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As someone with a math degree, I love this. However, I think the author over-estimates the familiarity of a typical high school student with mathematical notati

by nilkn 13y ago

As someone with a math degree, I love this. However, I think the author over-estimates the familiarity of a typical high school student with mathematical notation: > The only prerequisite for this tutorial is a basic understanding of high school math concepts I think fundamentally the material in these four pages is accessible to many high school graduates, but perhaps not in this concise rendering (which is awesome for me, but probably overwhelming for someone not familiar with set-theoretic notation, summation notation, etc.).

ivan_ah 13y ago
You are right. I am totally trying to sneak in the \in and the \mathbb{R}'s in there to see if people will notice. Previously I had \forall in there too, but went over and removed things. On the TODO list is to introduce the { obj | obj description } notation for defining sets (in this case vector spaces).
- Steuard 13y ago
  Well, I noticed! It stood out pretty clearly, I'd say. I really don't think that the intended audience of this sort of ground-up summary is going to be comfortable with \mathbb{R}^{m\times n} notation all over the place. Yes, you explain what the notation means, but there's zero chance that a reader who didn't already know that notation will become fluent in it right away: they're going to be flipping back to the definition every time. That might be okay if you're trying to teach all of math, but a person reading "Linear Algebra in Four Pages" presumably neither wants nor needs that full skill set. (I'd say that {obj|obj description} notation would make the text even more opaque to novices, no matter how cleanly introduced.) Why not just make a less precise reference to a table of "numbers" (which, as an added bonus, would leave the door open to complex matrices without having to start from scratch)?
001sky 13y ago
Twist: This is a great argument to teach notation earlier !

by nilkn 13y ago

ivan_ah 13y ago

You are right. I am totally trying to sneak in the \in and the \mathbb{R}'s in there to see if people will notice. Previously I had \forall in there too, but went over and removed things. On the TODO list is to introduce the { obj | obj description } notation for defining sets (in this case vector spaces).

Steuard 13y ago
Well, I noticed! It stood out pretty clearly, I'd say. I really don't think that the intended audience of this sort of ground-up summary is going to be comfortable with \mathbb{R}^{m\times n} notation all over the place. Yes, you explain what the notation means, but there's zero chance that a reader who didn't already know that notation will become fluent in it right away: they're going to be flipping back to the definition every time. That might be okay if you're trying to teach all of math, but a person reading "Linear Algebra in Four Pages" presumably neither wants nor needs that full skill set. (I'd say that {obj|obj description} notation would make the text even more opaque to novices, no matter how cleanly introduced.) Why not just make a less precise reference to a table of "numbers" (which, as an added bonus, would leave the door open to complex matrices without having to start from scratch)?

001sky 13y ago

Twist: This is a great argument to teach notation earlier !