mathematics. Nobody would know the difference for weeks or months or years if they're sufficiently complex and by that time you are in some tropical paradise sipping pina coladas and banging the check in clerk.
Knowledge for it's own sake is a Red Herring perpetrated primarily by researchers who want the fat grants and cushy lifestyles with no expectation of output. You could take a dump on a blank piece of paper, use it to write some equations and then claim it's a break through in modern mathematics. Nobody would know the difference for weeks or months or years if they're sufficiently complex and by that time you are in some tropical paradise sipping pina coladas and banging the check in clerk.You wouldn't know. Other academics with expertise in that or a similar area of mathematics could fairly easily go through the working and find holes in the reasoning if they're there. Not that they would get paid on a per paper basis.
In case you can't tell, I'm not a big fan of "science" that doesn't have some kind of usable output that I can comprehend. Pure math belongs on the shelf and the pointy heads who practice it should be put to work on a physics or chemistry problem so they can actually benefit someone other than themselves.Are you aware as to how much theoretical knowledge goes into technological advances?
When hunger and thirst stop being in the top 3 reasons that people go to war, then I might change my tune.Why don't you do something to fix that? Why is it always someone else's responsibility to fix the world for you?
As for my educational status, you find me somewhere I can get the ridiculous amounts of money it takes to go to school and not have to work 40 hours a week to live and I'll consider it. I realize millions of people do it every day, but all but one of them is not me. I've held 3 jobs in my life longer than a week. At each one I've not made a living wage at any of them, nevermind enough to live and go to school. I know I may not seem it, but I'm the bottom of the proverbial barrel job wise. I don't have the confidence to pursue a career type job and I don't have the education to back me up if I were to get one. I have some skill in computer science, but not enough to get by. I am an uneducated idiot with the skills of a low grade moron. If you need me, I'll be cleaning out toilets with a toothbrush somewhere.Try Australia; probably New Zealand and many parts of Europe for that matter. If your method of cleaning toilets is indicative of your work habits, that would be your problem.
What if war makes me happy?
.....:shaking:
In case you can't tell, I'm not a big fan of "science" that doesn't have some kind of usable output that I can comprehend. Pure math belongs on the shelf and the pointy heads who practice it should be put to work on a physics or chemistry problem so they can actually benefit someone other than themselves.
Are you aware as to how much theoretical knowledge goes into technological advances?
And, let's not forget, the mathematical prowess of a civilization determines how fast other knowledge fields advance.
I still want to know how life has improved by Mathematics as a product of it's own existence, not in the use of some other discipline such as chemistry, physics or engineering.So, what exactly do you consider an improvement? If you only value things that make life possible or "more efficient", and scrap everything else as useless, there won't be any reasons left to be alive.
QuoteAnd, let's not forget, the mathematical prowess of a civilization determines how fast other knowledge fields advance.
What do you mean by that statement?
ive gone back to skool again and i didnt realise how much i had avoided maths in the last 25 years of my life , and although the math i am having to learn and re-learn is fairly basic , ( stress based calculations , trig etc ) i can understand why ppl dislike math , if you brain doesnt go that way instantly it can all be very boring and tedious.;; all of the maths i am doing has practical applications but that doesnt always help
I don't think anyone's brought up the following point yet.
Kids hate math because if you screw up the tiniest detail in math, it's all over. No one will care that you've done everything prior to that screw-up correctly, you'll get an F. It's just incredibly frustrating.
If the math is already done, you don't have to wait for mathematicians to solve certain types of problems in order to progress through those fields. And with sufficient mathematical background, one can go through the implications of an hypothesis much quicker. Hence, mathematical prowess is one of the indicators of how fast one can advance in relevant fields. I didn't mean to imply it was the only one, if that's what you are suggesting.
As a practical example, the math behind black holes was mostly done by the time physicists proposed their existence.
Also, regarding "theoretical" vs "practical" knowledge, it's kind of pointless to make that distinction. Specially when most research can be dependent on its results to see which is which. As an example, there's the computer science problem of P vs NP. If the answer is P != NP, then the practical application of this doesn't seem to be much (at least compared with the alternative), and it's what most researchers lean towards. However if the answer is P = NP...
To be fair,
I do believe with maths, there is an element of natural intelligence to it.
Some people get it, others dont.
Others simply do have an interest in it. They might prefer to study history or music, etc. We all have different tastes and orientations.
But the big influence is the teacher. If the teacher knows his/her stuff & is passionate about his/her job then kids will enjoy the subject and are more likely to learn from it.