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"Everybody should understand concepts like prime numbers, graph theory or differential equations. They are of fundamental importance in technology and for under

by msvan 13y ago

"Everybody should understand concepts like prime numbers, graph theory or differential equations. They are of fundamental importance in technology and for understanding of the universe we live in, and they are incredible exciting and beautiful. Mathematics is an essential part of our culture, just like Mozart and Shakespeare."[1] This is the key point, I think. Most of my non-technical friends have only vague ideas or know nothing about these topics. Actually working with differential equations might be hard, but most people should at least have an understanding of their use cases and why they are important or beautiful. And this way of presenting math is of course much more compelling than any high school math book I ever saw. [1] http://mathigon.org/about http://mathigon.org/about

interstitial 13y ago
"Most of my non-technical friends have only vague ideas or know nothing about these topics." -- and yet, if they are like my friends, they probably have no feelings of regret, or sense of ignorance. They probably feel more qualified to speak about things like Obamacare and evil Profit-mongering Insurance Companies than someone who does know mathematics beyond the sixth grade.
- yetanotherphd 13y ago
  >They probably feel more qualified to speak about things like Obamacare and evil Profit-mongering Insurance Companies than someone who does know mathematics beyond the sixth grade. I think basic economics is just as important to understanding these topics than mathematics. I hear very naive statement about economics from people who know enough mathematics to easily understand the economics, if they had studied it.
  - alandarev 13y ago
    Exactly that makes me sad too. There are so many newbie friendly tech-oriented sites. Particularly, because the authors of such sites are geeks themselves. Do not get me wrong, that is great that technology, programming, science is so easy to study now. What I wish is similar quality resources being available in other topics, I am bad with: economy, laws, business, psychology... I am placing my bets on these topics being in high demand. Yet it takes a geek interested in technology to be also interested in unrelated subjects. E: grammar.
  - minikites 13y ago
    Be careful about learning basic economics that you think everything in real life can be understood through Econ 101. Basic econ is like basic physics, it's good to know the simplified model, but you can't go build an actual bridge with it.
  - ska 13y ago
    But is it so similar? There aren't many (any?) real world problems that you can apply economic theory to and get incontrovertible answers to. Studying mathematics can get you there at least some of the time. I agree it is very important to understand something about (beyond introductory) various approaches to economics if you want to understand how key people involved were thinking about these problems. Here the use of the methods are more important that their accuracy or precision. For that matter, understanding politics (something neither maths or economic thinking does well) is probably much more important to your stated examples.
mathattack 13y ago
Great website. There is beauty in mathematics. "Everybody" is a large group of people. Many don't feel the need to understand basic algebra or statistics. Differential Equations and Graph Theory are much harder sells for the general population.
FollowSteph3 13y ago
It's easy to say but at the same time how is your basic understanding of anatomy, psychology, chemistry, law, and a dozen other fields that you have to interact with each day ;)
zokier 13y ago
>> Mathematics is an essential part of our culture, just like Mozart and Shakespeare > Most of my non-technical friends have only vague ideas or know nothing about these topics That would include Mozart and Shakespeare equally as much as mathematics. Heck, even I have fairly vague ideas about all three.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]

by msvan 13y ago

interstitial 13y ago

"Most of my non-technical friends have only vague ideas or know nothing about these topics." -- and yet, if they are like my friends, they probably have no feelings of regret, or sense of ignorance. They probably feel more qualified to speak about things like Obamacare and evil Profit-mongering Insurance Companies than someone who does know mathematics beyond the sixth grade.

yetanotherphd 13y ago
>They probably feel more qualified to speak about things like Obamacare and evil Profit-mongering Insurance Companies than someone who does know mathematics beyond the sixth grade. I think basic economics is just as important to understanding these topics than mathematics. I hear very naive statement about economics from people who know enough mathematics to easily understand the economics, if they had studied it.
- alandarev 13y ago
  Exactly that makes me sad too. There are so many newbie friendly tech-oriented sites. Particularly, because the authors of such sites are geeks themselves. Do not get me wrong, that is great that technology, programming, science is so easy to study now. What I wish is similar quality resources being available in other topics, I am bad with: economy, laws, business, psychology... I am placing my bets on these topics being in high demand. Yet it takes a geek interested in technology to be also interested in unrelated subjects. E: grammar.
- minikites 13y ago
  Be careful about learning basic economics that you think everything in real life can be understood through Econ 101. Basic econ is like basic physics, it's good to know the simplified model, but you can't go build an actual bridge with it.
- ska 13y ago
  But is it so similar? There aren't many (any?) real world problems that you can apply economic theory to and get incontrovertible answers to. Studying mathematics can get you there at least some of the time. I agree it is very important to understand something about (beyond introductory) various approaches to economics if you want to understand how key people involved were thinking about these problems. Here the use of the methods are more important that their accuracy or precision. For that matter, understanding politics (something neither maths or economic thinking does well) is probably much more important to your stated examples.

mathattack 13y ago

Great website. There is beauty in mathematics. "Everybody" is a large group of people. Many don't feel the need to understand basic algebra or statistics. Differential Equations and Graph Theory are much harder sells for the general population.

FollowSteph3 13y ago

It's easy to say but at the same time how is your basic understanding of anatomy, psychology, chemistry, law, and a dozen other fields that you have to interact with each day ;)

zokier 13y ago

>> Mathematics is an essential part of our culture, just like Mozart and Shakespeare > Most of my non-technical friends have only vague ideas or know nothing about these topics That would include Mozart and Shakespeare equally as much as mathematics. Heck, even I have fairly vague ideas about all three.

deleted 13y ago
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