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It's an interesting question when you consider that in at least two university mathematics department rankings[1][2], the US holds 7 of the top 10 global spots.

It's an interesting question when you consider that in at least two university mathematics department rankings[1][2], the US holds 7 of the top 10 global spots. One could argue that for whatever reason, many of the professors, researchers and postdocs at those schools learned math in other countries, but, if these lists are to be believed, the US does have the richest mathematics knowledge in the world. So two questions: 1) Why doesn't the preeminence of the US math knowledge appear to seep into the primary and secondary school education? 2) If the primary and secondary education in the ROW produces such a high level of capability relative to the US population, why aren't their universities better represented in the rankings? [1] http://www.usnews.com/education/best-global-universities/mathematics http://www.usnews.com/education/best-global-universities/mat... [2] http://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/university-subject-rankings/2015/mathematics http://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/universit...

mioelnir 10y ago
I've read (once, somewhere, on the internet) that these types of rankings are also distorted by the fact that in the US the top research institutes are usually teaching and part of a University, while they are not teaching in many other parts of the world.
- akiselev 10y ago
  I'm not sure whether non-US research institutions are less teaching focused overall than their state-side counterparts but there are plenty of other confounding cultural factors. In Russia, for example, the most elite science/engineering university (PhysTech) isn't as well known globally as MIT or Caltech because it is made up of dozens of research institutes that publish under their own name instead of under the umbrella organization. As a result most academics dont know that all of this research is produced by a single (albeit distributed wrt geography and branding) powerhouse.
saint_fiasco 10y ago
We shouldn't mix up the max skill level with the average skill level. They are very different issues, and different educational systems may optimize for different things. For example, maybe if you are a very good mathematician in the US you can get high-paying jobs for intelligence agencies, data analytics, that sort of thing. But if you are a mathematical genius in another country, maybe they don't have the same job opportunities so you have to go into math teaching. That would cause the US to have very good mathematicians and at the same time terrible math teachers.
- WalterBright 10y ago
  To me the state of math instruction is illustrated by a 3rd grade math book, teacher's edition, with the answer key in it. (3rd grade math answers should be obvious by inspection.)
  - jacquesm 10y ago
    That's sad but I totally believe it after some interaction with teachers.
jomamaxx 10y ago
"Why doesn't the preeminence of the US math knowledge appear to seep into the primary and secondary school education?" Because preeminence of top tier institutions (which are kind of global centres anyhow) - has absolutely nothing to do with teaching math to the commons. Here's a hint: +++ Americans don't suck at Math +++ There's a very un-PC but very large elephant in the room that people won't discuss. + European American and Asian American 'testing scores' are actually pretty good - and have been holding steady for a very long time. (Asians do a little better). Nothing has changed. + Latino American and African Americans fare poorly, but having been getting better since we've been measuring by standards (i.e. 1950's-1970's). Here's the trick: + European Americans actually do better than Europeans - on average. + Asian Americans to better than Asians - on average. + Latino Americans do better than Central/South American Latinos + African Americans do better than Africans. The key correlating factor here is 'ethnicity'. 'Ethnicity' is the broad, generalist predictor of educational outcomes. This definitely not 'race' and it's not even 'IQ' (those things are plausible but controversial) - it's a series of behaviours, social norms, examples, attitudes towards work, success, access to services, social networks, mentors, role models, etc. etc. etc.. Educational outcomes (and crime stats, income stats) break down along ethnic lines. In a manner of speaking - America can be thought of as 'four nations' - White, Black, Asian and Latino. Obviously - it's very crude and generalist, and policy based on this would probably be racist - nevertheless - you pretty much have to look at the data given this. In the end: American test score results have more to do with the changing ethnic composition of the American population than they do anything else. Again: White people and Asians in America have performed consistently he same for decades. Teaching methods haven't changed much, students habits haven't changed much - so the outcome is naturally consistent. More economic prosperity, access to services and different attitudes + deeper integration have meant Latino A. and African A.'s are doing a little bit better - but because there are so many more Americans of those groups - particularly Latino Americans - it changes the outcome of the 'average american test score'. Analyzing educational results does not make sense until you break it down along ethnic lines. Once you do - it becomes crystal clear. It's the absolute #1 most important thing about the educational data that turns 'paradox' about educational investment (teaching has remained largely the same) and outcomes into 'perfect sense'. Unfortunately, it's so sensitive few will want to talk about it - for fear that the general public equates educational outcomes to 'intelligence' and try to strongly correlate ethnicity + race to this, which would be fodder for racist/KKK types, which wouldn't really help the overall social situation in America. Anyhow - America is actually doing pretty well overall.
asgard1024 10y ago
"It's an interesting question when you consider that in at least two university mathematics department rankings[1][2], the US holds 7 of the top 10 global spots." It's a fallacy. US is a large country, so those talented students concentrate in fewer universities. In Europe for instance, due to language and culture barriers, talented students from Czech Republic do not very often go to Cambridge. You need to look at mean or median if you want accurate assessment.
- hawkice 10y ago
  China is a larger country with extremely promising mathematics scores. So why is it not 8/10 China and 2/10 US (in proportion to population) or even more extreme? A large country having access to a large talent poll doesn't get very close to explaining what's going on.
  - asgard1024 10y ago
    It's hard to tell, but it can be because most maths research is published in Chinese, while these rankings are little anglocentric. Also lot of Chinese probably migrate to the US as soon as they can. Anyway, I was just pointing out that the ranking is not such a simple argument.
sjg007 10y ago
Because they come here either as engineers or mathematicians in both academia and industry.
- ArkyBeagle 10y ago
  Bingo. I have worked with PhDs from overseas who lacked basic knowledge of things like hand tools.
eva1984 10y ago
One thing worth asking, how many students in those departments are from US? Or finished their elementary education here?
tribune 10y ago
Maybe, like many things in America, mathematical knowledge is more unevenly distributed between the top and bottom than it is in other places.
mathattack 10y ago
We do a great job with the extreme students. The top 5% of private and public schools in the country produce more than enough folks capable in mathematics. It's the rest of the country that struggles. There are a lot of reasons why the US does well in Universities and poorer up until then relative to the rest of the world: 1 - In much of the world, the school you get into matters more than what you did there. (The lowest University of Tokyo graduate is considered higher than the top grad of any other school - so getting in there is the hard part) 2 - In the US we invest more in higher ed than K-12 relative to the rest of the world on a per-pupil basis - especially at the top schools. (Look at the Harvard or Yale endowment on a per-student basis) 3 - In the US, college professors are at the top of their peer group academically. It's a mixed bad in K-12.
- ScottBurson 10y ago
  > It's a mixed bad in K-12 Your typo is very accurate :-) I would say that our problem in K-12 is a self-perpetuating one. The teachers were taught math badly and so never really learned it (and learned to hate it into the bargain). So then they teach it badly. I'm not sure there's any solution except for tuning the students in to Khan Academy and suchlike programs.
  - eatbitseveryday 10y ago
    > tuning the students in to Khan Academy and suchlike programs I think parents have an enormous role to play in the effectiveness of K-12 education. If they are not very much involved (e.g., enforcing, participating, encouraging) then school isn't valued or prioritized, nor will the average student see how fun many subjects can be to learn (assuming the teacher may not be effective at this). > were taught math badly > teach it badly Just an aside, wouldn't this be expressed as "taught poorly"?
    - mathattack 10y ago
      Just an aside, wouldn't this be expressed as "taught poorly"? Blame the English teacher who thunk it badly. :-)
brightball 10y ago
My guess is that as with most things people need to feel that what they are learning is relevant. Start teaching finance in high school and math will become a lot more useful, quick.
- WalterBright 10y ago
  I would hope that conventional K-12 at some point would include instruction on what a balance sheet is, a P+L statement, and a bit on what the jargon is. Should also include the basics of sales, how a business operates, finance (as you said), etc. But that hope is in vain :-(
ctrlalt_g 10y ago
I once heard an anecdote that might describe some of what's happening. In the trenches of WWI, when it was time to fight, soldiers would have to climb up a ladder onto a battlefield. The problem was that German snipers could see the tops of the ladders. The Germans would keep their rifles fixed on where they knew the enemy would emerge and simply shoot them down once they saw helmets appear. The European Allied soldiers were so disciplined that they just kept climbing up the ladders and getting killed one by one, following their orders to their deaths. The Americans saw this and said, "fuck that, I'm not climbing up there." I think most Americans are pragmatic and they won't do something unless it makes sense. And to be honest, most people don't need to study math. Or at least it's not obvious that they do. I think most of the math professors I've talked to would agree. They view math, as it's taught in core curricula, more as an art than as having vocational value.
- jacquesm 10y ago
  > In the trenches of WWI, when it was time to fight, soldiers would have to climb up a ladder onto a battlefield. The problem was that German snipers could see the tops of the ladders. The Germans would keep their rifles fixed on where they knew the enemy would emerge and simply shoot them down once they saw helmets appear. > The European Allied soldiers were so disciplined that they just kept climbing up the ladders and getting killed one by one, following their orders to their deaths. The Americans saw this and said, "fuck that, I'm not climbing up there." Wow, that anecdote explains American supremacy better than anything to date. /s Without a citation I'm going to have to call bull-shit on that one, I'm just trying to imagine their CO standing there with an ever mounting heap of corpses at the bottom of the ladder and not once thinking 'this doesn't seem to work'. Some googling does not turn up any evidence for your story either.
  - icebraining 10y ago
    I don't know about any americans, but isn't the Souain affair pretty much a CO ordering his soldiers to keep going despite an ever mounting heap of corpses?
    - 10y ago
johncolanduoni 10y ago
Most math (and physics) programs, especially at higher tier universities, have not only a disproportionate number of foreign professors and researchers but also students. So it's largely people who had superior primary and secondary school math education teaching others who had superior primary and secondary school education. You can see this especially strongly in graduate programs, where US citizens can often get a sort of "affirmative action" because they are the only ones eligible for NSF student fellowships (incentivizing universities to admit them). There's just very little domestic interest in math and physics, despite both feeding into rather favorable job markets (as long as you aren't dead set on being in academia long-term). As for your second question, it's an extension of US universities' preeminent standing in most fields (on average, there are of course exceptions). I don't think there are really any math specific effects going on there.
- munin 10y ago
  > There's just very little domestic interest in math and physics, despite both feeding into rather favorable job markets Oh yeah? What jobs are there for a physics PhD to do physics in that isn't academia? Government research lab? Military aerospace contractor?
  - johncolanduoni 10y ago
    Both quantitative finance and more general data science draw heavily from physics PhDs (you can see this if you look at job listings for these jobs; physics is almost always listed next to math in the list of desired PhD degrees). Depending on area there can also be a significant number of industry pure-research positions available; quantum information is a good example. As long as you are willing to go into industry, you're looking at a 90-100k starting salary[1]. That's pretty damn good considering that in the US nobody pays for a physics PhD; the average TA stipend is around $30k with tuition and medical insurance covered. You also have a decent chance of getting a research assistanship to provide the stipend once you start working seriously with an advisor. The high number of physics PhDs getting postdocs off the bat is driven by people who want to go into academia/research, not by a lack of industry options. Admitidely if you're dead set on going into research (especially right off the bat) you better be ready to play the same low-paid tenure lottery as everybody else, but if you're just looking for a good career a physics PhD is a pretty good bet. [1]: https://www.aip.org/sites/default/files/statistics/employment/phdinitemp-p-14.pdf https://www.aip.org/sites/default/files/statistics/employmen...
tmptmp 10y ago
US society/culture in general is the main cause of this problem as most people here do not value math. Math requires deep, creative and original thinking and thinking is rather difficult to perform act. It seems that the US culture derides analytical thinking in general, with many popular public figures flaunting their "inability to do math" as some sort of great achievement and sending out a loud and clear messages, like, "don't analyze just enjoy your life and avoid math as math means analysis". This paper titled "Student Apathy: The Downfall of Education" [1] is a good read in this respect too. The bad effects of such societal level bias against math can be seen in public spending in schools also. Enormous amounts of money are spent on football coaches/teams[2] in schools whereas not enough money for math teachers/students. The society seems to equate success only with one's ability to earn money. Then you can see that many such popular public figures "getting successful" without math as they can be seen to earn large amounts of money. This is sad as such people even if are successful on money front, cannot understand any of the complex aspects of modern societal/business/political structures (be it, things like privacy issues, or many public policy issues like taxes) and of course cannot understand any of the modern technological/scientific discussions (be it discussions regarding global warming or genetically modified food or statistical significance of some tests). [1] https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1968613 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1968613 [2] http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/10/the-case-against-high-school-sports/309447/ http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/10/the-case...
- pizza 10y ago
  China comes to mind. They seem more technocratic than we (USA) do (legalist hierarchy?). Can you imagine Deng Xiaoping saying, "Ha, I'm just a policy guy" or something alike
- etangent 10y ago
  >> It seems that the US culture derides analytical thinking in general, with many popular public figures flaunting their "inability to do math" as some sort of great achievement and sending out a loud and clear messages, like, "don't analyze just enjoy your life and avoid math as math means analysis" I am generally not a fan of speaking in terms of "privilege" and "identity", but this is precisely an example of "developed Western country privilege". The attitude goes, "See, I can still be successful/well-off without having to hunch down and study math like those third-world FOB immigrants do." It comes down to status signalling: not having to do math becomes a status signal. It also appears it is mostly this attitude and not the widely blamed "bro culture" that is the major reason why women (in the West, because this didn't happen elsewhere) abandoned CS sometime in the late 80s/90s.
vmarsy 10y ago
You're probably right. those rankings have a lot to do with the research papers published by those schools from non Americans. Relative to the US population, the primary and secondary education do not produce a high level of capability. Looking at the fields medals per capita[1] you can see that the US doesn't have as much as the UK, Russia, or France. You can also see that the university with Fields medals recipients [2] for more details, and indeed you can see that of the mathematicians associated with Princeton are not Americans. As a specific example, in [1] you can see that France is generating more than 4 times more fields medalists per capita than the U.S. Why is that? It probably has to do with the more rigorous Math education. Look for instance at this translated Math final[3] exam for French high school students. This is for the "Literary" students, those who focus more with the worst level of Math. You can see examples of the "Scientific" math test here [4]. It's in French, but it's Math, just by looking at the symbols it's possible to understand. It has some differential equations solving, probabilities, geometry with vectors/planes in 3D spaces, Series analysis, etc. Integrals and derivatives are also part of the program. In Physics these concepts are applied to calculate velocity/speed/radioactive decay etc. [1] http://stats.areppim.com/stats/stats_fieldsxcapita.htm http://stats.areppim.com/stats/stats_fieldsxcapita.htm [2] http://mathworld.wolfram.com/FieldsMedal.html http://mathworld.wolfram.com/FieldsMedal.html [3] https://gfbrandenburg.wordpress.com/2011/06/19/a-look-at-one-version-of-this-years-french-math-baccalaureat-exam/ https://gfbrandenburg.wordpress.com/2011/06/19/a-look-at-one... [4] http://www.letudiant.fr/bac/bac-s/corriges-et-sujets-du-bac-s/corrige-du-bac-s-le-sujet-de-maths-obligatoire.html http://www.letudiant.fr/bac/bac-s/corriges-et-sujets-du-bac-...
panglott 10y ago
The single biggest factor on student performance is not any in-school factor, but rather the socioeconomic status and educational level of the parents. The best American student mathematicians are the equal of anywhere in the world. But when people talk about poor math performance in the US, they're talking about the average—average math performance is terrible. This is because the U.S., more than any other advanced country, tolerates a high level of poverty and economic inequality. This inequality is reproduced within the educational system, and brings down our averages. The average is lower not because the U.S. has lower performance across the board, but because so many more students lack the most basic numeracy. Too many students are going to school hungry, come from families torn apart by joblessness, abuse, and addiction, or where the single breadwinner has to work 80 hours/week in order to achieve a higher level of poverty, and simply doesn't have time to help the kids with their school work or ensure they are disciplined students, much less ferry them to all sorts of enrichment activities.
NumberCruncher 10y ago
Funny fact: a couple of my former classmates won gold/silver medals on the international mathematical olympiad. One minute googleing sais that at least 4 of them are teaching on US universities you mentioned. I am from eastern Europe. The US does have the richest mathematics knowledge in the world because the US can buy it.

mioelnir 10y ago

I've read (once, somewhere, on the internet) that these types of rankings are also distorted by the fact that in the US the top research institutes are usually teaching and part of a University, while they are not teaching in many other parts of the world.

akiselev 10y ago
I'm not sure whether non-US research institutions are less teaching focused overall than their state-side counterparts but there are plenty of other confounding cultural factors. In Russia, for example, the most elite science/engineering university (PhysTech) isn't as well known globally as MIT or Caltech because it is made up of dozens of research institutes that publish under their own name instead of under the umbrella organization. As a result most academics dont know that all of this research is produced by a single (albeit distributed wrt geography and branding) powerhouse.

saint_fiasco 10y ago

We shouldn't mix up the max skill level with the average skill level. They are very different issues, and different educational systems may optimize for different things. For example, maybe if you are a very good mathematician in the US you can get high-paying jobs for intelligence agencies, data analytics, that sort of thing. But if you are a mathematical genius in another country, maybe they don't have the same job opportunities so you have to go into math teaching. That would cause the US to have very good mathematicians and at the same time terrible math teachers.

WalterBright 10y ago
To me the state of math instruction is illustrated by a 3rd grade math book, teacher's edition, with the answer key in it. (3rd grade math answers should be obvious by inspection.)
- jacquesm 10y ago
  That's sad but I totally believe it after some interaction with teachers.

jomamaxx 10y ago

"Why doesn't the preeminence of the US math knowledge appear to seep into the primary and secondary school education?" Because preeminence of top tier institutions (which are kind of global centres anyhow) - has absolutely nothing to do with teaching math to the commons. Here's a hint: +++ Americans don't suck at Math +++ There's a very un-PC but very large elephant in the room that people won't discuss. + European American and Asian American 'testing scores' are actually pretty good - and have been holding steady for a very long time. (Asians do a little better). Nothing has changed. + Latino American and African Americans fare poorly, but having been getting better since we've been measuring by standards (i.e. 1950's-1970's). Here's the trick: + European Americans actually do better than Europeans - on average. + Asian Americans to better than Asians - on average. + Latino Americans do better than Central/South American Latinos + African Americans do better than Africans. The key correlating factor here is 'ethnicity'. 'Ethnicity' is the broad, generalist predictor of educational outcomes. This definitely not 'race' and it's not even 'IQ' (those things are plausible but controversial) - it's a series of behaviours, social norms, examples, attitudes towards work, success, access to services, social networks, mentors, role models, etc. etc. etc.. Educational outcomes (and crime stats, income stats) break down along ethnic lines. In a manner of speaking - America can be thought of as 'four nations' - White, Black, Asian and Latino. Obviously - it's very crude and generalist, and policy based on this would probably be racist - nevertheless - you pretty much have to look at the data given this. In the end: American test score results have more to do with the changing ethnic composition of the American population than they do anything else. Again: White people and Asians in America have performed consistently he same for decades. Teaching methods haven't changed much, students habits haven't changed much - so the outcome is naturally consistent. More economic prosperity, access to services and different attitudes + deeper integration have meant Latino A. and African A.'s are doing a little bit better - but because there are so many more Americans of those groups - particularly Latino Americans - it changes the outcome of the 'average american test score'. Analyzing educational results does not make sense until you break it down along ethnic lines. Once you do - it becomes crystal clear. It's the absolute #1 most important thing about the educational data that turns 'paradox' about educational investment (teaching has remained largely the same) and outcomes into 'perfect sense'. Unfortunately, it's so sensitive few will want to talk about it - for fear that the general public equates educational outcomes to 'intelligence' and try to strongly correlate ethnicity + race to this, which would be fodder for racist/KKK types, which wouldn't really help the overall social situation in America. Anyhow - America is actually doing pretty well overall.

asgard1024 10y ago

"It's an interesting question when you consider that in at least two university mathematics department rankings[1][2], the US holds 7 of the top 10 global spots." It's a fallacy. US is a large country, so those talented students concentrate in fewer universities. In Europe for instance, due to language and culture barriers, talented students from Czech Republic do not very often go to Cambridge. You need to look at mean or median if you want accurate assessment.

hawkice 10y ago
China is a larger country with extremely promising mathematics scores. So why is it not 8/10 China and 2/10 US (in proportion to population) or even more extreme? A large country having access to a large talent poll doesn't get very close to explaining what's going on.
- asgard1024 10y ago
  It's hard to tell, but it can be because most maths research is published in Chinese, while these rankings are little anglocentric. Also lot of Chinese probably migrate to the US as soon as they can. Anyway, I was just pointing out that the ranking is not such a simple argument.

sjg007 10y ago

Because they come here either as engineers or mathematicians in both academia and industry.

ArkyBeagle 10y ago
Bingo. I have worked with PhDs from overseas who lacked basic knowledge of things like hand tools.

eva1984 10y ago

One thing worth asking, how many students in those departments are from US? Or finished their elementary education here?

tribune 10y ago

Maybe, like many things in America, mathematical knowledge is more unevenly distributed between the top and bottom than it is in other places.

mathattack 10y ago

We do a great job with the extreme students. The top 5% of private and public schools in the country produce more than enough folks capable in mathematics. It's the rest of the country that struggles. There are a lot of reasons why the US does well in Universities and poorer up until then relative to the rest of the world: 1 - In much of the world, the school you get into matters more than what you did there. (The lowest University of Tokyo graduate is considered higher than the top grad of any other school - so getting in there is the hard part) 2 - In the US we invest more in higher ed than K-12 relative to the rest of the world on a per-pupil basis - especially at the top schools. (Look at the Harvard or Yale endowment on a per-student basis) 3 - In the US, college professors are at the top of their peer group academically. It's a mixed bad in K-12.

ScottBurson 10y ago
> It's a mixed bad in K-12 Your typo is very accurate :-) I would say that our problem in K-12 is a self-perpetuating one. The teachers were taught math badly and so never really learned it (and learned to hate it into the bargain). So then they teach it badly. I'm not sure there's any solution except for tuning the students in to Khan Academy and suchlike programs.
- eatbitseveryday 10y ago
  > tuning the students in to Khan Academy and suchlike programs I think parents have an enormous role to play in the effectiveness of K-12 education. If they are not very much involved (e.g., enforcing, participating, encouraging) then school isn't valued or prioritized, nor will the average student see how fun many subjects can be to learn (assuming the teacher may not be effective at this). > were taught math badly > teach it badly Just an aside, wouldn't this be expressed as "taught poorly"?
  - mathattack 10y ago
    Just an aside, wouldn't this be expressed as "taught poorly"? Blame the English teacher who thunk it badly. :-)

brightball 10y ago

My guess is that as with most things people need to feel that what they are learning is relevant. Start teaching finance in high school and math will become a lot more useful, quick.

WalterBright 10y ago
I would hope that conventional K-12 at some point would include instruction on what a balance sheet is, a P+L statement, and a bit on what the jargon is. Should also include the basics of sales, how a business operates, finance (as you said), etc. But that hope is in vain :-(

ctrlalt_g 10y ago

I once heard an anecdote that might describe some of what's happening. In the trenches of WWI, when it was time to fight, soldiers would have to climb up a ladder onto a battlefield. The problem was that German snipers could see the tops of the ladders. The Germans would keep their rifles fixed on where they knew the enemy would emerge and simply shoot them down once they saw helmets appear. The European Allied soldiers were so disciplined that they just kept climbing up the ladders and getting killed one by one, following their orders to their deaths. The Americans saw this and said, "fuck that, I'm not climbing up there." I think most Americans are pragmatic and they won't do something unless it makes sense. And to be honest, most people don't need to study math. Or at least it's not obvious that they do. I think most of the math professors I've talked to would agree. They view math, as it's taught in core curricula, more as an art than as having vocational value.

jacquesm 10y ago
> In the trenches of WWI, when it was time to fight, soldiers would have to climb up a ladder onto a battlefield. The problem was that German snipers could see the tops of the ladders. The Germans would keep their rifles fixed on where they knew the enemy would emerge and simply shoot them down once they saw helmets appear. > The European Allied soldiers were so disciplined that they just kept climbing up the ladders and getting killed one by one, following their orders to their deaths. The Americans saw this and said, "fuck that, I'm not climbing up there." Wow, that anecdote explains American supremacy better than anything to date. /s Without a citation I'm going to have to call bull-shit on that one, I'm just trying to imagine their CO standing there with an ever mounting heap of corpses at the bottom of the ladder and not once thinking 'this doesn't seem to work'. Some googling does not turn up any evidence for your story either.
- icebraining 10y ago
  I don't know about any americans, but isn't the Souain affair pretty much a CO ordering his soldiers to keep going despite an ever mounting heap of corpses?
  - 10y ago

johncolanduoni 10y ago

Most math (and physics) programs, especially at higher tier universities, have not only a disproportionate number of foreign professors and researchers but also students. So it's largely people who had superior primary and secondary school math education teaching others who had superior primary and secondary school education. You can see this especially strongly in graduate programs, where US citizens can often get a sort of "affirmative action" because they are the only ones eligible for NSF student fellowships (incentivizing universities to admit them). There's just very little domestic interest in math and physics, despite both feeding into rather favorable job markets (as long as you aren't dead set on being in academia long-term). As for your second question, it's an extension of US universities' preeminent standing in most fields (on average, there are of course exceptions). I don't think there are really any math specific effects going on there.

munin 10y ago
> There's just very little domestic interest in math and physics, despite both feeding into rather favorable job markets Oh yeah? What jobs are there for a physics PhD to do physics in that isn't academia? Government research lab? Military aerospace contractor?
- johncolanduoni 10y ago
  Both quantitative finance and more general data science draw heavily from physics PhDs (you can see this if you look at job listings for these jobs; physics is almost always listed next to math in the list of desired PhD degrees). Depending on area there can also be a significant number of industry pure-research positions available; quantum information is a good example. As long as you are willing to go into industry, you're looking at a 90-100k starting salary[1]. That's pretty damn good considering that in the US nobody pays for a physics PhD; the average TA stipend is around $30k with tuition and medical insurance covered. You also have a decent chance of getting a research assistanship to provide the stipend once you start working seriously with an advisor. The high number of physics PhDs getting postdocs off the bat is driven by people who want to go into academia/research, not by a lack of industry options. Admitidely if you're dead set on going into research (especially right off the bat) you better be ready to play the same low-paid tenure lottery as everybody else, but if you're just looking for a good career a physics PhD is a pretty good bet. [1]: https://www.aip.org/sites/default/files/statistics/employment/phdinitemp-p-14.pdf https://www.aip.org/sites/default/files/statistics/employmen...

tmptmp 10y ago

US society/culture in general is the main cause of this problem as most people here do not value math. Math requires deep, creative and original thinking and thinking is rather difficult to perform act. It seems that the US culture derides analytical thinking in general, with many popular public figures flaunting their "inability to do math" as some sort of great achievement and sending out a loud and clear messages, like, "don't analyze just enjoy your life and avoid math as math means analysis". This paper titled "Student Apathy: The Downfall of Education" [1] is a good read in this respect too. The bad effects of such societal level bias against math can be seen in public spending in schools also. Enormous amounts of money are spent on football coaches/teams[2] in schools whereas not enough money for math teachers/students. The society seems to equate success only with one's ability to earn money. Then you can see that many such popular public figures "getting successful" without math as they can be seen to earn large amounts of money. This is sad as such people even if are successful on money front, cannot understand any of the complex aspects of modern societal/business/political structures (be it, things like privacy issues, or many public policy issues like taxes) and of course cannot understand any of the modern technological/scientific discussions (be it discussions regarding global warming or genetically modified food or statistical significance of some tests). [1] https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1968613 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1968613 [2] http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/10/the-case-against-high-school-sports/309447/ http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/10/the-case...

pizza 10y ago
China comes to mind. They seem more technocratic than we (USA) do (legalist hierarchy?). Can you imagine Deng Xiaoping saying, "Ha, I'm just a policy guy" or something alike
etangent 10y ago
>> It seems that the US culture derides analytical thinking in general, with many popular public figures flaunting their "inability to do math" as some sort of great achievement and sending out a loud and clear messages, like, "don't analyze just enjoy your life and avoid math as math means analysis" I am generally not a fan of speaking in terms of "privilege" and "identity", but this is precisely an example of "developed Western country privilege". The attitude goes, "See, I can still be successful/well-off without having to hunch down and study math like those third-world FOB immigrants do." It comes down to status signalling: not having to do math becomes a status signal. It also appears it is mostly this attitude and not the widely blamed "bro culture" that is the major reason why women (in the West, because this didn't happen elsewhere) abandoned CS sometime in the late 80s/90s.

vmarsy 10y ago

You're probably right. those rankings have a lot to do with the research papers published by those schools from non Americans. Relative to the US population, the primary and secondary education do not produce a high level of capability. Looking at the fields medals per capita[1] you can see that the US doesn't have as much as the UK, Russia, or France. You can also see that the university with Fields medals recipients [2] for more details, and indeed you can see that of the mathematicians associated with Princeton are not Americans. As a specific example, in [1] you can see that France is generating more than 4 times more fields medalists per capita than the U.S. Why is that? It probably has to do with the more rigorous Math education. Look for instance at this translated Math final[3] exam for French high school students. This is for the "Literary" students, those who focus more with the worst level of Math. You can see examples of the "Scientific" math test here [4]. It's in French, but it's Math, just by looking at the symbols it's possible to understand. It has some differential equations solving, probabilities, geometry with vectors/planes in 3D spaces, Series analysis, etc. Integrals and derivatives are also part of the program. In Physics these concepts are applied to calculate velocity/speed/radioactive decay etc. [1] http://stats.areppim.com/stats/stats_fieldsxcapita.htm http://stats.areppim.com/stats/stats_fieldsxcapita.htm [2] http://mathworld.wolfram.com/FieldsMedal.html http://mathworld.wolfram.com/FieldsMedal.html [3] https://gfbrandenburg.wordpress.com/2011/06/19/a-look-at-one-version-of-this-years-french-math-baccalaureat-exam/ https://gfbrandenburg.wordpress.com/2011/06/19/a-look-at-one... [4] http://www.letudiant.fr/bac/bac-s/corriges-et-sujets-du-bac-s/corrige-du-bac-s-le-sujet-de-maths-obligatoire.html http://www.letudiant.fr/bac/bac-s/corriges-et-sujets-du-bac-...

panglott 10y ago

The single biggest factor on student performance is not any in-school factor, but rather the socioeconomic status and educational level of the parents. The best American student mathematicians are the equal of anywhere in the world. But when people talk about poor math performance in the US, they're talking about the average—average math performance is terrible. This is because the U.S., more than any other advanced country, tolerates a high level of poverty and economic inequality. This inequality is reproduced within the educational system, and brings down our averages. The average is lower not because the U.S. has lower performance across the board, but because so many more students lack the most basic numeracy. Too many students are going to school hungry, come from families torn apart by joblessness, abuse, and addiction, or where the single breadwinner has to work 80 hours/week in order to achieve a higher level of poverty, and simply doesn't have time to help the kids with their school work or ensure they are disciplined students, much less ferry them to all sorts of enrichment activities.

NumberCruncher 10y ago

Funny fact: a couple of my former classmates won gold/silver medals on the international mathematical olympiad. One minute googleing sais that at least 4 of them are teaching on US universities you mentioned. I am from eastern Europe. The US does have the richest mathematics knowledge in the world because the US can buy it.