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As a parent, I agree. One should not shy away from talking about "advanced" topics. Kids are naturally curious and bright and I think we should encourage their

As a parent, I agree. One should not shy away from talking about "advanced" topics. Kids are naturally curious and bright and I think we should encourage their desire to learn and understand complex things. I worry that if you try to dumb down things for kids, they might become interested in dumb things. :) Also, as the OP mentions, it can be a fun "pedagogical challenge" to try to explain free theorems or turing completeness or MySQL sharding to a young child. And you may find a clever way to describe it, that they can easily understand, which is satisfying for both of you.

intrasight 8y ago
When my daughter was 10 we were waiting in line to checkout at a Home Depot. She asked me what was algebra. I think she had heard the older kids mention it. I responded with a question. "A plus B = 10, and A minus B = 1. What are the values of A and B?" She puzzled it over while I check out. Then her face lit up like a whole realm of knowledge had just opened up to her, and she proudly told me the answer. It's a special moment that we will both always remember. She told me that as a camp counselor that she has challenged younger kids who seemed bored with the same problem. Do challenge your kids intellectually beyond their years and you might be pleasantly surprised. My daughter heads to CERN in two weeks to study anti-matter, and I have no doubt that our brief intro to algebra at a Home Depot has a small role to play in that journey. Maybe Star Trek did too :)
- bjoli 8y ago
  As someone who takes pride in having solved the first 100 problems of project Euler, I am slightly ashamed to admit that I probably spent as much time as your daughter to solve that. I got stuck thinking in integers, and quite quickly left the exercise as an oversight in writing the post (since X + y = even, X - y = odd is impossible for integers) 3 seconds into the first coffee of the day the realisation of my stupidity hit me in the face.
  - mixmastamyk 8y ago
    It's impossible until it's easy, like any good trick question.
  - LolWolf 8y ago
    I mean, is there any other solution? There are certainly no integral solutions to the problem, but there is a unique (rational) solution. I feel like I’m missing something entirely, though...
    - Sharlin 8y ago
      I was also stuck thinking in integers for a few seconds, perhaps because of the context. But yeah, a 10-year-old would already know about fractions.
      - endeavour 8y ago
        I also mentally started thinking about integral solutions. I wonder if it's also because of the variable names... a,b,c tend to be used to represent integers (e.g. Fermat's Last Theorem, Euclid's algorithm etc). x and y are more commmonly used to represent real numbers.
        dzdt 8y ago
        Random aside: once in high school I took a math puzzle test. The only problem I skipped was because they asked for "integral solutions." I knew the word "integral" only as belonging to calculus, about which I knew nearly nothing at the time. If I had realized in context it just meant "integer" I could have done it!
        intrasight 8y ago
        They did make it a tricky question!
        intrasight 8y ago
        Thanks for pointing that out. I'll use X and Y next time I share this story. Of course my daughter wouldn't have known at the time about the distinction, and neither did I - it having been too long since doing algebra ;)
- icc97 8y ago
  Coincidentally a friend at University had a dad who worked at CERN. His number one goal was to not work at CERN.
  - intrasight 8y ago
    Do you know why?
    - inanutshellus 8y ago
      (My guess) She spent her teens trying to get away from dad, why spend her working life there? :)
      - icc97 8y ago
        I'm not totally sure why. The life living on the boarder between France and Switzerland seems pretty idyllic (but at the end of university you don't think about that so much). I got the feeling it was just that going to work where your dad is isn't very appealing no matter where it is.

intrasight 8y ago

When my daughter was 10 we were waiting in line to checkout at a Home Depot. She asked me what was algebra. I think she had heard the older kids mention it. I responded with a question. "A plus B = 10, and A minus B = 1. What are the values of A and B?" She puzzled it over while I check out. Then her face lit up like a whole realm of knowledge had just opened up to her, and she proudly told me the answer. It's a special moment that we will both always remember. She told me that as a camp counselor that she has challenged younger kids who seemed bored with the same problem. Do challenge your kids intellectually beyond their years and you might be pleasantly surprised. My daughter heads to CERN in two weeks to study anti-matter, and I have no doubt that our brief intro to algebra at a Home Depot has a small role to play in that journey. Maybe Star Trek did too :)

bjoli 8y ago
As someone who takes pride in having solved the first 100 problems of project Euler, I am slightly ashamed to admit that I probably spent as much time as your daughter to solve that. I got stuck thinking in integers, and quite quickly left the exercise as an oversight in writing the post (since X + y = even, X - y = odd is impossible for integers) 3 seconds into the first coffee of the day the realisation of my stupidity hit me in the face.
- mixmastamyk 8y ago
  It's impossible until it's easy, like any good trick question.
- LolWolf 8y ago
  I mean, is there any other solution? There are certainly no integral solutions to the problem, but there is a unique (rational) solution. I feel like I’m missing something entirely, though...
  - Sharlin 8y ago
    I was also stuck thinking in integers for a few seconds, perhaps because of the context. But yeah, a 10-year-old would already know about fractions.
    - endeavour 8y ago
      I also mentally started thinking about integral solutions. I wonder if it's also because of the variable names... a,b,c tend to be used to represent integers (e.g. Fermat's Last Theorem, Euclid's algorithm etc). x and y are more commmonly used to represent real numbers.
      - dzdt 8y ago
        Random aside: once in high school I took a math puzzle test. The only problem I skipped was because they asked for "integral solutions." I knew the word "integral" only as belonging to calculus, about which I knew nearly nothing at the time. If I had realized in context it just meant "integer" I could have done it!
        intrasight 8y ago
        They did make it a tricky question!
      - intrasight 8y ago
        Thanks for pointing that out. I'll use X and Y next time I share this story. Of course my daughter wouldn't have known at the time about the distinction, and neither did I - it having been too long since doing algebra ;)
icc97 8y ago
Coincidentally a friend at University had a dad who worked at CERN. His number one goal was to not work at CERN.
- intrasight 8y ago
  Do you know why?
  - inanutshellus 8y ago
    (My guess) She spent her teens trying to get away from dad, why spend her working life there? :)
    - icc97 8y ago
      I'm not totally sure why. The life living on the boarder between France and Switzerland seems pretty idyllic (but at the end of university you don't think about that so much). I got the feeling it was just that going to work where your dad is isn't very appealing no matter where it is.