8 ms·

Mathematics: The Most Misunderstood Subject

144 points by spacemanaki 16y ago

tokenadult 16y ago
Another good article about mathematics education, by William P. Thurston, a Fields medalist: http://www.math.sunysb.edu/~mustopa/thurston_edu.pdf http://www.math.sunysb.edu/~mustopa/thurston_edu.pdf
alexwestholm 16y ago
The author has rightfully directed his words at those considering becoming math majors. Consequently, he makes it clear that most basic math education is inadequate to really understand math and its practicality, but leaves as the only solution enrolling as a math student. This is a great call to action for students, but for the broader audience, it leaves me thinking the following: My math background is clearly inadequate, and his description of mathematical reasoning sounds like something I'd like to be familiar with, so how do I get there? What's the route to the prize other than enrolling in Fordham's math program? While the professor in question has no reason to answer this, at least on the Fordham website, I wonder what answers the HN crowd might have... thoughts?
- snikolov 16y ago
  The author does imply that great teachers have a lot to do with it. At a later age, when one is out of school or almost out of school, one obviously needs to show more personal initiative. And a lot of people here and elsewhere have asked or written about how to best self-study mathematics. However, the importance of having a teacher is often not mentioned. Even if you are very self-motivated, a teacher can make an enormous difference by showing you the cool stuff that you might miss on your own. One can be very motivated about building a house by themselves, but might have only ever seen mud bricks, and hence will try to diligently build a house out of mud bricks. A proper teacher can illuminate and guide a student through the vast world of other things out there, just like someone trained in construction can show the self-motivated builder how to build a proper house. Now, how does one find a teacher, you ask (especially when one has left school)? A few options I can think of: * Go back to school. * Participate in an appropriate online community. * Reach out to professors or even students in nearby schools.
- spacemanaki 16y ago
  One series of articles which might serve as a start is Steven Strogatz's series which ran in the NY Times earlier this year: http://topics.nytimes.com/top/opinion/series/steven_strogatz_on_the_elements_of_math/index.html http://topics.nytimes.com/top/opinion/series/steven_strogatz... It's written for a layperson (he starts with counting on Sesame Street) but nonetheless touches on some very advanced topics, and describes them in simple ways. It won't give you a firm foundation in mathematics (the articles are pretty short, and there are only 15 or so), but it might serve as a guide for which subtopics in particular pique your interest, and there are numerous references and suggestions for further reading. I believe he's collecting the articles in a longer book, hoping to publish it in 2012.
  - alexwestholm 16y ago
    Thanks! This looks like an excellent way to ground the concepts in more concrete terms.
  - jpren 16y ago
    Very apt that you brought up Steven Strogatz. I took Prof. Strogatz's calculus for engineers class back in college (Spring 2004). If you like the way he discusses math curiousities in his NYTimes column, you'll surely enjoy his lectures as well! In my life at least, it's been rare to come across a math professor/educator who pushes harder for understanding (connecting the dots) rather than knowledge (disjointed lists of equations and theorems). Mathematicians' laments aside, inspired teachers are already changing the way that some students -- albeit a small minority -- view the field of mathematics.
CallMeV 16y ago
Now this article is brilliant. I'm reposting the link to this article to a maths blog. My old maths tutors in my old alma mater would also love to read the article, so I'll email them the link. If nothing else, it'll remind them that mathematics teaching does make a great difference.
Dilpil 16y ago
A very similar, much longer exploration of the problems with high school (and, honestly, most undergraduate) math education: http://www.maa.org/devlin/LockhartsLament.pdf http://www.maa.org/devlin/LockhartsLament.pdf
- aik 16y ago
  Very good book/essay. Every math professor/teacher should read this in my opinion. I found this book was incredibly enlightening and refreshing after years of school math.
treo 16y ago
This reminds me of "A Mathematican's Lament" by Paul Lockhart ( http://www.maa.org/devlin/LockhartsLament.pdf http://www.maa.org/devlin/LockhartsLament.pdf ). It is a great read in any case.
hypersoar 16y ago
I'm pursuing a career as a math professor (currently an undergrad). I'm not shy about my passion for math, and this has lead to countless conversations like the ones below: "What do you want to do with your math degree?" "I want to go to graduate school and eventually become a math professor." "Oh, so you want to teach!" "No, I want to do research." (Here they give some expression of confusion. I've had this particular conversation dozens of times) Also "So, what do you do in math research? Do you just sit around and solve equations all day? I do my best to explain to these people what math is like and why I do it, but I usually don't feel like I'm getting through. I have been told by mathematicians many times, and have experienced myself, that doing mathematics requires lots and lots of frustration (I'm sure many people here, including those who don't do pure math, know what I'm talking about). But for me the most frustrating and disheartening part of math is the fact that most people don't know what it is. It's not just that they don't understand the details, or what happens at high levels. It's certainly not just that they look at an end product (analogous to, say, a product from a startup) but don't get where it came from. It's that most people fundamentally don't understand what I do. They think of math as the capricious monotony they were put through in grade school and can't fathom why anyone would consider dedicating a life to it. Most aren't even willing to try. My love of math is a very big part of me, and it's a part that very few people understand.
- shou4577 16y ago
  Agreed. I'm currently in your same position, only a few years ahead (in my second year of grad school, currently). When I try to explain math research to people, I too am left with strange looks. I think most people honestly think that mathematicians sit around and multiply larger and larger numbers together. Part of the problem of explaining the true nature of mathematical research is one of language. For example, I study Lie algebras and representations. People ask me "What are Lie algebras?" and pretty much the only definition I can give that is understandable is "Lie Algebras are a kind of algebraic structure that is useful in many fields of science, including quantum physics." This is an answer many people understand (on the surface), but it really doesn't say anything. What's worse, most of the time, when we justify or explain our research, it is by connecting it to fields that the person may be more used to (astronomy, biology, physics, economics, etc.). But for those of us in pure math, we really do not think about these fields in our day-to-day work. That is, I study Lie algebras because of their beautiful structure and the interesting combinatorics behind them, not because they are useful in some other field. So a better answer to the question "What are Lie algebras?" would be something like "Lie algebras are vector spaces with additional algebraic structure that gives rise to beautiful and deep combinatorics. They occur naturally as certain sets of square matrices, and are a kind of generalization of the ideas of symmetry." However, this is mostly unintelligible to most people who haven't taken some mathematics beyond calculus, and I find that it sounds condescending to a lot of people, which turns them off from listening to any more explanation. What I've taken to saying lately in response to a question along the lines of "What do you do in math research?" is something like "Mathematicians create new knowledge from existing knowledge. They take things that the human race already knows, and using only logic, they deduce new things. This allows them to find fascinating relationships all throughout the world." I find this response to be pretty good. It's mostly accurate, it's mildly interesting, and best of all, it's short.
Natsu 16y ago
The article's phrase "liberal education" is unlikely to be properly understood in a lot of the USA. The political meaning has so eclipsed the ordinary meaning that the latter seems all but unknown.
- Jach 16y ago
  I'm not sure the article itself is likely to be properly understood (or even read) by a lot of the USA. I like the idea of "evil education" though.
- protomyth 16y ago
  I don't know about that. I come from what's described as a "red state"(1) and the term "liberal education" is pretty well understood. 1) The funny part about the "red state" thing is that for years the 2 Senators and 1 House Rep from ND have been Democrat. This changed this year.
- endtime 16y ago
  Well, the phrase "liberal arts education" is more common in the US, I think, but I also expect most people would get the meaning.
RiderOfGiraffes 16y ago
When I'm asked about math there are a couple of things. Firstly, I ask them about Pythagoras. Most people know of it, and I phrase it in terms of cardboard cutout squares. Take three squares cut from a heavy material, and make them so that A and B together weigh the same as C. Arrange them so their sides lie on a triangle. Not only is it always possible, but the triangle you get always has a right-angle. Why? How do we know? As it happens, the reasoning as to why it's true is wonderfully elegant, and totally accessible. Secondly, I ask - do you think mathematicians know about numbers? Here's something. Take any positive number. If it's even, halve it. Otherwise, triple and add one. Keep doing this, and what happens. So far every number anyone has every tried ends up in a ...->1->4->2->1->... cycle. Does it always happen? No one knows. Possibly it's useless, but there's a bunch of stuff people thought would be useless, and they've given us micro-processors, SatNav, cryptography, error-correcting codes, and a million other things. Who knows what will be useful? After all, if we knew what we were doing, it wouldn't be called "Research".
- shasta 16y ago
  > Possibly it's useless, but there's a bunch of stuff people thought would be useless, and they've given us micro-processors, SatNav, cryptography, error-correcting codes, and a million other things. You're missing part of the argument, which has to do with the nature of the kinds of structures that mathematicians find interesting. Otherwise you can use this reasoning to justify anything at all.
- xyzzyz 16y ago
  Oh, Collatz problem. I usually use Goldbach or twin prime conjectures to explain the difficulty of seemingly simple problems, but come to think of it, Collatz is even better, because it does not involve any complicated concept at all -- Goldbach and twin prime conjectures are about primes, and sometimes people do not even know what primes are.
  - rfurmani 16y ago
    How about the problem of, given a polynomial equation in at least two variables and integer coefficients, figuring out whether it has any integer solutions. This has directed a lot of modern mathematics and, on the face of it, doesn't seem like it should be so hard. Plus you can build off of this. They may remember that for two variable quadratics the real solutions form an oval or hyperbola or quadratic or two lines. In general you'll get some higher dimensional surface, and the "shape" of it (and how many "holes" it has) is closely tied with how many integer solutions there can be.
HilbertSpace 16y ago
Part I Yet again we are flagellated, excoriated, eviscerated, etc. about 'mathematics'. Still, some crucial points are missing. Been there; done that; learned the lessons; and below are some crucial ones. Yes, candidate understatement of the millennium is that people don't understand math! Yup, they don't! That is, except mathematicians, and they are a tiny fraction of the population. I review some of the main directions and then give my view of the crucial points and direction. Best Undergraduate Major Yes, in many ways math is a terrific subject. I recommend it as in many ways (not all) as the best undergraduate major. Why? First, because in all the rest of the academic subjects of physical science, economics, social science, engineering, computer science, and now even parts of biology and medical science, 'mathematization' of the field is widely regarded as the best academic 'research progress'. E.g., mathematical (theoretical) physics is the most prestigious part of physics, and the situation is similar in the other fields. Second, because in all those other fields, nearly all the people feel that they very much need to know more mathematics. And, any mathematician who reads their work will readily agree! In particular, the level of math in academic computer science research made some progress with Knuth and since then has, in a word, sucked. Outside of academics, the level of knowledge of math is so poor that at the right time and place knowing some relevant math, that might not be very advanced, can be one heck of an advantage. For such an advantage, there is a general principal, a double edged sword: For some knowledge to be a big advantage, it is nearly necessary that very few other people understand it. So, if you really do have an idea that can put $1B in the bank, before the money is coming in at a rate that makes the $1B look likely, explaining the knowledge to anyone else will give only contempt, laughter, anger, or silence. Generally people will give respect for something they admire, say, making $1B, but some knowledge they don't understand (without something like money clearly attached) will mostly just make them angry. In particular, for such math knowledge, people in business won't understand the math, and people in math won't understand the business. It can be lonely at the top, or as a pioneer, etc. Generally, having a big advantage later can be valuable but at first can be lonely. Getting Paid Since for nearly everyone, most of their career has to be directed to getting paid, we need to say how math can contribute. My guess is that for at least the rest of this century, math will be more important for computing than Moore's law is, will be, or, really, so far has been. So generally I'm optimistic. On this point, I expect that so far nearly no one will agree with me. Still, such importance can be a long way from getting paid. Money for Academic Math For the more technical academic fields, there has been one main source of money -- the US Federal Government. Why? Before 1940, f'get about it! After 1945, D. Eisenhower, J. Conant, V. Bush and others were so impressed by the role of math in WWII that Eisenhower supposedly said "Never again will US science be permitted to operate independent of the US military." Conant, et al., deliberately set up several sources of funding -- NSF, ONR, etc. -- so that there would be no one place to cut off the flow of money. The Cold War and the Space Race added more funding. By 1960, there was so much money for research, including math, that a joke went "While you are up, get me a grant.". Now commonly the top US research universities get about 60% of their budget from NSF, NIH, DoE, etc. Scenario: You are a university dean of the School of Science with the math department, and they want to hire some profs. As the dean you look mostly at (1) prestige for the university, (2) demand for courses, and (3) opportunity for research grants. There (1) is okay for, maybe, 50 mathematicians today. For (2), mostly f'get about it: The other departments and the math profs agree that the math department shouldn't teach 'service' courses. So, the other departments want to teach the math themselves or just f'get about it. Besides now there is a history of math department service courses taught by people who didn't speak English, and bitterness remains. For (3), some years ago there was an Exxon executive David who lead the writing of a report that basically claimed that the research and teaching in the math departments was next to useless 'abstract nonsense'. One result was that the NSF, etc. felt more justified in cutting back grants for math. Math had too little support in Congress, and there were plenty of other fields that wanted the grants instead. Net, in the research universities, the math departments went on meager rations. They still are. So in academic math, where is the 'action'? Well, there is plenty of screaming that K-12 needs math teachers. Okay, so there are colleges with math departments that specialize in such 'math teacher training'. Those colleges need some profs who got math Ph.D. degrees from, say, a state university. There the math profs got their Ph.D. degrees from research universities. And there the math profs do research on generalized abstract nonsense that may not go useless forever. So there is a pyramid with several levels, the lowest of which is K-12 math teaching and the top of which are the math departments at the usual suspects Stanford, Berkeley, Princeton, Harvard, etc. Of course what a Princeton math prof does is essentially irrelevant to anything in K-12 math. Being irrelevant is economically risky! This pyramid is at risk: E.g., college departments of education might just do their own teaching of math to students headed for K-12 math. So, here's the good news about academic math: The stuff on the library shelves isn't going anywhere!
p_nathan 16y ago
I have a mathematics minor as part of my bachelor's in computer science. I have never once regretted my mathematics training. I sometimes wish I had more.
Tycho 16y ago
I remember at school there was a bunch of kidsd who were good at maths seemingly due go natural aptitude, and some who were keen on the academic credibility it gave them... but genuinely I can only think if one person who actually displayed a 'passion' or at least a deep interest in the subject. I was very enthusiastic about physics and lots of people were about English and we'd have creative writing groups and stuff, but maths was just... Some folk quietly excelled at it and that was that.
dannyb 16y ago
My only beef with his interesting post is that he uses graphics of completely understandable stuff like diagonalizing a matrix or the map of the phase space map of the logistic equation and then talks about current developments in math. Anything new is almost completely incomprehensible to me - a couple of years ago, I got a book about fractional calculus. I read about 5 pages away and gave it to a mathematician friend of mine...
guscost 16y ago
One pet peeve about math education: calling "imaginary" numbers that makes it seem like there is such a thing as a number that is "real" in a literal sense. All numbers are actually imaginary, they exist as isomorphisms to things in the real world that have numbers or can be counted.

144 points by spacemanaki 16y ago

Another good article about mathematics education, by William P. Thurston, a Fields medalist: http://www.math.sunysb.edu/~mustopa/thurston_edu.pdf http://www.math.sunysb.edu/~mustopa/thurston_edu.pdf

alexwestholm 16y ago

The author has rightfully directed his words at those considering becoming math majors. Consequently, he makes it clear that most basic math education is inadequate to really understand math and its practicality, but leaves as the only solution enrolling as a math student. This is a great call to action for students, but for the broader audience, it leaves me thinking the following: My math background is clearly inadequate, and his description of mathematical reasoning sounds like something I'd like to be familiar with, so how do I get there? What's the route to the prize other than enrolling in Fordham's math program? While the professor in question has no reason to answer this, at least on the Fordham website, I wonder what answers the HN crowd might have... thoughts?

snikolov 16y ago
The author does imply that great teachers have a lot to do with it. At a later age, when one is out of school or almost out of school, one obviously needs to show more personal initiative. And a lot of people here and elsewhere have asked or written about how to best self-study mathematics. However, the importance of having a teacher is often not mentioned. Even if you are very self-motivated, a teacher can make an enormous difference by showing you the cool stuff that you might miss on your own. One can be very motivated about building a house by themselves, but might have only ever seen mud bricks, and hence will try to diligently build a house out of mud bricks. A proper teacher can illuminate and guide a student through the vast world of other things out there, just like someone trained in construction can show the self-motivated builder how to build a proper house. Now, how does one find a teacher, you ask (especially when one has left school)? A few options I can think of: * Go back to school. * Participate in an appropriate online community. * Reach out to professors or even students in nearby schools.
spacemanaki 16y ago
One series of articles which might serve as a start is Steven Strogatz's series which ran in the NY Times earlier this year: http://topics.nytimes.com/top/opinion/series/steven_strogatz_on_the_elements_of_math/index.html http://topics.nytimes.com/top/opinion/series/steven_strogatz... It's written for a layperson (he starts with counting on Sesame Street) but nonetheless touches on some very advanced topics, and describes them in simple ways. It won't give you a firm foundation in mathematics (the articles are pretty short, and there are only 15 or so), but it might serve as a guide for which subtopics in particular pique your interest, and there are numerous references and suggestions for further reading. I believe he's collecting the articles in a longer book, hoping to publish it in 2012.
- alexwestholm 16y ago
  Thanks! This looks like an excellent way to ground the concepts in more concrete terms.
- jpren 16y ago
  Very apt that you brought up Steven Strogatz. I took Prof. Strogatz's calculus for engineers class back in college (Spring 2004). If you like the way he discusses math curiousities in his NYTimes column, you'll surely enjoy his lectures as well! In my life at least, it's been rare to come across a math professor/educator who pushes harder for understanding (connecting the dots) rather than knowledge (disjointed lists of equations and theorems). Mathematicians' laments aside, inspired teachers are already changing the way that some students -- albeit a small minority -- view the field of mathematics.

CallMeV 16y ago

Now this article is brilliant. I'm reposting the link to this article to a maths blog. My old maths tutors in my old alma mater would also love to read the article, so I'll email them the link. If nothing else, it'll remind them that mathematics teaching does make a great difference.

Dilpil 16y ago

A very similar, much longer exploration of the problems with high school (and, honestly, most undergraduate) math education: http://www.maa.org/devlin/LockhartsLament.pdf http://www.maa.org/devlin/LockhartsLament.pdf

aik 16y ago
Very good book/essay. Every math professor/teacher should read this in my opinion. I found this book was incredibly enlightening and refreshing after years of school math.

treo 16y ago

This reminds me of "A Mathematican's Lament" by Paul Lockhart ( http://www.maa.org/devlin/LockhartsLament.pdf http://www.maa.org/devlin/LockhartsLament.pdf ). It is a great read in any case.

hypersoar 16y ago

I'm pursuing a career as a math professor (currently an undergrad). I'm not shy about my passion for math, and this has lead to countless conversations like the ones below: "What do you want to do with your math degree?" "I want to go to graduate school and eventually become a math professor." "Oh, so you want to teach!" "No, I want to do research." (Here they give some expression of confusion. I've had this particular conversation dozens of times) Also "So, what do you do in math research? Do you just sit around and solve equations all day? I do my best to explain to these people what math is like and why I do it, but I usually don't feel like I'm getting through. I have been told by mathematicians many times, and have experienced myself, that doing mathematics requires lots and lots of frustration (I'm sure many people here, including those who don't do pure math, know what I'm talking about). But for me the most frustrating and disheartening part of math is the fact that most people don't know what it is. It's not just that they don't understand the details, or what happens at high levels. It's certainly not just that they look at an end product (analogous to, say, a product from a startup) but don't get where it came from. It's that most people fundamentally don't understand what I do. They think of math as the capricious monotony they were put through in grade school and can't fathom why anyone would consider dedicating a life to it. Most aren't even willing to try. My love of math is a very big part of me, and it's a part that very few people understand.

shou4577 16y ago
Agreed. I'm currently in your same position, only a few years ahead (in my second year of grad school, currently). When I try to explain math research to people, I too am left with strange looks. I think most people honestly think that mathematicians sit around and multiply larger and larger numbers together. Part of the problem of explaining the true nature of mathematical research is one of language. For example, I study Lie algebras and representations. People ask me "What are Lie algebras?" and pretty much the only definition I can give that is understandable is "Lie Algebras are a kind of algebraic structure that is useful in many fields of science, including quantum physics." This is an answer many people understand (on the surface), but it really doesn't say anything. What's worse, most of the time, when we justify or explain our research, it is by connecting it to fields that the person may be more used to (astronomy, biology, physics, economics, etc.). But for those of us in pure math, we really do not think about these fields in our day-to-day work. That is, I study Lie algebras because of their beautiful structure and the interesting combinatorics behind them, not because they are useful in some other field. So a better answer to the question "What are Lie algebras?" would be something like "Lie algebras are vector spaces with additional algebraic structure that gives rise to beautiful and deep combinatorics. They occur naturally as certain sets of square matrices, and are a kind of generalization of the ideas of symmetry." However, this is mostly unintelligible to most people who haven't taken some mathematics beyond calculus, and I find that it sounds condescending to a lot of people, which turns them off from listening to any more explanation. What I've taken to saying lately in response to a question along the lines of "What do you do in math research?" is something like "Mathematicians create new knowledge from existing knowledge. They take things that the human race already knows, and using only logic, they deduce new things. This allows them to find fascinating relationships all throughout the world." I find this response to be pretty good. It's mostly accurate, it's mildly interesting, and best of all, it's short.

Natsu 16y ago

The article's phrase "liberal education" is unlikely to be properly understood in a lot of the USA. The political meaning has so eclipsed the ordinary meaning that the latter seems all but unknown.

Jach 16y ago
I'm not sure the article itself is likely to be properly understood (or even read) by a lot of the USA. I like the idea of "evil education" though.
protomyth 16y ago
I don't know about that. I come from what's described as a "red state"(1) and the term "liberal education" is pretty well understood. 1) The funny part about the "red state" thing is that for years the 2 Senators and 1 House Rep from ND have been Democrat. This changed this year.
endtime 16y ago
Well, the phrase "liberal arts education" is more common in the US, I think, but I also expect most people would get the meaning.

RiderOfGiraffes 16y ago

When I'm asked about math there are a couple of things. Firstly, I ask them about Pythagoras. Most people know of it, and I phrase it in terms of cardboard cutout squares. Take three squares cut from a heavy material, and make them so that A and B together weigh the same as C. Arrange them so their sides lie on a triangle. Not only is it always possible, but the triangle you get always has a right-angle. Why? How do we know? As it happens, the reasoning as to why it's true is wonderfully elegant, and totally accessible. Secondly, I ask - do you think mathematicians know about numbers? Here's something. Take any positive number. If it's even, halve it. Otherwise, triple and add one. Keep doing this, and what happens. So far every number anyone has every tried ends up in a ...->1->4->2->1->... cycle. Does it always happen? No one knows. Possibly it's useless, but there's a bunch of stuff people thought would be useless, and they've given us micro-processors, SatNav, cryptography, error-correcting codes, and a million other things. Who knows what will be useful? After all, if we knew what we were doing, it wouldn't be called "Research".

shasta 16y ago
> Possibly it's useless, but there's a bunch of stuff people thought would be useless, and they've given us micro-processors, SatNav, cryptography, error-correcting codes, and a million other things. You're missing part of the argument, which has to do with the nature of the kinds of structures that mathematicians find interesting. Otherwise you can use this reasoning to justify anything at all.
xyzzyz 16y ago
Oh, Collatz problem. I usually use Goldbach or twin prime conjectures to explain the difficulty of seemingly simple problems, but come to think of it, Collatz is even better, because it does not involve any complicated concept at all -- Goldbach and twin prime conjectures are about primes, and sometimes people do not even know what primes are.
- rfurmani 16y ago
  How about the problem of, given a polynomial equation in at least two variables and integer coefficients, figuring out whether it has any integer solutions. This has directed a lot of modern mathematics and, on the face of it, doesn't seem like it should be so hard. Plus you can build off of this. They may remember that for two variable quadratics the real solutions form an oval or hyperbola or quadratic or two lines. In general you'll get some higher dimensional surface, and the "shape" of it (and how many "holes" it has) is closely tied with how many integer solutions there can be.

HilbertSpace 16y ago

Part I Yet again we are flagellated, excoriated, eviscerated, etc. about 'mathematics'. Still, some crucial points are missing. Been there; done that; learned the lessons; and below are some crucial ones. Yes, candidate understatement of the millennium is that people don't understand math! Yup, they don't! That is, except mathematicians, and they are a tiny fraction of the population. I review some of the main directions and then give my view of the crucial points and direction. Best Undergraduate Major Yes, in many ways math is a terrific subject. I recommend it as in many ways (not all) as the best undergraduate major. Why? First, because in all the rest of the academic subjects of physical science, economics, social science, engineering, computer science, and now even parts of biology and medical science, 'mathematization' of the field is widely regarded as the best academic 'research progress'. E.g., mathematical (theoretical) physics is the most prestigious part of physics, and the situation is similar in the other fields. Second, because in all those other fields, nearly all the people feel that they very much need to know more mathematics. And, any mathematician who reads their work will readily agree! In particular, the level of math in academic computer science research made some progress with Knuth and since then has, in a word, sucked. Outside of academics, the level of knowledge of math is so poor that at the right time and place knowing some relevant math, that might not be very advanced, can be one heck of an advantage. For such an advantage, there is a general principal, a double edged sword: For some knowledge to be a big advantage, it is nearly necessary that very few other people understand it. So, if you really do have an idea that can put $1B in the bank, before the money is coming in at a rate that makes the $1B look likely, explaining the knowledge to anyone else will give only contempt, laughter, anger, or silence. Generally people will give respect for something they admire, say, making $1B, but some knowledge they don't understand (without something like money clearly attached) will mostly just make them angry. In particular, for such math knowledge, people in business won't understand the math, and people in math won't understand the business. It can be lonely at the top, or as a pioneer, etc. Generally, having a big advantage later can be valuable but at first can be lonely. Getting Paid Since for nearly everyone, most of their career has to be directed to getting paid, we need to say how math can contribute. My guess is that for at least the rest of this century, math will be more important for computing than Moore's law is, will be, or, really, so far has been. So generally I'm optimistic. On this point, I expect that so far nearly no one will agree with me. Still, such importance can be a long way from getting paid. Money for Academic Math For the more technical academic fields, there has been one main source of money -- the US Federal Government. Why? Before 1940, f'get about it! After 1945, D. Eisenhower, J. Conant, V. Bush and others were so impressed by the role of math in WWII that Eisenhower supposedly said "Never again will US science be permitted to operate independent of the US military." Conant, et al., deliberately set up several sources of funding -- NSF, ONR, etc. -- so that there would be no one place to cut off the flow of money. The Cold War and the Space Race added more funding. By 1960, there was so much money for research, including math, that a joke went "While you are up, get me a grant.". Now commonly the top US research universities get about 60% of their budget from NSF, NIH, DoE, etc. Scenario: You are a university dean of the School of Science with the math department, and they want to hire some profs. As the dean you look mostly at (1) prestige for the university, (2) demand for courses, and (3) opportunity for research grants. There (1) is okay for, maybe, 50 mathematicians today. For (2), mostly f'get about it: The other departments and the math profs agree that the math department shouldn't teach 'service' courses. So, the other departments want to teach the math themselves or just f'get about it. Besides now there is a history of math department service courses taught by people who didn't speak English, and bitterness remains. For (3), some years ago there was an Exxon executive David who lead the writing of a report that basically claimed that the research and teaching in the math departments was next to useless 'abstract nonsense'. One result was that the NSF, etc. felt more justified in cutting back grants for math. Math had too little support in Congress, and there were plenty of other fields that wanted the grants instead. Net, in the research universities, the math departments went on meager rations. They still are. So in academic math, where is the 'action'? Well, there is plenty of screaming that K-12 needs math teachers. Okay, so there are colleges with math departments that specialize in such 'math teacher training'. Those colleges need some profs who got math Ph.D. degrees from, say, a state university. There the math profs got their Ph.D. degrees from research universities. And there the math profs do research on generalized abstract nonsense that may not go useless forever. So there is a pyramid with several levels, the lowest of which is K-12 math teaching and the top of which are the math departments at the usual suspects Stanford, Berkeley, Princeton, Harvard, etc. Of course what a Princeton math prof does is essentially irrelevant to anything in K-12 math. Being irrelevant is economically risky! This pyramid is at risk: E.g., college departments of education might just do their own teaching of math to students headed for K-12 math. So, here's the good news about academic math: The stuff on the library shelves isn't going anywhere!

p_nathan 16y ago

I have a mathematics minor as part of my bachelor's in computer science. I have never once regretted my mathematics training. I sometimes wish I had more.

Tycho 16y ago

I remember at school there was a bunch of kidsd who were good at maths seemingly due go natural aptitude, and some who were keen on the academic credibility it gave them... but genuinely I can only think if one person who actually displayed a 'passion' or at least a deep interest in the subject. I was very enthusiastic about physics and lots of people were about English and we'd have creative writing groups and stuff, but maths was just... Some folk quietly excelled at it and that was that.

dannyb 16y ago

My only beef with his interesting post is that he uses graphics of completely understandable stuff like diagonalizing a matrix or the map of the phase space map of the logistic equation and then talks about current developments in math. Anything new is almost completely incomprehensible to me - a couple of years ago, I got a book about fractional calculus. I read about 5 pages away and gave it to a mathematician friend of mine...

guscost 16y ago

One pet peeve about math education: calling "imaginary" numbers that makes it seem like there is such a thing as a number that is "real" in a literal sense. All numbers are actually imaginary, they exist as isomorphisms to things in the real world that have numbers or can be counted.