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Interesting, but your ability to memorize sequences of numbers is almost completely irrelevant to your ability to do higher-level math, and the hypothesis that

by Jimmy 14y ago

Interesting, but your ability to memorize sequences of numbers is almost completely irrelevant to your ability to do higher-level math, and the hypothesis that memorization "compounds into more knowledge and better math skills for these Chinese children" is shaky at best. Also, the statement "Asians are better than Americans at math" needs some qualification. Most of the world's best mathematicians come from either the USA or Europe (although there are of course many talented Asian mathematicians, like Tao, Mochizuki, etc).

mistercow 14y ago
>Interesting, but your ability to memorize sequences of numbers is almost completely irrelevant to your ability to do higher-level math Your digit span does affect your ability to do mental arithmetic, and mental arithmetic is an indispensable tool when meditating on equations and algorithms so that you can understand their behavior.
- karamazov 14y ago
  Mental arithmetic is not that useful in higher math - past calculus you're more likely to use letters than numbers, and in many cases you're not working directly with numbers anyway.
  - mistercow 14y ago
    I don't think when people say "Asians are often better at math", that they are talking about post-calculus.
    - rdl 14y ago
      I think they mean algebra and higher, not arithmetic. So basically junior high school and better. Even algebra doesn't benefit that much from simple counting and arithmetic. "Good at math" means different things based on age, but an adult who is good at adding numbers and doing percentages is probably at a supermarket or a waiter, or MAYBE a bookkeeper or a baseball fan, not a "good at math" engineer or scientist. I don't think people are complaining that Asians are taking all the valuable service industry jobs adding prices and computing tips in their heads. I always found more (Russian) jews in upper level math classes than Asians, though. The most-Asian major at MIT was "anything plausibly pre-med", like bio, chem, or chem-eng. 8 and 18 were mostly Jewish, mostly non-US origin.

by Jimmy 14y ago

mistercow 14y ago

>Interesting, but your ability to memorize sequences of numbers is almost completely irrelevant to your ability to do higher-level math Your digit span does affect your ability to do mental arithmetic, and mental arithmetic is an indispensable tool when meditating on equations and algorithms so that you can understand their behavior.

karamazov 14y ago
Mental arithmetic is not that useful in higher math - past calculus you're more likely to use letters than numbers, and in many cases you're not working directly with numbers anyway.
- mistercow 14y ago
  I don't think when people say "Asians are often better at math", that they are talking about post-calculus.
  - rdl 14y ago
    I think they mean algebra and higher, not arithmetic. So basically junior high school and better. Even algebra doesn't benefit that much from simple counting and arithmetic. "Good at math" means different things based on age, but an adult who is good at adding numbers and doing percentages is probably at a supermarket or a waiter, or MAYBE a bookkeeper or a baseball fan, not a "good at math" engineer or scientist. I don't think people are complaining that Asians are taking all the valuable service industry jobs adding prices and computing tips in their heads. I always found more (Russian) jews in upper level math classes than Asians, though. The most-Asian major at MIT was "anything plausibly pre-med", like bio, chem, or chem-eng. 8 and 18 were mostly Jewish, mostly non-US origin.