4 ms·

The older I get the more I believe (realize) the issue with math really is 100% skin-in-the-game. When they're young, I suppose you can force memorization on th

by jrm4 2y ago

The older I get the more I believe (realize) the issue with math really is 100% skin-in-the-game. When they're young, I suppose you can force memorization on them, but very quickly: If an individual has no immediate percieved use for the math, they're not going to want or need to learn it. Simple as that. This really hit me as someone who did the overachievey college math. None of it sticks with me at all unless I can think about "what it's for." Corollary: When I was a kid, we didn't have the thing we have now which strikes me as the CLEAR USE CASE -- video game development; such a no-brainer for me. X Y algebra? Oh, you mean making a rainbow in Minecraft? :)

tsimionescu 2y ago
And yet, the vast majority of math research serves no direct purpose, and the majority of professional mathematicians, at least in academia, look down on applied mathematics.
- borroka 2y ago
  You can't take the extreme tail end of the distribution of interests, aptitudes and abilities, that is, people who pursue an academic career in mathematics, for the entire distribution of people who are taught or need to use mathematics at some point in their lives. Twenty years ago, when I was in college, I remember a classmate had problems installing the particular software we needed to use. The teacher told her that the only solution would be to install Linux on her laptop. All the other students had managed to install that software on their Windows laptops. The teacher was either one step ahead or 25 steps behind.
- lupire 2y ago
  > the majority of professional mathematicians, at least in academia, look down on applied mathematics. Not true.
- jrm4 2y ago
  I mean, this sort of generally describes a lot of academia.
rocqua 2y ago
I don't think that's true for everyone. Your math PhDs and enthusiasts appreciate math as beautiful in and of itself. The disconnect might be that they forget many others do want skin in the game, and that makes the teachers not understand what the students need.
- jrm4 2y ago
  Oh, of course, they exist. But my guess is that's the extreme minority, and I was making suggestions in the realm of "We seem to be doing math badly in general population education, what to do about it?"
  - Suppafly 2y ago
    Part of the problem with math is that it's often taught using examples that are so trivial that they don't require the techniques being taught. If harder examples aren't introduced pretty early, students are left with the idea that they don't need to learn the techniques. You don't really need know any real techniques to figure out that 2x+4=8, you can kinda just figure out that 4+4=8, so x is 2, and if you can't figure that out intuitively, you can just guess and check a few numbers until you have the correct answer. If the entirety of algebra 1 or pre-algebra is taught with similar examples, students will pass the standardized test but not have any of foundations necessary for further math classes and actually won't even have the ability the solve even slightly more complicated versions of the same sorts of problems.
  - rocqua 2y ago
    It's decently rare, but the people who actually like mathematics tend to become mathematicians. Hence they become the spokespeople for mathematics, as well as the experts who are consulted about how to teach and structure curicula. They also become maths teachers.
kazinator 2y ago
LOL, when I read just the first paragraph of your comment, I immediately thought of computer graphics. There are other examples. I wouldn't be motivated to analyze some filter circuit's transfer function if it's not related to guitar somehow. If you are someone who is primarily about Making Stuff, this will resonate. I think some of the academics in math are not Make Stuff people; they can get motivated by the math itself. Or, well, maybe they are Make Stuff people, but what hey make is the math itself. Their application for something is, oh, I need that to prove this other thing in some structure I'm making. I've experienced the Make Stuff motivation playing with just math. For instance, in high school, I independently came up with double and triple integration along multiple a, and used that to work out the volumes of common solids (easily verifiable to be right). I was thinking, I'm following this cool idea where we integrate along one variable, to get a formula which we integrate along another; will that work?
- jrm4 2y ago
  Make Stuff I think is one. But probably, greed/money would be the other. Now, that's probably a whole other conversation, given the propensity that "capitalism" or whatever one wants to call it is pretty much dedicated to you and I getting this wrong consistently, but hey.

by jrm4 2y ago

tsimionescu 2y ago

And yet, the vast majority of math research serves no direct purpose, and the majority of professional mathematicians, at least in academia, look down on applied mathematics.

borroka 2y ago
You can't take the extreme tail end of the distribution of interests, aptitudes and abilities, that is, people who pursue an academic career in mathematics, for the entire distribution of people who are taught or need to use mathematics at some point in their lives. Twenty years ago, when I was in college, I remember a classmate had problems installing the particular software we needed to use. The teacher told her that the only solution would be to install Linux on her laptop. All the other students had managed to install that software on their Windows laptops. The teacher was either one step ahead or 25 steps behind.
lupire 2y ago
> the majority of professional mathematicians, at least in academia, look down on applied mathematics. Not true.
jrm4 2y ago
I mean, this sort of generally describes a lot of academia.

rocqua 2y ago

I don't think that's true for everyone. Your math PhDs and enthusiasts appreciate math as beautiful in and of itself. The disconnect might be that they forget many others do want skin in the game, and that makes the teachers not understand what the students need.

jrm4 2y ago
Oh, of course, they exist. But my guess is that's the extreme minority, and I was making suggestions in the realm of "We seem to be doing math badly in general population education, what to do about it?"
- Suppafly 2y ago
  Part of the problem with math is that it's often taught using examples that are so trivial that they don't require the techniques being taught. If harder examples aren't introduced pretty early, students are left with the idea that they don't need to learn the techniques. You don't really need know any real techniques to figure out that 2x+4=8, you can kinda just figure out that 4+4=8, so x is 2, and if you can't figure that out intuitively, you can just guess and check a few numbers until you have the correct answer. If the entirety of algebra 1 or pre-algebra is taught with similar examples, students will pass the standardized test but not have any of foundations necessary for further math classes and actually won't even have the ability the solve even slightly more complicated versions of the same sorts of problems.
- rocqua 2y ago
  It's decently rare, but the people who actually like mathematics tend to become mathematicians. Hence they become the spokespeople for mathematics, as well as the experts who are consulted about how to teach and structure curicula. They also become maths teachers.

kazinator 2y ago

LOL, when I read just the first paragraph of your comment, I immediately thought of computer graphics. There are other examples. I wouldn't be motivated to analyze some filter circuit's transfer function if it's not related to guitar somehow. If you are someone who is primarily about Making Stuff, this will resonate. I think some of the academics in math are not Make Stuff people; they can get motivated by the math itself. Or, well, maybe they are Make Stuff people, but what hey make is the math itself. Their application for something is, oh, I need that to prove this other thing in some structure I'm making. I've experienced the Make Stuff motivation playing with just math. For instance, in high school, I independently came up with double and triple integration along multiple a, and used that to work out the volumes of common solids (easily verifiable to be right). I was thinking, I'm following this cool idea where we integrate along one variable, to get a formula which we integrate along another; will that work?

jrm4 2y ago
Make Stuff I think is one. But probably, greed/money would be the other. Now, that's probably a whole other conversation, given the propensity that "capitalism" or whatever one wants to call it is pretty much dedicated to you and I getting this wrong consistently, but hey.