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This is pretty cool but, is it a game? I can't see how solving math problems under a time limit can be useful for anything besides a math exam or some other aca

by _RPM 12y ago

This is pretty cool but, is it a game? I can't see how solving math problems under a time limit can be useful for anything besides a math exam or some other academic test.

kachnuv_ocasek 12y ago
A long time ago, I read an article concerning mathematical problems and how solving them improves (probably short term) intelligence. It turned out that simple arithmetic was the most useful. Of course, I can't find the source right now.
ajkjk 12y ago
My experience has been that mental math training, while not directly useful, generally seems to improve the way my brain works and enhances my analytic thinking. This effect is a lot more tangible with longer, multi-step problems. In college (physics major) I made a point of doing every integral in my head if I could, and over time I found that my mental 'scratch space' seemed to be getting longer - that I could hold more in my short-term memory at once. I've also observed that being a person who is 'good at math' approximately correlates with being a person who does math in your head. [Related observation: that students strongly segregate into "good at math" vs not, as though many people are completely incapable of a mode of thought that comes naturally to others. I think it's trainable, and people who never do any math, especially in their heads, are specifically not training it.] These are entirely anecdotal and I'd love to find more concrete data, but, right now I would absolutely vouch for mental math training.
- j2kun 12y ago
  General problem solving and critical thinking is good mental training. Timed arithmetic drills are neither, and I really should hope that arithmetic doesn't count as "critical thinking" for the majority of the audience on HN.
  - Qwertious 12y ago
    I have to agree - for all the talk of "mental training", is there any actual evidence that arithmetic drills will actually help with problem-solving and critical-thinking?
    - ajkjk 12y ago
      My point in the parent post was that I have a lot of anecdotal reason to believe this. Enough to be pretty confident I could find actual evidence, but I haven't looked very hard.
  - ajkjk 12y ago
    No one has claimed that arithmetic trains you at critical thinking. It trains you at a certain kind of abstract thought, and I'm specifically stating that I have found that very valuable.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
yuliyp 12y ago
This is just a slightly-gamified version of mental arithmetic training flashcards. Are you questioning why mental arithmetic is useful? There are lots of places where it can improve your ability to understand the information around you. If you're reading a graph, you should be asking yourself a ton of questions about it. A lot of those questions can be answered with mental math if you're proficient at it. If you weren't, you'd have to resort to a calculator or other tool, and the switching cost keeps most people from doing this: examples: what's the ratio between these two values? How did it change? I have this per minute (or, in my case, a per 4 minutes) rate. What is that per day? How much did that drop by (absolute and relative) The point isn't that people who are bad at math can't compute these things in the real world. They can, and often do, whether with calculator, on paper, slower in their brains, or with a different query or better analysis tool. But people who do these operations quickly mentally do it more, do it more quickly, and can digest and filter more numeric information.

by _RPM 12y ago

This is pretty cool but, is it a game? I can't see how solving math problems under a time limit can be useful for anything besides a math exam or some other academic test.

kachnuv_ocasek 12y ago

A long time ago, I read an article concerning mathematical problems and how solving them improves (probably short term) intelligence. It turned out that simple arithmetic was the most useful. Of course, I can't find the source right now.

ajkjk 12y ago

My experience has been that mental math training, while not directly useful, generally seems to improve the way my brain works and enhances my analytic thinking. This effect is a lot more tangible with longer, multi-step problems. In college (physics major) I made a point of doing every integral in my head if I could, and over time I found that my mental 'scratch space' seemed to be getting longer - that I could hold more in my short-term memory at once. I've also observed that being a person who is 'good at math' approximately correlates with being a person who does math in your head. [Related observation: that students strongly segregate into "good at math" vs not, as though many people are completely incapable of a mode of thought that comes naturally to others. I think it's trainable, and people who never do any math, especially in their heads, are specifically not training it.] These are entirely anecdotal and I'd love to find more concrete data, but, right now I would absolutely vouch for mental math training.

j2kun 12y ago
General problem solving and critical thinking is good mental training. Timed arithmetic drills are neither, and I really should hope that arithmetic doesn't count as "critical thinking" for the majority of the audience on HN.
- Qwertious 12y ago
  I have to agree - for all the talk of "mental training", is there any actual evidence that arithmetic drills will actually help with problem-solving and critical-thinking?
  - ajkjk 12y ago
    My point in the parent post was that I have a lot of anecdotal reason to believe this. Enough to be pretty confident I could find actual evidence, but I haven't looked very hard.
- ajkjk 12y ago
  No one has claimed that arithmetic trains you at critical thinking. It trains you at a certain kind of abstract thought, and I'm specifically stating that I have found that very valuable.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

yuliyp 12y ago

This is just a slightly-gamified version of mental arithmetic training flashcards. Are you questioning why mental arithmetic is useful? There are lots of places where it can improve your ability to understand the information around you. If you're reading a graph, you should be asking yourself a ton of questions about it. A lot of those questions can be answered with mental math if you're proficient at it. If you weren't, you'd have to resort to a calculator or other tool, and the switching cost keeps most people from doing this: examples: what's the ratio between these two values? How did it change? I have this per minute (or, in my case, a per 4 minutes) rate. What is that per day? How much did that drop by (absolute and relative) The point isn't that people who are bad at math can't compute these things in the real world. They can, and often do, whether with calculator, on paper, slower in their brains, or with a different query or better analysis tool. But people who do these operations quickly mentally do it more, do it more quickly, and can digest and filter more numeric information.