4 ms·

I feel like it's worth pointing out here, for Americans who don't know better (no blame implied), that the French have one of the best mathematical pipelines in

I feel like it's worth pointing out here, for Americans who don't know better (no blame implied), that the French have one of the best mathematical pipelines in the world. They have almost as many Nobels (13 vs. 11) despite having 1/5 the population. Guardian article about them here: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/may/31/europa-french-maths-ecoles-normales-superieures https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/may/31/europa-french-... So please don't think France is a backwater that just doesn't know how to do math - on the contrary, it may be the best country in the world to be born into, if you want to be a mathematician. For what it's worth, I'm an American who honestly is pretty bad at math, but I try to keep learning, though I'm past an age where it will matter in college or higher education.

lainga 7y ago
Do you mean the Fields Medal?
- julianeon 7y ago
  Ha! Yes I do. In fact you can tell my amateur-ness from this, that this misstatement didn't immediately jump out as wrong (though I do know there is no Nobel for math, when I stop and think about it). I should have said the Fields Medal, as indicated in the article.
realbarack 7y ago
A paraphrased anecdote I heard about French math education: "In America, they start by teaching you how to add two numbers, then once you've mastered that you learn to subtract, then once you've got that down you learn to multiply and divide and so forth. In France they tell you: this is an arithmetic object. The operations on it are add, subtract, multiply, and divide. It's simple! It's a good way of cranking out a bunch of Fields medalists, while everyone else has no idea what's going on."
- Koshkin 7y ago
  To the question "what is 2 + 3" a French primary school pupil replied: "3 + 2, since addition is commutative". He did not know what the sum was equal to and could not even understand what he was asked about! https://www.uni-muenster.de/Physik.TP/~munsteg/arnold.html https://www.uni-muenster.de/Physik.TP/~munsteg/arnold.html
  - agumonkey 7y ago
    To be honest, what he's criticizing is also what is lacking in post-primary school math education. The mechanical reduction (3 + 2 -> 5) leads to a road block when you start thinking into solving equations.. because there's no single path of reduction. You need to see the formulas as material you can transform in your mind.
- mianos 7y ago
  'Fields' or 'fields' or both, I laughed out loud. Mathematicians might find this quite funny.
- nestorD 7y ago
  Note that this was true at a time (some of my math teachers learned group theory in middle school) but that nowadays math education is much less abstract until the end of highschool. At this point there is a specialized track (preparatory classes) to get into the most prestigious engeneering and buisness schools that will have you cram mathematics / physics / computeur science / english / a mix of litterature of philosophy in two or three years. The student then get into the various school according to their grades on a serie of national exams. This track is very competitive (and as such often decried) but I believe that it is a very efficient way to get the top talents to the top institutions with a maximum of learning on the way (also note that this education is free and that the very best school will even pay you). Note that a student can also choose to get to college and ignore this track.
- alexanderchr 7y ago
  Tangent joke: > A British mathematician was giving a talk in Grothendieck's seminar in Paris. He started "Let X be a variety...". This caused some talking among the students sitting in the back, who were asking each other "What's a variety?". J.-P. Serre, sitting in the front row, turns around a bit annoyed and says "Integral scheme of finite type over a field". found it on /r/math: https://www.reddit.com/r/math/comments/7qjxbe/whats_your_favorite_math_joke_that_requires_at/ https://www.reddit.com/r/math/comments/7qjxbe/whats_your_fav...
tragiclos 7y ago
There is no such thing as a Nobel prize for math.
- touktouk 7y ago
  The strongest plausible interpretation of what the previous comment said is that it refers to the Fields medal, which has been described as the mathematician's Nobel Prize [0]. Assume good faith. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fields_Medal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fields_Medal, second paragraph
vondur 7y ago
I don't believe anyone here thinks France is an Academic backwater. France has had some of the most brilliant scientist/mathematicians since the 1600's.
runeks 7y ago
> I feel like it's worth pointing out here, for Americans who don't know better (no blame implied), that the French have one of the best mathematical pipelines in the world. They have almost as many Nobels (13 vs. 11) despite having 1/5 the population. I’d much rather measure an educational system by how much it teaches the average person, than by how many Nobel prize winners it produces.
- tonyedgecombe 7y ago
  The two might not be exclusive. Perhaps one of the side effects of the masses having a good grip on trigonometry is producing more Nobel laureates.
iorrus 7y ago
I studied Engineering for a period in France at the time (undergraduate) I was very impressed at the level of rigour and abilities of my French peers. However this does not seem to link well with actual abilities as a practising Engineer. For instance French engineers are not particularily coveted.

lainga 7y ago

Do you mean the Fields Medal?

julianeon 7y ago
Ha! Yes I do. In fact you can tell my amateur-ness from this, that this misstatement didn't immediately jump out as wrong (though I do know there is no Nobel for math, when I stop and think about it). I should have said the Fields Medal, as indicated in the article.

realbarack 7y ago

A paraphrased anecdote I heard about French math education: "In America, they start by teaching you how to add two numbers, then once you've mastered that you learn to subtract, then once you've got that down you learn to multiply and divide and so forth. In France they tell you: this is an arithmetic object. The operations on it are add, subtract, multiply, and divide. It's simple! It's a good way of cranking out a bunch of Fields medalists, while everyone else has no idea what's going on."

Koshkin 7y ago
To the question "what is 2 + 3" a French primary school pupil replied: "3 + 2, since addition is commutative". He did not know what the sum was equal to and could not even understand what he was asked about! https://www.uni-muenster.de/Physik.TP/~munsteg/arnold.html https://www.uni-muenster.de/Physik.TP/~munsteg/arnold.html
- agumonkey 7y ago
  To be honest, what he's criticizing is also what is lacking in post-primary school math education. The mechanical reduction (3 + 2 -> 5) leads to a road block when you start thinking into solving equations.. because there's no single path of reduction. You need to see the formulas as material you can transform in your mind.
mianos 7y ago
'Fields' or 'fields' or both, I laughed out loud. Mathematicians might find this quite funny.
nestorD 7y ago
Note that this was true at a time (some of my math teachers learned group theory in middle school) but that nowadays math education is much less abstract until the end of highschool. At this point there is a specialized track (preparatory classes) to get into the most prestigious engeneering and buisness schools that will have you cram mathematics / physics / computeur science / english / a mix of litterature of philosophy in two or three years. The student then get into the various school according to their grades on a serie of national exams. This track is very competitive (and as such often decried) but I believe that it is a very efficient way to get the top talents to the top institutions with a maximum of learning on the way (also note that this education is free and that the very best school will even pay you). Note that a student can also choose to get to college and ignore this track.
alexanderchr 7y ago
Tangent joke: > A British mathematician was giving a talk in Grothendieck's seminar in Paris. He started "Let X be a variety...". This caused some talking among the students sitting in the back, who were asking each other "What's a variety?". J.-P. Serre, sitting in the front row, turns around a bit annoyed and says "Integral scheme of finite type over a field". found it on /r/math: https://www.reddit.com/r/math/comments/7qjxbe/whats_your_favorite_math_joke_that_requires_at/ https://www.reddit.com/r/math/comments/7qjxbe/whats_your_fav...

tragiclos 7y ago

There is no such thing as a Nobel prize for math.

touktouk 7y ago
The strongest plausible interpretation of what the previous comment said is that it refers to the Fields medal, which has been described as the mathematician's Nobel Prize [0]. Assume good faith. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fields_Medal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fields_Medal, second paragraph

vondur 7y ago

I don't believe anyone here thinks France is an Academic backwater. France has had some of the most brilliant scientist/mathematicians since the 1600's.

runeks 7y ago

> I feel like it's worth pointing out here, for Americans who don't know better (no blame implied), that the French have one of the best mathematical pipelines in the world. They have almost as many Nobels (13 vs. 11) despite having 1/5 the population. I’d much rather measure an educational system by how much it teaches the average person, than by how many Nobel prize winners it produces.

tonyedgecombe 7y ago
The two might not be exclusive. Perhaps one of the side effects of the masses having a good grip on trigonometry is producing more Nobel laureates.

iorrus 7y ago

I studied Engineering for a period in France at the time (undergraduate) I was very impressed at the level of rigour and abilities of my French peers. However this does not seem to link well with actual abilities as a practising Engineer. For instance French engineers are not particularily coveted.