Why are Soviet math textbooks so hardcore in comparison to US textbooks? (2017) • Hacker News Board

Re: Why are Soviet math textbooks so hardcore in comparison to US textbooks? (2017)

#51

Post by lainga » Wed, Apr 22, 2020, 2:47 AM UTC

julianeon wrote: post #47

agumonkey wrote: post #12

I can only assume but culture makes things very different. I often said that French abstract algebra books stopped me from learning for 10 years (after many serious attempts). One book from Garreth Williams unlocked 80% of my issues. The shocking part was the approach. It was very operational, you calculate, you manipulate concrete data. In French books it's all theorems and concepts. Learning curve to make a Haskell…

I feel like it's worth pointing out here, for Americans who don't know better (no blame implied), that the French have one of the best mathematical pipelines in the world. They have almost as many Nobels (13 vs. 11) despite having 1/5 the population. Guardian article about them here: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/may/31/europa-french-... So please don't think France is a backwater that just doesn't know how…

Do you mean the Fields Medal?

Re: Why are Soviet math textbooks so hardcore in comparison to US textbooks? (2017)

#52

Post by seibelj » Wed, Apr 22, 2020, 2:49 AM UTC

thisisnico wrote: post #37

seibelj wrote: post #6

Soviet body builders only used free weights and a pull-up bar. You don’t need anything but that to get big muscles. Similarly, you don’t need anything except a chalk board to teach math and most other subjects.

Using only free weights and a pull-up bar will work. But it doesn't mean it's the most effective way to body-build. You can write a program from scratch in C to perform an task, or you could use all of the tools of your disposal to far more e f f e c t i v e l y complete the task, potentially without code. You don't need anything except a chalk board but there may be more effective ways to obtain the result you are l…

I have been working with a trainer for many years, and almost everything we do is with free weights and a bench. Free weights are much more difficult because you need to keep them stable. Machines trick you into thinking you are using more weight, but you are leveraging the machine. The only machines I like are leg press and cable machines that still make you keep stability.

A true bench press with a bar is much better than a machine imitation of the same muscle groups.

Re: Why are Soviet math textbooks so hardcore in comparison to US textbooks? (2017)

#53

Post by throwlaplace » Wed, Apr 22, 2020, 2:49 AM UTC

seibelj wrote: post #35

thaumasiotes wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Soviet body builders only used free weights and a pull-up bar. You don’t need anything but that to get big muscles. You may also need steroids, which Soviet body builders definitely used.

If you think only Soviet body builders were juicing, you are sorely mistaken. FYI I am the furthest thing from an ideological defender of the Soviet system as you will find. I am just stating some truths.

i'm russian (born during the soviet era) and you're wrong

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doping_in_Russia#Background:_S...

Re: Why are Soviet math textbooks so hardcore in comparison to US textbooks? (2017)

#54

Post by wenc » Wed, Apr 22, 2020, 2:50 AM UTC

The linked article points to the fact that because the Soviets were resource-constrained, theory was more accessible than equipment which drove the education system to favor theoretical training.

I wonder if there's a trade-off to this. On one hand you produce some really elite theoretical minds (Pontryagin, Lyapunov, Kolmogorov, etc.). But the counterfactual is that it excludes those with high IQ but are more practically-oriented as well as late-bloomers who didn't take to math early but would have become reasonable applied mathematicians (I belong to this category). I guess we will never know.

To draw a parallel, one of the criticisms of the French system -- where mathematics is treated as the most important arbiter of intelligence (for grandes ecoles admissions) -- is that other aptitudes are almost seen as secondary. It optimizes too much for a very narrow aptitude -- which is great for producing Fields Medalists, but underoptimizes for talent elsewhere.

In my experience, while the American education system on the other hand is kind of a piece of cake from K-12, it somehow manages to catch up at the college level (more or less). At the graduate level, the differences in ability between a U.S. graduate student and a Soviet-system/Eastern European educated one is largely diminished. And it does this without over-optimizing for any particular aptitude so deep expertise is developed over a broader field in the U.S.

Re: Why are Soviet math textbooks so hardcore in comparison to US textbooks? (2017)

#55

Post by julianeon » Wed, Apr 22, 2020, 2:50 AM UTC

lainga wrote: post #51

julianeon wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like it's worth pointing out here, for Americans who don't know better (no blame implied), that the French have one of the best mathematical pipelines in the world. They have almost as many Nobels (13 vs. 11) despite having 1/5 the population. Guardian article about them here: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/may/31/europa-french-... So please don't think France is a backwater that just doesn't know how…

Do you mean the Fields Medal?

Ha! Yes I do. In fact you can tell my amateur-ness from this, that this misstatement didn't immediately jump out as wrong (though I do know there is no Nobel for math, when I stop and think about it).

I should have said the Fields Medal, as indicated in the article.

Re: Why are Soviet math textbooks so hardcore in comparison to US textbooks? (2017)

#56

Post by sndean » Wed, Apr 22, 2020, 2:51 AM UTC

peter_d_sherman wrote: post #30

Excerpt: "At the risk of oversimplifying, I noticed that because of the traditional scarcity of equipment, Russian students and scientists had to think rather than experiment, whether with computers or accelerators; it was often all that was available to them."

> traditional scarcity of equipment

This sort of thing likely led to what one of my Russian professors was pretty proud of: That Soviet microbiologists with some bacteria, a pH meter, and some basic chemicals like sodium citrate could bang out publications, with some well-designed and elegant experiments. We Americans, on the other hand, would spend thousands of dollars on fancy machines, reagents, etc. and were less productive.

Re: Why are Soviet math textbooks so hardcore in comparison to US textbooks? (2017)

#57

Post by parthdesai » Wed, Apr 22, 2020, 2:51 AM UTC

google234123 wrote: post #46

seibelj wrote: post #6

Soviet body builders only used free weights and a pull-up bar. You don’t need anything but that to get big muscles. Similarly, you don’t need anything except a chalk board to teach math and most other subjects.

I don't believe you that Soviet body builders only used free weights. https://www.rbth.com/history/329827-bodybuilding-outlawed-in...

If you believe it's only Soviet body builders who took steroids, you're in for a rude awakening.

Re: Why are Soviet math textbooks so hardcore in comparison to US textbooks? (2017)

#58

Post by jerzyt » Wed, Apr 22, 2020, 2:52 AM UTC

rdiddly wrote: post #39

I mean, could it be as simple as "Learning math is more important to Russians than to Americans?" And before you dismiss this as simplistic, consider everything that's competing for attention with "learning math." What things are Americans either preoccupied with or beset with, that Russians esp. Soviet Russians, weren't? I'm thinking, the profit motive. Particularly as concerns textbook publishers. And parents who n…

Russia had brilliant mathematicians even before the October revolution, however, the Soviet Union gave another incentive to become an academic - it pretty much guaranteed a highly respected job, even if the salary was modest, but also allowed most of the academics to not get involved in politics. So in a country where you couldn't form a business, being an academic or a doctor was pretty much the best career choice.

Re: Why are Soviet math textbooks so hardcore in comparison to US textbooks? (2017)

#59

Post by p1esk » Wed, Apr 22, 2020, 2:53 AM UTC

rdiddly wrote: post #39

I mean, could it be as simple as "Learning math is more important to Russians than to Americans?" And before you dismiss this as simplistic, consider everything that's competing for attention with "learning math." What things are Americans either preoccupied with or beset with, that Russians esp. Soviet Russians, weren't? I'm thinking, the profit motive. Particularly as concerns textbook publishers. And parents who n…

No, learning math was never more important to an average Russian than it was to an average American. An average Russian has never knew math any better than an average American.

Source: attended school in both countries.

Re: Why are Soviet math textbooks so hardcore in comparison to US textbooks? (2017)

#60

Post by mafm » Wed, Apr 22, 2020, 2:53 AM UTC

rdiddly wrote: post #39

I mean, could it be as simple as "Learning math is more important to Russians than to Americans?" And before you dismiss this as simplistic, consider everything that's competing for attention with "learning math." What things are Americans either preoccupied with or beset with, that Russians esp. Soviet Russians, weren't? I'm thinking, the profit motive. Particularly as concerns textbook publishers. And parents who n…

I think technical education in the soviet union was a lot stronger than it was in the free world, at least in the 20th century. When I was 16, I was enrolled in the top high-school maths units in the early 1980s in Australia. Maths was about 1/3 of the academic contact hours and the curriculum was pretty standard across all the Australian states.

A family from the Ukraine somehow managed to immigrate to Australia and their 16 year old girl was enrolled on our maths classes. She was years ahead of the rest of the class.

She said she was a very mediocre maths student at home in the Ukraine, said quite a few times that in her opinion we had been taught basically nothing in the Australian system. I don't know how much maths the average soviet citizen learned, but I got the strong impression that soviet students who were actually interested in the subject got a much better mathematical education than they would have in Australia/US/UK.