6 ms·

That would explain why I never got SICP. I can’t follow the math.

User23 4y ago
Don't sell yourself short. The traditional mathematical guild has put religionists to shame with their penchant for obfuscation and ambiguity. Computing science math on the other hand is rigorous, concrete, and accessible to anyone who can, well, write a program.
- naikrovek 4y ago
  > Computing science math ... is ... accessible to anyone who can, well, write a program. it most definitely is not. maybe it's the notation or the sudden appearance of it on the page, or something I don't know about, but math on a page becomes a literal wall that I can't overcome when reading. I can explain any concept I understand well enough to teach others, via analogy, metaphor, or demonstrative example, including algorithms I use when I write software. I can't even understand software I write on a mathematical level; forget describing it or teaching it with math. math is just out of reach for me. it has been since high school and it will be for the rest of my life. if I have to describe an algorithm I am using in a program by using math, then it will never be described by me, except via the program source code. if you try to share an algorithm with me and you use math to define it, you might as well just save your time because you are as likely to extinguish the Sun with a single eyedropper of water as you are likely to communicate with me in any way using math. I loved math when I was young. I would spend time on weekends making up numbers and then calculating their square and cube roots on paper for fun. My high school math teacher hated calculus and he taught us all to hate math in toto when we were in that class. he sucked the enjoyment of math out of everyone effortlessly and completely. I will not be rejoining the mathematically literate in this lifetime, and it is something that I desperately want to learn. to say that math is simply accessible to any given person is just plain incorrect.
  - inimino 4y ago
    You protest too much. You surely know it is not out of reach, but you would have to find your own way back into the joy of it and no-one else can tell you what to read or where to start.
    - naikrovek 4y ago
      it's out of reach. easy for you does not equate to easy for me.
      - inimino 4y ago
        You wouldn't have gotten into math the first time if it was just easy, we like it because it's hard.
  - wrycoder 4y ago
    You’ve convinced yourself that you can never do it. It may interest you to know that the greatest mathematicians also feel that they are groping and may never accomplish what they are trying to do. Two comments: notice that the equations written physics text books always use single letters for variables - possibly with sub/superscripts. This is to keep the notation compact. If they used long variable names as programmers do, the essence of the relation described would disappear in the clutter. That’s why math notation is as compact as possible. (APL is an example of a programming language that tries to emulate a mathematical style.) Second, try to look for the shape of an equation and what it’s trying to tell you about the relationship between the variables.
    - hnfong 4y ago
      Noting that olympian runners and the physically disabled both want to run faster doesn't help. I get really angry when math types just drive by and claim everything is easy if you practice and have the correct mindset. Everyone has something they aren't good at, and that's OK IMHO.
      - naikrovek 4y ago
        thank you.
      - User23 4y ago
        I'm not a "maths type." My passion has always been for programming, not what people think of when you say "math." Of course the Curry-Howard correspondence tells us that programs are mathematical objects, but that's not what comes to mind for most people. I never said it was easy, I said you can do it. If you're smart enough to write a computer program you definitely have the required cognitive horsepower. Now if you want to only do the things in life that present no difficulty then that's your choice, but for your sake I hope you choose to push your boundaries and grow. In high school I was taught that if the algebra is hard to understand then look at the geometry, and if the geometry is hard to understand then look at the algebra. Some people are definitely better at one way than the other. Definitely learn where your strengths lie and use them, but don't assume that you're bad at something because you're bad at one of many ways of doing it. And yeah, you probably don't have the raw brainpower of a von Neumann or a Gauss (I sure don't), but so what? I'll never be a competitive weightlifter but I still lift because I enjoy seeing what my body can do. And I'll never win a Fields medal, Turing award, or probably ever even get a paper published, but I still play around with predicate calculus and other discrete math because I want to see what my mind can do. And as a happy side effect having some physical strength makes me more useful to other people, and knowing some mathematical reasoning does too, by making me better at writing correct programs.
- kayodelycaon 4y ago
  It’s not actually. I have short-term memory issues that make holding math in my head next to impossible. Things get transposed or forgotten mid-operation. The only way I can do math is to have everything written down, including formulas. Even then, I may not be able to figure out how to change both sides of an equation. I can’t convert miles per hour to time required to travel X miles, even with paper in front of me. (I wish I could. I love hard sci-fi.) I don’t have these issue with programming because it doesn’t use my logical memory, it uses visual/spatial memory. I see function calls as a series of lines creating decision trees. You may be surprised how little math matters in practice.
  - yonaguska 4y ago
    I had no idea that I also do this. The visual logic thing that is. I also have short term memory issues, but those seem to be improving with lions mane and bacopa. Having a high resolution large monitor also helps, the more I can fit on a screen, the easier it is to work. Double edit, if your interested in learning some math, geometry is basically algebra, visualized. Algebraic proofs didn't really click for me until I took a different math class in college on geometric algebra.
    - User23 4y ago
      > Having a high resolution large monitor also helps, the more I can fit on a screen, the easier it is to work One of the most important things I learned at the Tufte seminar I attended was to let the optic nerve do as much work as possible to free up the short term memory for the hard parts. Big screens or big printouts are a great tool. > geometry is basically algebra, visualized This isn't still part of basic math instruction? It was literally middle school math where I went to school! We were frequently tested on both the algebraic and geometric solutions for a given problem. That explains a lot really.
      - yonaguska 4y ago
        It was split out when I took it, it wasn't until I took some math history geometry class in college that it all made sense.
smitty1e 4y ago
In particular, while I can visualize code executing in my head, I cannot just look at a formula and do the same: the formula is too static. Formulae are a beautiful top-down model of some narrow, idealized slice of reality. Understanding is built bottom-up. For example, the raw torment of differential equations could have been clarified if the Prof. said something like: "Your car going down the street is a differential equation. Your position, x, your speedometer velocity is dx/dt, and the accelerator pedal position d/dx(dx/dt). We will now set about abstracting this past all casual understanding."
- wrycoder 4y ago
  And then you learn that most differential equations are not explicitly solvable, and the world is actually coded in partial differential equations, anyway.
- consilient 4y ago
  > In particular, while I can visualize code executing in my head, I cannot just look at a formula and do the same: the formula is too static. The right lesson to learn from this isn't that math is too hard, it's that you're using the wrong tools. The usual target architecture of math (so to speak) is a rewrite engine, not a register machine. You should almost never be "executing" anything.

Don't sell yourself short. The traditional mathematical guild has put religionists to shame with their penchant for obfuscation and ambiguity. Computing science math on the other hand is rigorous, concrete, and accessible to anyone who can, well, write a program.

naikrovek 4y ago
> Computing science math ... is ... accessible to anyone who can, well, write a program. it most definitely is not. maybe it's the notation or the sudden appearance of it on the page, or something I don't know about, but math on a page becomes a literal wall that I can't overcome when reading. I can explain any concept I understand well enough to teach others, via analogy, metaphor, or demonstrative example, including algorithms I use when I write software. I can't even understand software I write on a mathematical level; forget describing it or teaching it with math. math is just out of reach for me. it has been since high school and it will be for the rest of my life. if I have to describe an algorithm I am using in a program by using math, then it will never be described by me, except via the program source code. if you try to share an algorithm with me and you use math to define it, you might as well just save your time because you are as likely to extinguish the Sun with a single eyedropper of water as you are likely to communicate with me in any way using math. I loved math when I was young. I would spend time on weekends making up numbers and then calculating their square and cube roots on paper for fun. My high school math teacher hated calculus and he taught us all to hate math in toto when we were in that class. he sucked the enjoyment of math out of everyone effortlessly and completely. I will not be rejoining the mathematically literate in this lifetime, and it is something that I desperately want to learn. to say that math is simply accessible to any given person is just plain incorrect.
- inimino 4y ago
  You protest too much. You surely know it is not out of reach, but you would have to find your own way back into the joy of it and no-one else can tell you what to read or where to start.
  - naikrovek 4y ago
    it's out of reach. easy for you does not equate to easy for me.
    - inimino 4y ago
      You wouldn't have gotten into math the first time if it was just easy, we like it because it's hard.
- wrycoder 4y ago
  You’ve convinced yourself that you can never do it. It may interest you to know that the greatest mathematicians also feel that they are groping and may never accomplish what they are trying to do. Two comments: notice that the equations written physics text books always use single letters for variables - possibly with sub/superscripts. This is to keep the notation compact. If they used long variable names as programmers do, the essence of the relation described would disappear in the clutter. That’s why math notation is as compact as possible. (APL is an example of a programming language that tries to emulate a mathematical style.) Second, try to look for the shape of an equation and what it’s trying to tell you about the relationship between the variables.
  - hnfong 4y ago
    Noting that olympian runners and the physically disabled both want to run faster doesn't help. I get really angry when math types just drive by and claim everything is easy if you practice and have the correct mindset. Everyone has something they aren't good at, and that's OK IMHO.
    - naikrovek 4y ago
      thank you.
    - User23 4y ago
      I'm not a "maths type." My passion has always been for programming, not what people think of when you say "math." Of course the Curry-Howard correspondence tells us that programs are mathematical objects, but that's not what comes to mind for most people. I never said it was easy, I said you can do it. If you're smart enough to write a computer program you definitely have the required cognitive horsepower. Now if you want to only do the things in life that present no difficulty then that's your choice, but for your sake I hope you choose to push your boundaries and grow. In high school I was taught that if the algebra is hard to understand then look at the geometry, and if the geometry is hard to understand then look at the algebra. Some people are definitely better at one way than the other. Definitely learn where your strengths lie and use them, but don't assume that you're bad at something because you're bad at one of many ways of doing it. And yeah, you probably don't have the raw brainpower of a von Neumann or a Gauss (I sure don't), but so what? I'll never be a competitive weightlifter but I still lift because I enjoy seeing what my body can do. And I'll never win a Fields medal, Turing award, or probably ever even get a paper published, but I still play around with predicate calculus and other discrete math because I want to see what my mind can do. And as a happy side effect having some physical strength makes me more useful to other people, and knowing some mathematical reasoning does too, by making me better at writing correct programs.
kayodelycaon 4y ago
It’s not actually. I have short-term memory issues that make holding math in my head next to impossible. Things get transposed or forgotten mid-operation. The only way I can do math is to have everything written down, including formulas. Even then, I may not be able to figure out how to change both sides of an equation. I can’t convert miles per hour to time required to travel X miles, even with paper in front of me. (I wish I could. I love hard sci-fi.) I don’t have these issue with programming because it doesn’t use my logical memory, it uses visual/spatial memory. I see function calls as a series of lines creating decision trees. You may be surprised how little math matters in practice.
- yonaguska 4y ago
  I had no idea that I also do this. The visual logic thing that is. I also have short term memory issues, but those seem to be improving with lions mane and bacopa. Having a high resolution large monitor also helps, the more I can fit on a screen, the easier it is to work. Double edit, if your interested in learning some math, geometry is basically algebra, visualized. Algebraic proofs didn't really click for me until I took a different math class in college on geometric algebra.
  - User23 4y ago
    > Having a high resolution large monitor also helps, the more I can fit on a screen, the easier it is to work One of the most important things I learned at the Tufte seminar I attended was to let the optic nerve do as much work as possible to free up the short term memory for the hard parts. Big screens or big printouts are a great tool. > geometry is basically algebra, visualized This isn't still part of basic math instruction? It was literally middle school math where I went to school! We were frequently tested on both the algebraic and geometric solutions for a given problem. That explains a lot really.
    - yonaguska 4y ago
      It was split out when I took it, it wasn't until I took some math history geometry class in college that it all made sense.

smitty1e 4y ago

In particular, while I can visualize code executing in my head, I cannot just look at a formula and do the same: the formula is too static. Formulae are a beautiful top-down model of some narrow, idealized slice of reality. Understanding is built bottom-up. For example, the raw torment of differential equations could have been clarified if the Prof. said something like: "Your car going down the street is a differential equation. Your position, x, your speedometer velocity is dx/dt, and the accelerator pedal position d/dx(dx/dt). We will now set about abstracting this past all casual understanding."

wrycoder 4y ago
And then you learn that most differential equations are not explicitly solvable, and the world is actually coded in partial differential equations, anyway.
consilient 4y ago
> In particular, while I can visualize code executing in my head, I cannot just look at a formula and do the same: the formula is too static. The right lesson to learn from this isn't that math is too hard, it's that you're using the wrong tools. The usual target architecture of math (so to speak) is a rewrite engine, not a register machine. You should almost never be "executing" anything.