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

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

#121

Post by Endlessly »

ummwhat wrote: post #100
Endlessly wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Read, then reread, and still do not understand your point. Are you saying that in Russia, since the education was free that the goal of the textbooks was to make it hard to want to stay in school, if so, to me, seems like it’s unlikely, but possible. Putting aside non-Russian textbooks, what are you saying the intended reasoning of the textbook form was as it relates to Russian culture?

I think the reasoning is that the incentives are flipped. Capitalist school gets more money the more you stick around. Communist school spends more money the more you stick around. One has a perverse incentive to get as many people to pass as possible. The other has a perverse incentive to get as many people to fail as possible.

One would think Russia would have demand for strong advanced mathematics professionals, so unclear how failing students might help that. Missing something in the reasoning though, since I get that if you’re giving away something for free, you want to maximize the yield it returns, but still, it does not add up to me.

Further, reasoning that American schools get money might hold true for tuition based schools, but my understanding is that large percentage of pre-university mathematics courses are taught for free. So again, doesn’t make sense to me, because if that was the case, all schools would charge and majority of students would finish university to maximize the profits, and again, this does not match my understanding of how things work.

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

#122

Post by lsh123 »

ummwhat wrote: post #113
lsh123 wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not at that level, I have 3 kids of various ages from elementary school to college ;) There is a HUGE difference in the programs from who is selected into the program to program goals.

For the sake of example, how was Soviet Science high school different from Stuyvesant/Brooklyn Tech/Bronx school of Science? (Just to name the ones I know of).

I am not very familiar with these schools, I am in CA. I think the biggest factor for me during my high school years was several hours per week of 1-1 discussions with currently active mathematicians and grad students. While formal math is really hard to read, a lot of ideas are very elegant and actually simple. It’s hard to find these ideas in a formal math text, but you can explain a lot of things in 1-1 setting while still allow student to “discover” core concepts on their own. Mathematics is not about solving 100 problems of one type ;)

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

#123

Post by a-ve »

gandalfgeek wrote: post #77

It's not just math. Physics too. People from India who went through engineering entrance exams like JEE will have fond (or horrific) memories of "Problems in General Physics" by Irodov ( https://archive.org/details/IrodovProblemsInGeneralPhysics/m... ). Every problem in there was something to wrestle with.

I get PTSD everytime I go to my local library and see this book in the hands of JEE aspirants.

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

#124

Post by jacobolus »

Retric wrote: post #88
c-smile wrote: post #67

I was comparing my math books (from Soviet university, Physics and Applied Math) and my son's from Canadian university (CS). Huge difference to be honest. Canadian ones (same as in US I think) were more like belletristic texts written with the goal to give basics without too much thought needed by the reader. In contrast you cannot approach Soviet text math book without serious thinking effort. You need to overcome s…

IMO, the point of textbooks is to educate people on some topic so making them as easy as possible seems like the correct choice. Outside of competitions, the value most people get from those courses is what them remember in 5+ years when their working not really the kind of symbol manipulation that makes can make things opaque. That said, soviet style education produced a lot of great mathematicians especially relati…

> point of textbooks is to educate people on some topic so making them as easy as possible seems like the correct choice

It is not possible to “educate” someone about mathematics or math-heavy technical fields without convincing them to put in some serious time and effort thinking deeply about hard problems.

Many US high school (and even undergraduate) textbooks are more or less analogous to taking a look-out-from-the-bus tour of rock climbing sites, or maybe like teaching an advanced wood shop class by making students assemble IKEA furniture.

Textbooks should be exciting and fun, but “as easy as possible” is a terrible goal.

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

#125

Post by sershe »

Endlessly wrote: post #107
lsh123 wrote: post #80

Disclaimer: I graduated from one of the top math high schools in Moscow in early 90s, I have MS in Math from Moscow State University, and a half finished PhD from the same place. I think on average the difference between a high school student from Russia and US is negligible. Either country doesn’t really require much to finish school and many kids just do the tests without understanding what is going on. What separa…

Curious, what do you and your peers that were feed into a well defined path so early make of it now understanding that is not how all children reach advanced skills in mathematics?

In iirc 8th grade, I've placed high in the final round of a Moscow-wide physics competition, incidentally hosted by MSU. My classmate, who placed even higher, and myself have received an invitation to enroll in the MSU-affiliated maths/physics focused school (#2, the schools in Moscow are all numbered semi arbitrarily). As far as I recall, every time I'd go to one of those competitions bulk of the people in later rounds were from #2 and #57, another math-focused school. The kids from other schools who did well were, I assume, largely scooped up by those targeted schools.

EDIT: Oh, and the maths/physics/etc. competitions started at neighborhood level, so every school would typically send at least a few kids, and encourage the kids who were better at the subjects to do well. I went to neighborhood biology/history/etc. competitions too, but never did very well. I assume whoever did well in those and went into next rounds could go on to enroll into a different set of specialized schools :) Also, some parents did enroll their kids straight into those schools, but I dunno how prevalent that is. They are very ability focused, unlike US private schools that I've heard of where money and helicopter parenting seem to be a major factor.

As a side note, my friend did enroll into #2, and I didn't go because was too lazy to commute 40mins one way when my own school was a 3-minute walk (it was a subway trip for him as is, so I'd like to think that was the difference ;)). We've both done well for ourselves but he's definitely much better at math now.

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

#126

Post by coliveira »

MR4D wrote: post #101
Retric wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO, the point of textbooks is to educate people on some topic so making them as easy as possible seems like the correct choice. Outside of competitions, the value most people get from those courses is what them remember in 5+ years when their working not really the kind of symbol manipulation that makes can make things opaque. That said, soviet style education produced a lot of great mathematicians especially relati…

Somewhat cynically, I think the point of many textbooks is to make money for the authors. There is no reason why a calculus book needs to cost $200 (in the 1990’s) and get refreshed every 2-3 years. That subject has been known for hundreds of years and they rob poor engineering and science student of that $200. Sorry, I just have a bad taste in my mouth from crap like that in undergrad. Not saying you’re wrong, just…

Not only that, but the books are horrible! Authors are incentivized to throw as much verbiage as possible, and this makes students' lives more difficult. It is much preferable to have a more concise book that goes to the core of what you need to learn.

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

#127

Post by lsh123 »

ummwhat wrote: post #113
lsh123 wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not at that level, I have 3 kids of various ages from elementary school to college ;) There is a HUGE difference in the programs from who is selected into the program to program goals.

For the sake of example, how was Soviet Science high school different from Stuyvesant/Brooklyn Tech/Bronx school of Science? (Just to name the ones I know of).

And another factor, also coming from 1-1 tutoring, is that nobody waits for others. You can move ahead as fast as you can and actually you get more attention if you are ahead of class. As the result, while everyone knows the same fundamental theorems, some students have a chance to learn A LOT more.

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

#128

Post by grawprog »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #28
ngold wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank's for the insight. I struggled with geography until I discovered history...again, after high school of course. I still struggle with algebra, so I look forward to checking your suggestions out. I think my problem as a kid was I was just hyper, all the time. I could cut wood outside for 10 hours but couldn't sit still for a moment.

> I struggled with geography until I discovered history Tangentially, a lot of fantasy authors seem to love maps for their own sake, and provide maps of their world as illustrations. I never saw the point of these; the map never really matters to the story. But history books provide almost the same number of maps -- usually one, before the discussion of whatever -- and it just isn't enough. Those maps really matter t…

>the map never really matters to the story.

It's more about deepening the story I think and making it 'bigger' I guess or another type of story telling. You look at a fantasy map and there's typically places on the map not even mentioned in the actual story as you say, but that helps build the setting.

Look at the map for the lord of the rings for example. A good number of the places in that map are barely mentioned in the actual trilogy. Yet that map's become one of the most iconic in fantasy in general.

It's more about what the maps inspire in your imagination while you read. When some random fantasy city name gets mentioned, you can look at the map and get perspective about where it is in the world.

It's also helpful I think to keep the world consistent for authors. It gives them a frame of reference for scale and distance in their stories and likely helps keep track of all the random names and cultures and such that they make up for their stories.

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

#129

Post by Koshkin »

Most American grad level math textbooks are as hardcore as it gets; undergrad, not so much, especially compared to such introductory texts as, say, Beginner's Course in Topology: Geometric Chapters by Rokhlin et al. which, I’d say, is extreme in its hard-coreness. (A popular text by Munkres, by comparison, is a children’s book.)

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

#130

Post by nine_zeros »

My wife’s 12 yr old niece lives in India. Every time I see her, she’s studying all day.

I happened to look at her math books. They had hundreds or thousands of word problems in one year’s cheap textbook. And she had solved ALL of them TWICE over within 8 months. It was unbelievable.

I haven’t seen anything quite like this in America.

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