5 ms·

My view is that everyone should study calculus more or less for the same reason we almost all study Shakespeare or The Bill of Rights or whatever. Its an enormo

My view is that everyone should study calculus more or less for the same reason we almost all study Shakespeare or The Bill of Rights or whatever. Its an enormous human accomplishment whose cultural impact virtually cannot be overstated and a basic understanding of these sorts of things is the birthright of every human being alive.

linuxftw 7y ago
> Its an enormous human accomplishment whose cultural impact virtually cannot be overstated That's just your opinion. I think Shakespeare is trash. I don't think most people can even comprehend the Bill of Rights. We should replace Shakespeare with Super Mario. Outside of socialite circles, literally no one cares about Shakespeare. How many kids you see walking around in Shakespeare T-shirts or reading Shakespeare on the school bus? Those kids are into Super Mario, and so are many adults. Super Mario is the embodiment of art, international relations, technology and engineering of the sum-total of humanity at the time. Shakespeare is just some words.
- vincent-toups 7y ago
  I'm rolling my eyes so hard they could fall out of my head. You can only form an opinion about Shakespeare (or Mario (though the kids are into Fortnight these days, they tell me)) if you are exposed to them. Both things have enormous cultural importance and are part of the human experience and all people deserve to be able to engage critically in culture. Shakespeare very well could be trash. The Bill of Rights is by and large a shockingly hypocritical document. But both are part of our history, along with a lot of other stuff about which we could say all sorts of things visa vi what ought to be in a curriculum. But my point is that humans deserve to know their history and their culture and that takes resources and time and energy which are, in the final analysis, justified by the inherent dignity and rights of people.
  - linuxftw 7y ago
    > But both are part of our history Shakespeare is not part of my history, I'm not English, nor am I anglo-american. Shakespeare was never important, only popular, but that's easily confused in the US. Just one of the first generations of celebrity-worship culture. > humans deserve to know their history and their culture People get culture from family and society, not from government run schools.
jwagenet 7y ago
Sure, but calculus is even less tangible than Shakespeare and the Bill of Rights. Good luck getting the folks who don’t care or struggled through algebra to stay engaged.
- dboreham 7y ago
  Scratching my head...that just isn't true. For example go throw a rock into the sky and watch its path. Calculus. Very tangible.
  - whlr 7y ago
    I'm curious how you envision a calculus class that would make the topic more tangible. I think we can agree that typical calculus classes are more abstract (for lack of a better term) than typical english, history, or science classes.
    - inimino 7y ago
      Physics and calculus should be taught as a single class, it's a mistake when they are separated.
      - vincent-toups 7y ago
        I'm a physicist and it happens to be the case for me that I didn't really _get_ math until I understood I could do physics with it. So you'd think I'd agree. But after I was sensitized to it by physics, I've come to see pure mathematics as just as interesting and worthy of being taught standalone. In fact, one does mathematics an enormous disservice by suggesting that its tightly coupled with physics. Roger Penrose himself points this out in The Road to Reality: mathematics is actually substantially larger than that part of it which we require for physics. That fact alone is fascinating. The pitch I'd give for pure mathematics is that its really the study of precisely what we all do on a daily basis when we "reason" about things. Our daily experience suggests reasoning is useful and in many ways concrete, but a detailed study of the process almost immediately produces challenges and paradoxes and great landscapes of mystery.

linuxftw 7y ago

> Its an enormous human accomplishment whose cultural impact virtually cannot be overstated That's just your opinion. I think Shakespeare is trash. I don't think most people can even comprehend the Bill of Rights. We should replace Shakespeare with Super Mario. Outside of socialite circles, literally no one cares about Shakespeare. How many kids you see walking around in Shakespeare T-shirts or reading Shakespeare on the school bus? Those kids are into Super Mario, and so are many adults. Super Mario is the embodiment of art, international relations, technology and engineering of the sum-total of humanity at the time. Shakespeare is just some words.

vincent-toups 7y ago
I'm rolling my eyes so hard they could fall out of my head. You can only form an opinion about Shakespeare (or Mario (though the kids are into Fortnight these days, they tell me)) if you are exposed to them. Both things have enormous cultural importance and are part of the human experience and all people deserve to be able to engage critically in culture. Shakespeare very well could be trash. The Bill of Rights is by and large a shockingly hypocritical document. But both are part of our history, along with a lot of other stuff about which we could say all sorts of things visa vi what ought to be in a curriculum. But my point is that humans deserve to know their history and their culture and that takes resources and time and energy which are, in the final analysis, justified by the inherent dignity and rights of people.
- linuxftw 7y ago
  > But both are part of our history Shakespeare is not part of my history, I'm not English, nor am I anglo-american. Shakespeare was never important, only popular, but that's easily confused in the US. Just one of the first generations of celebrity-worship culture. > humans deserve to know their history and their culture People get culture from family and society, not from government run schools.

jwagenet 7y ago

Sure, but calculus is even less tangible than Shakespeare and the Bill of Rights. Good luck getting the folks who don’t care or struggled through algebra to stay engaged.

dboreham 7y ago
Scratching my head...that just isn't true. For example go throw a rock into the sky and watch its path. Calculus. Very tangible.
- whlr 7y ago
  I'm curious how you envision a calculus class that would make the topic more tangible. I think we can agree that typical calculus classes are more abstract (for lack of a better term) than typical english, history, or science classes.
  - inimino 7y ago
    Physics and calculus should be taught as a single class, it's a mistake when they are separated.
    - vincent-toups 7y ago
      I'm a physicist and it happens to be the case for me that I didn't really _get_ math until I understood I could do physics with it. So you'd think I'd agree. But after I was sensitized to it by physics, I've come to see pure mathematics as just as interesting and worthy of being taught standalone. In fact, one does mathematics an enormous disservice by suggesting that its tightly coupled with physics. Roger Penrose himself points this out in The Road to Reality: mathematics is actually substantially larger than that part of it which we require for physics. That fact alone is fascinating. The pitch I'd give for pure mathematics is that its really the study of precisely what we all do on a daily basis when we "reason" about things. Our daily experience suggests reasoning is useful and in many ways concrete, but a detailed study of the process almost immediately produces challenges and paradoxes and great landscapes of mystery.