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Math is elegant and very useful, but let's face it, for the vast majority of people in the world all math beyond arithmetic serves almost no use. In comparison,

Math is elegant and very useful, but let's face it, for the vast majority of people in the world all math beyond arithmetic serves almost no use. In comparison, programming of any kind can be useful to anyone if they know enough to help automate work tasks, for example.

omegaham 12y ago
I disagree, with a caveat: the skills you learn while learning higher math are extremely useful, even if the math itself isn't. At a fundamental level, math is taking stuff you know and manipulating it into answers to stuff you don't know. That thought process is extremely important. I use it every single day. Sometimes it's intuitive, like saying, "I need to visit five stores today. What's the most efficient way to get there?" Other times it's actual math, like saying, "I need to figure out the most efficient way to tackle my debt." The list goes on and on. Can I justify buying a new car? Should I go to college? If I were laid off tomorrow, how long could I support my current lifestyle? Even questions that have nothing to do with math such as "How do I replace my brake rotors" require that exact same mindset. Start with the stuff you know, and use it to get answers. Will you use integration by parts in your job? No. Will the thought process you've cultivated by applying integration by parts on a difficult problem help you? Yes, vastly. If you don't know math, you might not realize that a lot of these questions have concrete answers that are relatively easy to figure out. You might just wing it or not bother at all. And while that's perfectly fine when you burn another quarter-gallon of gas on your errands, it's not when you're figuring out whether you need to sell your car or how much to save each month for your kid's college fund. Or when you're given shady statistics by a politician. Or when you're offered the Once In A Lifetime opportunity to invest in Amway.
- meowface 12y ago
  I see this argument made a lot, but is there really any empirical evidence showing that learning math at the level of calculus and trigonometry gives you better reasoning skills than learning algebra and then stopping? You can be intelligent about efficiencies and calculations without actually knowing much math at all.
GregBuchholz 12y ago
Is that because we're teaching the wrong kind of math? That society in general has a flawed perception of what math is? Is programming not a form of mathematics? What do you think of Lockhart's "A Mathematicians Lament"? http://mysite.science.uottawa.ca/mnewman/LockhartsLament.pdf http://mysite.science.uottawa.ca/mnewman/LockhartsLament.pdf

omegaham 12y ago

I disagree, with a caveat: the skills you learn while learning higher math are extremely useful, even if the math itself isn't. At a fundamental level, math is taking stuff you know and manipulating it into answers to stuff you don't know. That thought process is extremely important. I use it every single day. Sometimes it's intuitive, like saying, "I need to visit five stores today. What's the most efficient way to get there?" Other times it's actual math, like saying, "I need to figure out the most efficient way to tackle my debt." The list goes on and on. Can I justify buying a new car? Should I go to college? If I were laid off tomorrow, how long could I support my current lifestyle? Even questions that have nothing to do with math such as "How do I replace my brake rotors" require that exact same mindset. Start with the stuff you know, and use it to get answers. Will you use integration by parts in your job? No. Will the thought process you've cultivated by applying integration by parts on a difficult problem help you? Yes, vastly. If you don't know math, you might not realize that a lot of these questions have concrete answers that are relatively easy to figure out. You might just wing it or not bother at all. And while that's perfectly fine when you burn another quarter-gallon of gas on your errands, it's not when you're figuring out whether you need to sell your car or how much to save each month for your kid's college fund. Or when you're given shady statistics by a politician. Or when you're offered the Once In A Lifetime opportunity to invest in Amway.

meowface 12y ago
I see this argument made a lot, but is there really any empirical evidence showing that learning math at the level of calculus and trigonometry gives you better reasoning skills than learning algebra and then stopping? You can be intelligent about efficiencies and calculations without actually knowing much math at all.

GregBuchholz 12y ago

Is that because we're teaching the wrong kind of math? That society in general has a flawed perception of what math is? Is programming not a form of mathematics? What do you think of Lockhart's "A Mathematicians Lament"? http://mysite.science.uottawa.ca/mnewman/LockhartsLament.pdf http://mysite.science.uottawa.ca/mnewman/LockhartsLament.pdf