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I was pretty annoyed when I got to university and figured out that math could be about proofs rather than calculation. If I had been raised with that idea of ma

by polio 4y ago

I was pretty annoyed when I got to university and figured out that math could be about proofs rather than calculation. If I had been raised with that idea of math, I would have loved it so much sooner and would probably be pretty good at it by now.

clnq 4y ago
I was also annoyed for the opposite reason. I had assumed until then that math was more about application of what’s been proven rather than revisiting the proofs. I think the majority of students feel what I felt; that math got a lot less applied and a lot more esoteric in the academia.
- noobermin 4y ago
  Some people out there do both. As a physicist, I mainly use applications of what's been proven.
mlyle 4y ago
IMO, good math ed is balanced: - Enrichment, visual, and speedy stuff to build intuition - Proofy stuff to build rigor and reasoning ability - Rote stuff to build arithmetic and symbolic manipulation skills Ideally, it would be balanced this way from kindergarten to mid-undergrad. In practice, most students rotate through these.
- noobermin 4y ago
  Yeah, people who say the rote stuff isn't part of math don't get it, or they have a simplistic view of math that isn't as bad as the ones who don't know of the proofy side of math and think it is only rote and bland calculation. It's all of it and you need the rote stuff to build intuition too in addition to the things like visual "proofs" and graphs. You do not build intuition about things without having some amount of those things in your head which is memorization.
danielvaughn 4y ago
Same. I feel robbed of something that could have radically changed my life. I’ve always suspected that I could have had an aptitude for math, but was too young to be able to articulate it. I just knew that something was wrong with how it was being taught. It’s a bit late for me now at 38, or at least it feels that way. I never took college math so HS-level algebra and geometry is my current level of understanding and sometimes it really hampers my programming ability.
- anonymouskimmer 4y ago
  If you find it too tedious to self-study on your own (there are books for this purpose), then you can consider taking a trig or calc course at a local community college. Just think of it as a temporary hobby.
  - daniel_rh 4y ago
    Or go for one of these gamified math tutorials. For instance: this one teaches geometric proofs without mentioning the formalism, just letting you "unlock" the tools from a few "axiom" starter tools. https://www.euclidea.xyz/ https://www.euclidea.xyz/
    - sanctified384 4y ago
      Wtf this is awesome! This should be better publicized. Thank you!!
    - dxbydt 4y ago
      This is very nicely done. I run a training group and I will use this for my students. Thank you for posting this resource.
- pknomad 4y ago
  I feel for you. I stopped after discrete math and analysis-lite class but I wish I took more algorithm and higher level math classes to be better at my craft. It's also hard to take classes when you have competing priorities when you're 30+. I don't know your current situation but I feel like you can totally do it since you have renewed determination for learning.
sacrosancty 4y ago
That's more your parents' job since a career or hobby as a mathematician is extremely niche. School math is really a foundation to enable you do to all sorts of other things, as well as being directly useful. You can go a long way in engineering with only high-school calculus and engineer is a hugely popular profession and trade. Proofs are almost completely useless there. An engineer can usually "prove" something satisfactorily by testing it in a couple of cases and guessing that it generalizes to all real-world-scale numbers. That takes a kind of intuition about how typical equations typically behave which you get from doing all those tedious exercises at school.
dboreham 4y ago
Unfortunately there are not sufficient good mathematics teachers around to impart this level of understanding to students in school. Not that the teachers we have are trying to be bad, just realistically if you have a mathematics competency and good critical thinking skills, you are able to earn 2-3X as much not being a teacher, so most people do that.
fsckboy 4y ago
you do get proofs in HS geometry

by polio 4y ago

clnq 4y ago

I was also annoyed for the opposite reason. I had assumed until then that math was more about application of what’s been proven rather than revisiting the proofs. I think the majority of students feel what I felt; that math got a lot less applied and a lot more esoteric in the academia.

noobermin 4y ago
Some people out there do both. As a physicist, I mainly use applications of what's been proven.

mlyle 4y ago

IMO, good math ed is balanced: - Enrichment, visual, and speedy stuff to build intuition - Proofy stuff to build rigor and reasoning ability - Rote stuff to build arithmetic and symbolic manipulation skills Ideally, it would be balanced this way from kindergarten to mid-undergrad. In practice, most students rotate through these.

noobermin 4y ago
Yeah, people who say the rote stuff isn't part of math don't get it, or they have a simplistic view of math that isn't as bad as the ones who don't know of the proofy side of math and think it is only rote and bland calculation. It's all of it and you need the rote stuff to build intuition too in addition to the things like visual "proofs" and graphs. You do not build intuition about things without having some amount of those things in your head which is memorization.

danielvaughn 4y ago

Same. I feel robbed of something that could have radically changed my life. I’ve always suspected that I could have had an aptitude for math, but was too young to be able to articulate it. I just knew that something was wrong with how it was being taught. It’s a bit late for me now at 38, or at least it feels that way. I never took college math so HS-level algebra and geometry is my current level of understanding and sometimes it really hampers my programming ability.

anonymouskimmer 4y ago
If you find it too tedious to self-study on your own (there are books for this purpose), then you can consider taking a trig or calc course at a local community college. Just think of it as a temporary hobby.
- daniel_rh 4y ago
  Or go for one of these gamified math tutorials. For instance: this one teaches geometric proofs without mentioning the formalism, just letting you "unlock" the tools from a few "axiom" starter tools. https://www.euclidea.xyz/ https://www.euclidea.xyz/
  - sanctified384 4y ago
    Wtf this is awesome! This should be better publicized. Thank you!!
  - dxbydt 4y ago
    This is very nicely done. I run a training group and I will use this for my students. Thank you for posting this resource.
pknomad 4y ago
I feel for you. I stopped after discrete math and analysis-lite class but I wish I took more algorithm and higher level math classes to be better at my craft. It's also hard to take classes when you have competing priorities when you're 30+. I don't know your current situation but I feel like you can totally do it since you have renewed determination for learning.

sacrosancty 4y ago

That's more your parents' job since a career or hobby as a mathematician is extremely niche. School math is really a foundation to enable you do to all sorts of other things, as well as being directly useful. You can go a long way in engineering with only high-school calculus and engineer is a hugely popular profession and trade. Proofs are almost completely useless there. An engineer can usually "prove" something satisfactorily by testing it in a couple of cases and guessing that it generalizes to all real-world-scale numbers. That takes a kind of intuition about how typical equations typically behave which you get from doing all those tedious exercises at school.

dboreham 4y ago

Unfortunately there are not sufficient good mathematics teachers around to impart this level of understanding to students in school. Not that the teachers we have are trying to be bad, just realistically if you have a mathematics competency and good critical thinking skills, you are able to earn 2-3X as much not being a teacher, so most people do that.

fsckboy 4y ago

you do get proofs in HS geometry