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You're conflating things. This issue isn't that Classical Mechanics has somehow evolved or changed. It's that people continue to find new and better ways to exp

You're conflating things. This issue isn't that Classical Mechanics has somehow evolved or changed. It's that people continue to find new and better ways to explain and illustrate concepts. At lest personally I don't know of any field or book where I've felt "Hmm, this is basically perfect and I can't imagine a better way to explain these concepts". Have you looked at for instance Khan Academy's Grant Sanderson (aka 3Blue1Brown) Math videos? it's really apparent there is a LOT of room for improvement in pedagogy. As the linked PDF illustrates, most people are teaching along a set formula and sequence of concepts. Good teachers will try to tweak and iterate on these formulas and evolve a better curriculum that sinks in better for students. Naturally as time goes on, if each author has to start from scratch, then it becomes harder and harder to beat "the best book on BLAH" from the last 100 years. (Though I refuse to believe it's a monumental task to write a better textbook than Rudin) If you have open copy-left books, then in theory people could start with a Rudin, fork it, tweak it and improve it. 70 years of improvement could yield some amazing forks! "Often newer editions actually worsen textbooks" That's typically because they select a random new author to in-effect update their copyright date.. and the new author is rarely of the same caliber as the first

distcs 3y ago
> Have you looked at for instance Khan Academy's Grant Sanderson (aka 3Blue1Brown) Math videos? I have. I went through Khan Academy, Brilliant and 3Blue1Brown. After spending more than 100s of hours I started getting the feeling that these are all good for elementary level math. But for any serious math (think real analysis, complex analysis, group theory and beyond), all these platforms did was leave me with a warm fuzzy feeling of having learned something cool but in reality that warm fuzzy feeling was not good enough for solving actual exercises that come in textbooks or really deeply understand the material. I've given up on these online learning media. Back to textbooks. The difference is like night and day.
- contrarian1234 3y ago
  I didn't mean to say videos are better - just as far as I can tell that's where the most creative new teaching techniques are on display. I'd definitely prefer they were in the written word. Especially if they were an open collaborative effort. Books are great for flipping back and forth with. You have an "ah-ha" moment and skip back several pages and reread something you misunderstood on a first read-through. It's somehow clunky and takes you out of the flow when you do it in a video. Critically, you can read/listen to something and come away with the false impression you understand it. Sitting down and doing problem is .. not always fun.. but can be critical for the concepts to sink in. I think this is the main point of what you're saying I could see in the future it being something like watching a video and then doing a programming exercise
- threatofrain 3y ago
  Note that 3B1B often warns you that his videos bring perspective for a book/class that you're doing or are already done with. And Khan Academy's focus is for K-12. If you want anything past Analysis 1 I think you'll find that universities guard their content.
  - da39a3ee 3y ago
    > If you want anything past Analysis 1 I think you'll find that universities guard their content. Not so; there's an absolutely vast amount of freely available undergraduate mathematics resources available at all levels. Honestly, so much that it makes it confusing to choose and not get distracted by the options -- perhaps AI-mediated distillation could be helpful in the future.
    - elteto 3y ago
      Really? Can you link some for Analysis and beyond? I wanted to find good analysis video lectures from a real university complete with problem sets, homeworks and their solutions. I couldn’t. I think MIT OCW now has one analysis course like that, but it’s relatively “recent”.
      - da39a3ee 3y ago
        What about these amazing resources from Daniel Murfet at University of Melbourne: http://therisingsea.org/post/mast30026/ http://therisingsea.org/post/mast30026/ They have videos as well as everything else. I'd love to study them with someone/some group of people one day. But, you don't need videos if there are carefully-written course notes PDFs. Try Oxford: https://courses.maths.ox.ac.uk/course/index.php https://courses.maths.ox.ac.uk/course/index.php E.g. two random Analysis-related courses (second more advanced than first) https://courses.maths.ox.ac.uk/course/view.php?id=65 https://courses.maths.ox.ac.uk/course/view.php?id=65 https://courses.maths.ox.ac.uk/course/view.php?id=4988 https://courses.maths.ox.ac.uk/course/view.php?id=4988 And there are tons of others, but with videos is a bit harder. Berkeley exam papers with solutions: https://tbp.berkeley.edu/courses/math/113/ https://tbp.berkeley.edu/courses/math/113/
- mindcrime 3y ago
  I've given up on these online learning media. Back to textbooks. The difference is like night and day. Are there people who think this is an "either/or" choice, as opposed to a "use both" thing?? I ask, because it's pretty well established that learning is enhanced by use of multiple media types and it seems self-evident to me that books and videos are complementary.
  - distcs 3y ago
    > it seems self-evident to me that books and videos are complementary Can't speak for others but for me it is more about efficient utilization of time rather than complementing multiple learning methods. I've found that time spent in learning math from videos have poor return of investment. That time is better spent re-reading a chapter or that thing that I couldn't fully understand the first time and doing more exercises.
    - mindcrime 3y ago
      Fair enough. For me personally, I find great value in jumping back and forth between different modalities, where the different presentations reinforce each other. But what works for me may not work for everyone, and vice-versa.
- da39a3ee 3y ago
  I think you're just parroting things you've heard other people say. 3b1b's videos are universally agreed to be excellent, and it's baffling that you think it is a choice between watching them and using textbook and doing the exercises. Anyone with the intellectual capacity to study that sort of material is not going to have a hard time comprehending that they are intended to be complementary, as Grant Sanderson makes very clear at numerous points.
andyferris 3y ago
Hmm - I do wonder if for very particular things in physics their heyday has come and gone? Were there more ridiculously talented inviduals deeply steeped in classical mechanics and discussing amongst themselves in the past? I feel modern physicists move onto high-energy phyics or low-energy physics research pretty early in their careers...
mnl 3y ago
There are excellent textbooks on Classical Mechanics, probably because it's a crystal clear subject and you can give a detailed account of the essentials in a single volume without handwaving. Of course everything can be improved, but it also can be muddled. If it works think twice before fixing it. Kind of what happens with Rudin and introductory Real Analysis. On the other hand, there's for instance Optics where you basically have to condense an encyclopaedia and there's always prettier pictures. Or Thermodynamics, Fluid Mechanics etc that can be taught in different ways depending on the curriculum. There definitely should be pedagogical considerations in higher education, that's lacking because it's usually an afterthought. And it also should be very clear to people getting into higher education that at some later point pedagogy must end and you have to be capable of working your way through the material.
- contrarian1234 3y ago
  I think you have the perspective of somehow who's succeeded in Physics. In your typical introductory physics class less than half the students will walk away with a very solid understanding of classical mechanics. To my mind, if the textbook was actually excellent then that would be 80%+. We're nowhere near there. I think there is LOT of room for improvement But sure.. Thermodynamics.. things could be worse :) Sometimes things are just hard because they're complicated and you need to buckle down and learn your multiplication tables. But at least in my own life experience, the vast majority of the time things are a problem because their poorly explained - often by people that poorly understand it themselves. Once you truly understand something inside and out - and look back on it - it all generally looks relatively simple. But it takes a special talent to be able to go back and reexplain it from the naiive perspective
  - mnl 3y ago
    I almost wrote above that, to my knowledge and IMVHO, no one has succeeded at writing a book on Thermodynamics yet. I self-censored because that would be too flippant, wouldn't it? Lmao
    - rawgabbit 3y ago
starcraft2wol 3y ago
> people continue to find new and better ways to explain and illustrate concepts I strongly disagree. All the best math and CS books I have are old. New books about old topics tend to be less informed about the context and core ideas that led to their development.
- da39a3ee 3y ago
  Then you are objectively wrong. Look at Grant Sanderson's explanation of introductory Linear Algebra. Very obviously it adds something good to complement the best paper textbooks on the subject.
cyberax 3y ago
> Have you looked at for instance Khan Academy's Grant Sanderson (aka 3Blue1Brown) Math videos? it's really apparent there is a LOT of room for improvement in pedagogy. There is a study showing that you actually understand material better, if you use the most primitive methods: chalkboard and a lecture. Because you are forced to visualize the material yourself, instead of being presented with a ready-made animation. It probably makes sense to use visual aids for students that just can't grasp the concept, but I believe this will only help in elementary math.
- fn-mote 3y ago
  1. I think the research shows that increasing the cognitive load increases the retention. So in general, when it is harder to learn something, you retain it better. 2. When I struggle with books it is because they do not present the motivation behind what they are doing. Videos and "more popular" articles can both provide the big-picture motivation and overview. Sometimes, you have to construct a motivation for yourself, based on what you read. That's hard. Maybe you even invent something new in order to understand a concept better. This approach is slow, though. It's easier if someone explains to you why a certain concept is "hard" or a point of view from which the concept is "easy". 3. I think students who build on a partial understanding are not going to have a better time with videos. They are in greater need of learning how to learn something than they are of facts, but school does not teach that skill (afaik).
- WalterBright 3y ago
  I've suggested to college students that they leave their laptops behind and attend lecture with pen and notebook, and take notes. It makes things a lot more sticky in the mind. And do the homework problems. You'll never understand the material without doing the problem sets.
bigbacaloa 3y ago
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distcs 3y ago

> Have you looked at for instance Khan Academy's Grant Sanderson (aka 3Blue1Brown) Math videos? I have. I went through Khan Academy, Brilliant and 3Blue1Brown. After spending more than 100s of hours I started getting the feeling that these are all good for elementary level math. But for any serious math (think real analysis, complex analysis, group theory and beyond), all these platforms did was leave me with a warm fuzzy feeling of having learned something cool but in reality that warm fuzzy feeling was not good enough for solving actual exercises that come in textbooks or really deeply understand the material. I've given up on these online learning media. Back to textbooks. The difference is like night and day.

contrarian1234 3y ago
I didn't mean to say videos are better - just as far as I can tell that's where the most creative new teaching techniques are on display. I'd definitely prefer they were in the written word. Especially if they were an open collaborative effort. Books are great for flipping back and forth with. You have an "ah-ha" moment and skip back several pages and reread something you misunderstood on a first read-through. It's somehow clunky and takes you out of the flow when you do it in a video. Critically, you can read/listen to something and come away with the false impression you understand it. Sitting down and doing problem is .. not always fun.. but can be critical for the concepts to sink in. I think this is the main point of what you're saying I could see in the future it being something like watching a video and then doing a programming exercise
threatofrain 3y ago
Note that 3B1B often warns you that his videos bring perspective for a book/class that you're doing or are already done with. And Khan Academy's focus is for K-12. If you want anything past Analysis 1 I think you'll find that universities guard their content.
- da39a3ee 3y ago
  > If you want anything past Analysis 1 I think you'll find that universities guard their content. Not so; there's an absolutely vast amount of freely available undergraduate mathematics resources available at all levels. Honestly, so much that it makes it confusing to choose and not get distracted by the options -- perhaps AI-mediated distillation could be helpful in the future.
  - elteto 3y ago
    Really? Can you link some for Analysis and beyond? I wanted to find good analysis video lectures from a real university complete with problem sets, homeworks and their solutions. I couldn’t. I think MIT OCW now has one analysis course like that, but it’s relatively “recent”.
    - da39a3ee 3y ago
      What about these amazing resources from Daniel Murfet at University of Melbourne: http://therisingsea.org/post/mast30026/ http://therisingsea.org/post/mast30026/ They have videos as well as everything else. I'd love to study them with someone/some group of people one day. But, you don't need videos if there are carefully-written course notes PDFs. Try Oxford: https://courses.maths.ox.ac.uk/course/index.php https://courses.maths.ox.ac.uk/course/index.php E.g. two random Analysis-related courses (second more advanced than first) https://courses.maths.ox.ac.uk/course/view.php?id=65 https://courses.maths.ox.ac.uk/course/view.php?id=65 https://courses.maths.ox.ac.uk/course/view.php?id=4988 https://courses.maths.ox.ac.uk/course/view.php?id=4988 And there are tons of others, but with videos is a bit harder. Berkeley exam papers with solutions: https://tbp.berkeley.edu/courses/math/113/ https://tbp.berkeley.edu/courses/math/113/
mindcrime 3y ago
I've given up on these online learning media. Back to textbooks. The difference is like night and day. Are there people who think this is an "either/or" choice, as opposed to a "use both" thing?? I ask, because it's pretty well established that learning is enhanced by use of multiple media types and it seems self-evident to me that books and videos are complementary.
- distcs 3y ago
  > it seems self-evident to me that books and videos are complementary Can't speak for others but for me it is more about efficient utilization of time rather than complementing multiple learning methods. I've found that time spent in learning math from videos have poor return of investment. That time is better spent re-reading a chapter or that thing that I couldn't fully understand the first time and doing more exercises.
  - mindcrime 3y ago
    Fair enough. For me personally, I find great value in jumping back and forth between different modalities, where the different presentations reinforce each other. But what works for me may not work for everyone, and vice-versa.
da39a3ee 3y ago
I think you're just parroting things you've heard other people say. 3b1b's videos are universally agreed to be excellent, and it's baffling that you think it is a choice between watching them and using textbook and doing the exercises. Anyone with the intellectual capacity to study that sort of material is not going to have a hard time comprehending that they are intended to be complementary, as Grant Sanderson makes very clear at numerous points.

andyferris 3y ago

Hmm - I do wonder if for very particular things in physics their heyday has come and gone? Were there more ridiculously talented inviduals deeply steeped in classical mechanics and discussing amongst themselves in the past? I feel modern physicists move onto high-energy phyics or low-energy physics research pretty early in their careers...

mnl 3y ago

There are excellent textbooks on Classical Mechanics, probably because it's a crystal clear subject and you can give a detailed account of the essentials in a single volume without handwaving. Of course everything can be improved, but it also can be muddled. If it works think twice before fixing it. Kind of what happens with Rudin and introductory Real Analysis. On the other hand, there's for instance Optics where you basically have to condense an encyclopaedia and there's always prettier pictures. Or Thermodynamics, Fluid Mechanics etc that can be taught in different ways depending on the curriculum. There definitely should be pedagogical considerations in higher education, that's lacking because it's usually an afterthought. And it also should be very clear to people getting into higher education that at some later point pedagogy must end and you have to be capable of working your way through the material.

contrarian1234 3y ago
I think you have the perspective of somehow who's succeeded in Physics. In your typical introductory physics class less than half the students will walk away with a very solid understanding of classical mechanics. To my mind, if the textbook was actually excellent then that would be 80%+. We're nowhere near there. I think there is LOT of room for improvement But sure.. Thermodynamics.. things could be worse :) Sometimes things are just hard because they're complicated and you need to buckle down and learn your multiplication tables. But at least in my own life experience, the vast majority of the time things are a problem because their poorly explained - often by people that poorly understand it themselves. Once you truly understand something inside and out - and look back on it - it all generally looks relatively simple. But it takes a special talent to be able to go back and reexplain it from the naiive perspective
- mnl 3y ago
  I almost wrote above that, to my knowledge and IMVHO, no one has succeeded at writing a book on Thermodynamics yet. I self-censored because that would be too flippant, wouldn't it? Lmao
  - rawgabbit 3y ago

starcraft2wol 3y ago

> people continue to find new and better ways to explain and illustrate concepts I strongly disagree. All the best math and CS books I have are old. New books about old topics tend to be less informed about the context and core ideas that led to their development.

da39a3ee 3y ago
Then you are objectively wrong. Look at Grant Sanderson's explanation of introductory Linear Algebra. Very obviously it adds something good to complement the best paper textbooks on the subject.

cyberax 3y ago

> Have you looked at for instance Khan Academy's Grant Sanderson (aka 3Blue1Brown) Math videos? it's really apparent there is a LOT of room for improvement in pedagogy. There is a study showing that you actually understand material better, if you use the most primitive methods: chalkboard and a lecture. Because you are forced to visualize the material yourself, instead of being presented with a ready-made animation. It probably makes sense to use visual aids for students that just can't grasp the concept, but I believe this will only help in elementary math.

fn-mote 3y ago
1. I think the research shows that increasing the cognitive load increases the retention. So in general, when it is harder to learn something, you retain it better. 2. When I struggle with books it is because they do not present the motivation behind what they are doing. Videos and "more popular" articles can both provide the big-picture motivation and overview. Sometimes, you have to construct a motivation for yourself, based on what you read. That's hard. Maybe you even invent something new in order to understand a concept better. This approach is slow, though. It's easier if someone explains to you why a certain concept is "hard" or a point of view from which the concept is "easy". 3. I think students who build on a partial understanding are not going to have a better time with videos. They are in greater need of learning how to learn something than they are of facts, but school does not teach that skill (afaik).
WalterBright 3y ago
I've suggested to college students that they leave their laptops behind and attend lecture with pen and notebook, and take notes. It makes things a lot more sticky in the mind. And do the homework problems. You'll never understand the material without doing the problem sets.

bigbacaloa 3y ago

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