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Ego and Math [video]
- rahimnathwani 3y agoIn case you're hesitating to click on a video link: it's only 10 mins long.
- 93po 3y agoFew minute read instead: https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=z7GVHB2wiyg&t=183 https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=z7GVHB2wiyg&t=183
- hashar 3y agoI opened the video in the background and immediately recognized the person: the author behind the 3Blue1Brown YouTube channel. It has a long series of video regarding various mathematical topics which are rather accessible. My favorite by far is a "proposal" for an alternate notation which makes much more sense and, if adopted, would make mathematics way less intimidating (Triangle of Power (2016), 3Blue1Brown - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sULa9Lc4pck https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sULa9Lc4pck ). I'd give him a Fields medal (or at least an honorary mention of some sort) :-]
- smokel 3y agoNote that the alternate notation was suggested by someone named "2'5 9'2" on the Mathematics Stack Exchange [1], and not by 3Blue1Brown. Obviously, this should not take away from the amazing educational work that 3Blue1Brown has achieved, but the honorary mention would probably suffice :) [1] https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/30046/alternative-notation-for-exponents-logs-and-roots https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/30046/alternative-n...
- pranavjoneja 3y agoHe mentions in the video that he saw the idea in "a math exchange post" and he also has a link to the exact post in the video description. Doesn't that count?
- emiliobumachar 3y agoIt does count as properly attributing the idea, yes. It doesn't count as having it. Possibly the Fields Medal suggestion assumed it was his?
- simiones 3y agoThe point was that it's just not his invention. He attributes it extremely clearly, no one is accusing him of theft. But you don't get math prizes for presenting someone else's ideas.
- hgsgm 3y agoFortunately, you do. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leroy_P._Steele_Prize https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leroy_P._Steele_Prize
- a1o 3y agoI agree with the comment that says this removes the personality of each function
- raverbashing 3y ago> immediately recognized the person: the author behind the 3Blue1Brown YouTube channel Yes, that is noted by the 3B1B in the title But yeah the asymmetry of operators in math is exhausting.
- Turneyboy 3y agoI'm a fan of his work but that's just not what Fields medals are for.
- hfkwer 3y agoI'm a math professor with about a decade of teaching math. On the list of things that make math intimidating, for undergrads at least, the notation for powers, roots, and log, is very low. The "proposal" also ignores that 1. The kth root of x is often denoted x^(1/k); 2. We have convenient shortcuts for the square root and the natural logarithm; 3. Parentheses become a mess; 4. The notation for squares, cubes, etc. is deeply entrenched; does anyone really think that write "x triangle 2 above" (yup, it's a mess to write in ASCII) instead of x² or x^2 would make mathematics less intimidating to everyday people? 5. Having symbols, subscripts, prescripts, and superscripts above the symbol all strewn together is much more intimidating to anyone. 6. How do you nest them? Try to write down log_a(log_a(x)) to see what I mean. I enjoy 3B1B's videos in general, but this one really only makes sense if you don't think too much about it.
- agumonkey 3y agoI'm no math professional, and my struggled around some math topics was rarely notation, but 1) a bit of hidden information/culture (which can show in notation too) 2) a misalignment on what the topic was trying to achieve. The last bit which I can't describe clearly is 'maturity'. Sometimes an idea just eludes you for years, until it doesn't. Changing maths would probably not have fixed this. Oh, and the underlying human feelings behind the problem solving made by others. It seems that a lot of maths is lowering energy required to express or find a solution, no matter what subfield you work on, that seems to be the goal.
- simiones 3y ago1. The kth root of x being x^1/k would be written as this: k 1/k △x = x△ 2. I don't think these are as important. Also, ln x / log x is still the same or more symbols than `e△x`. 3. Not significantly more than parens in exponents. You also get rid of one level of parens from log. 4. Notation change is often a huge hassle, this is absolutely true. 5. Isn't this a problem for current notations as well? Especially if you ever want to put a complex expression for k in the k'th root notation. 6. log_a(log_a(x)) would be `a△(a△x) `. Still, I don't personally like the symbol. The biggest problem to me is that it requires smaller letters (subscripts/superscripts) all the time, which makes it more annoying to write than the regular notation for the base of an exponentiation and the argument of a log or root. Complex expressions in small letters are very annoying to me, and this notations makes it necessary to use them in all cases, where the normal notation at least has some cases where this is not needed.
- spicyusername 3y agoGrant Sanderson is a righteous dude. His videos on mathematics are amazing.
- dwheeler 3y agoI think his key point applies to many other fields. I'll summarize it as "evaluate the work you do, at least in part, on its utility to others". I've heard of devs who were asked to solve simple problems, but went out to choose exotic and complex approaches because that tech is the latest new hotness (though not well tested). I'm sure there are other examples.
- dahart 3y agoThis comment immediately clarified a thought I was trying to form after watching the video, which is: math is inherently part social activity, like almost everything else we do. Grant first described the ego thing in embarrassed negative terms like ‘childish’, but it’s a good idea to recognize that this self-deprecating framing isn’t the only way to look at it. Math is a language we learn and use to communicate, and being good (and being seen as being good) at speaking the language is usually an important step to taking part in the conversation.
- prvc 3y agoOn the other hand, seeking prestige at the expense of personal satisfaction, say, by conducting research in an "interesting" or "important" area, may be seen as an altruistic means of furthering progress in that field, and seeking personal fulfillment through the knowledge that one is helping others may be seen as a form of self-indulgence.
- zarathustreal 3y agoThat’s the beauty of helping others! It’s a form of self-indulgence which is entirely ethical. Normally “self-indulgence” carries with it a negative connotation. In the case of altruistic behaviors, it’s actually a positive thing
- yantrams 3y ago"Utility had a strange backseat for me" I kinda took that to the extreme when I was young. Used to loathe anything practical - experiments, programming, applied math etc cuz you know they weren't "pure" and engaging enough. I would also have a hardtime processing/registering something if I'm not able to derive it analytically from first principles. It felt like cheating if I have to use a formula without fully understanding how it was derived haha.
- grugagag 3y agoI was the other way around. Only when I found utility in something could I finally grasp the subject properly. I remember how I was taught derivatives and integrals in HS, I knew how to do them but I was confused as hell. I asked the professor and once explained some uses it all clicked into place.
- cezart 3y agoSame. I studied derivatives and integrals twice. First time in HS, and it was just a bunch of random rules I had to learn by heart to be able to do these calculations that were required to pass the tests. Second time was during the first year at university. Here the professor explained that derivatives are needed to calculate the speed with which something changes. Since we were studying economics, interest rates and growth rates made great intuitive examples. Or that integrals permit us to calculate the area under a graph, thus making it possible to calculate for ex the total expected value of something over time. When I saw the utility out of this mathematical tools, studying how to apply them became of great interest!
- jack_pp 3y agoSame. There's an infinite things to learn, if you can't argue for the usefulness of any piece of information and if that use isn't related to my own goals I will stop you from communicating said information
- drorco 3y agoSame. I really struggle to learn anything which I can't see a practical use for. Just as an example, in high school learning trigonometry was really difficult for me, like why would I even care about finding an angle in a triangle, etc.? Only once I studied physics or game dev, this has started to become relevant, and then studying it got SO MUCH easier.
- seanc 3y agoGrant's Patreon, for anyone who feels so inclined: https://www.patreon.com/3blue1brown https://www.patreon.com/3blue1brown
- jfbaro 3y agoCan this be used in a way similar to “supercomputers” proposed for Haskel?
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- munchler 3y agoI enjoy his 3B1B videos, but this talk did not resonate with me at all. I was good at math as a kid, but no part of my motivation came from "a desire to be seen as being good at it." If anything, many people looked at me kind of funny for being good at math, so I learned to play down my ability when necessary. Maybe it's just because I grew up in an earlier era, but being nerdy was definitely not cool when I was young.
- dkarl 3y agoI grew up in the eighties when being nerdy wasn't cool, but math was something that people recognized as real, not a nerdy invention, even if it was weird and nerdy to enjoy it. Other nerdy pursuits like D&D or fantasy (or, at the time, computers) were seen as escapes for people who couldn't face the difficulties of the real world and had to invent easier worlds to live in where they could pretend not to be lame. By contrast, math was real and hard. Every kid in school had moments when they wished they were better at math. I was a weirdo and an outcast, but I was a weirdo and an outcast who had an ability that people recognized. Being better at math to make up for being socially useless in every other way didn't take me very far, though. Once I got to a top ten PhD program and was surrounded by people who were just as smart, some of them much smarter, and I faced the likely reality of ending up at minor university cranking out trivial results to get tenure, permanently outed as a mediocrity, making minor contributions that did nothing to advance the real work done by brilliant people, I couldn't face years of hard work for that outcome. Now as a programmer I have zero prestige and negative social cachet, but I get to do useful work on educational software used in primary school classrooms.
- SamPatt 3y agoProgrammers don't have negative social cachet anymore. I imagine telling people "I build software to help young children learn" will get a nearly universal positive reaction.
- hgsgm 3y agoNot from parents who've seen all the "educational software" and who want their kids to study and practice instead of more time staring at distractions on screens.
- minionnn 3y ago[dead]
- photochemsyn 3y agoHistorically, mathematics that initially seemed to have little imaginable practical application later become core to various fields of physics and engineering - non-Euclidean geometry as developed by Gauss-Bolyai-Lobachevsky amd Riemann became the foundation of Einstein's general relativity, number theory became the basis of cryptography (to the likely dismay of GH Hardy), etc. So keep plowing away, mathematicians, at whatever you want to, and don't be surprised if some applied science type picks up the results and uses them for something in the so-called real world (but don't expect many of us to check your proofs, no thanks, taking it all on faith is the norm).
- k__ 3y agoYes, math is to physics what art is to design. It's crazy what these two fields produce, but once I a while something useful comes out.
- jdeaton 3y agoThere's a small number of people I know who say in social contexts "I love math" but they come up blank when asked what fields they find beautiful. I find this correlated with narcissism and it makes me believe these people don't actually find math beautiful, but just like the idea of others thinking they do and want to assert that they're the smart person in the group.
- kandel 3y agoDevil's advocate: they liked the little bits of math they were exposed to. I don't know if there's a field i like. But there's something intoxicating in math. Sometimes it's very strong. I listened to a CS lecture now and normally I find CS a bit boring but as he kept describing aspects of the problem he was facing (finding points in intersecting disks) and as the problem got more complicated I got the itch lol. Sitting in a logic class is more exciting than a roller coaster. It's a bit scary because I don't understand why.
- jdeaton 3y agoMakes sense, and I think many people fall into that category. Saying "there's something intoxicating in math" and that you enjoyed the roller coaster of a logic class already excludes one from the situation I am describing. My comment was too judgemental. People should be allowed to say that they enjoy something without any follow-up and without being judged for it. I think that sometimes it just seems like a facade when people say they really like math because when you try start a conversation on the topic its like they're not actually interested in it at all. It gives the impression there's something disingenuous about their proclamation of liking math. But perhaps its just the way I personally have approached it.
- kandel 3y agoMaybe it's the shallowness of pop math? I sometimes find pop math even insulting. Not a grown up response, sure, but how many times can you hear "WaOw there are Bigger infinities???" sure it's nice that they find it cool but when I start to talk about the things that are more interesting I can see the shift in them as they quickly get bored. Perhaps it's the quick realization that no one outside of math actually cares that is insulting, after all those times they hyped us up.
- 0wis 3y agoI have an incredible feeling that this quite short commencement speech is quite complete in its treatment of the subject of one’s relationship to career choices. Utility, originality and personal appreciation of tasks are key parameters in order to find a fulfilling job.
- kurosawa 3y agoThis reminded me in part of the work of Francis Su on math and the virtues: math and human flourishing https://youtu.be/FTXhj-puDgw https://youtu.be/FTXhj-puDgw Mathematical practice can be a means of achieving the various virtues, and ‘show up’ (or make us more sensitive to) our vices. Meaning that there is something inherently good in the learning and practice of math, for it to lead to more good and to manifest to us what is bad.
- desertvrt 3y ago[dead]