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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)

#541

Post by Loulybob »

Symbiote wrote: post #511
agent008t wrote: post #469

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, yet they are some of the best universities not only in Britain, but in Europe and the world. So they are highly relevant in this discussion as we are talking about the top maths/physics education in each country for top students. E.g. when Russian universities/schools are mentioned here, it is usually Moscow State University or another top university or school that is assumed. And in many ways, e.g. when it com…

The criticism, then, should be directed at Oxbridge, and not at [almost] all other British universities which don't do this. I went to Imperial College. "Work hard, play hard" was some kind of motto. Most people followed the first part, the second part was optional. There was more "play" at weekends, and less during the week, compared with my friends at other universities. Mostly, it meant focussing on work during th…

On your final point about the drinking age:

The minimum purchasing/public drinking age is 18 (other than a single pint with a meal), but there's no practical restriction on parents letting their kids drink in private. My parents encouraged me once I was around 16 to join in with the adults whilst they had drinks. This led to me getting silly drunk a couple of times but with proper supervision. Same thing with going to some college house parties with 6th form friends - their parents knew that at the end of the night all the kids we're being picked up by their family.

The problem is if parents don't consider this and just ban drinking for kids up until they leave the house and aren't under their control any more. That's what causes people to go out of control at Uni since it might be literally their first experience with alcohol, or at least more than "1 glass with a meal" etc.

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

#542

Post by brummm »

dirtnugget wrote: post #327

I had an exchange year during High School where I moved from Germany to Florida for a year and attended a public school. I hate to say this but to me the classes were laughably easy. While I was a 10th grader in Germany I could have easily graduated there. I do however favour the US system of individual classes where you could advance in e.g. Mathematics but if you had trouble with language you could take a less-inte…

The big difference is also that German high school students are split into three different schools with the top school (Gymnasium) being much harder than US high schools.

In US high schools, students are not split and obviously they can't advance as fast.

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

#543

Post by Loulybob »

dgb23 wrote: post #413
dan-robertson wrote: post #400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a stupid argument. Is one to suppose that the brain teasers that were popular in interviews 15 years ago implied that universities weren’t teaching people to be clever or something? I think a lot of interviewing style is fashion driven. Also computer science isn’t necessarily about actually coding anyway. It’s mostly about algorithms and structure and complexity. Similarly, anyone who knows anything about uni…

The difference is that programming is an essential craft. Algorithms are fundamental here, but it seems like teaching „structure and complexity“ equals to teaching paradigms that where en vogue a generation ago. This kind of knowledge is distracting, pretentious and even harmful.

On the other hand, I find it hard to imagine you can make a multiple year degree out of just programming. Hence why the best courses will have a mix of both practical and theory.

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

#544

Post by asdfman123 »

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…

I remember reading about the Soviet physicist Landau and I believe they made the argument that the difference between the US and the USSR is the US tried to bring every student to as high a level in math as they could, whereas the USSR was more interested in just selecting the best math students and didn't worry so much about the rest.

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

#545

Post by rramadass »

ajuc wrote: post #527
aga98mtl wrote: post #515

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> we're doing a massive disservice to our young people which they will have to overcome for the rest of their lives. Is this actually the case? Much of the most useful science & software comes from people educated in the Americas and Western Europe. I think that non-western schooling methodologies under-value problem solving and overvalue "raw" knowledge.

Most of the useful science comes from people imigrating to rich countries from poor countries :) They have the basics, motivation, and opportunities. Those that stay in poor countries don't have opportunities nor motivation. Those that come from rich countries don't have the basics nor motivation. It's a generalization, of course.

Preach, Brother :-)

>It's a generalization, of course

But there is a lot of truth to this.

One other thing that i have noticed, is that in "rich" countries, knowledge of trivial and basic stuff are celebrated in the name of "positive reinforcement". This gives students the false idea that they have "mastered" something while they have just started learning. IMO, this is extremely harmful to the student's psychology.

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

#546

Post by Loulybob »

wink wrote: post #531
gambiting wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not the same, but I went from the Polish education system to a British university, and it also felt like it was a massive downgrade. What really surprised me was the core principle at British unversities - "don't assume prior knowledge of anything". It basically meant that on a CS course, they teach you basic level maths, basic programming skills, you spend the entire 1st year of university learning what we learnt in…

One part of this doesn't make sense to me. Can only talk about German universities, and I started in 2003, but... They will start with math you already know, but only in the first semester, so from October until Christmas, from then on everything is mostly new. But... to be eligible to study you kind of have to have had math on that level at school. with no exceptions. But for anything programming related? In the lat…

That's precisely the case with British schools/universities too. I know now that programming has been added to the curriculum, so in years time these intro courses might no longer be necessary, but the opportunity for prior CS/programming education depended heavily on which school you went to and that's a massive red flag for trying to enable people from all backgrounds to be able to study.

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

#547

Post by zeroxfe »

ken47 wrote: post #421
govg wrote: post #415

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a hard comparison since Harvard and the IITs have different admission processes. Admissions to the IITs happen via a single exam, which is held at the end of 12 years of school education and is conducted over a few hours consisting of upper level physics, chemistry and mathematics. Harvard meanwhile has a lot more in terms of admission criteria, with essays, SAT scores and other things taken into consideration.…

I agree - that could be the closest to a sound argument, but it's a very superficial one. Someone who claims to be highly intelligent by virtue of their alma mater should know better than to advance such an argument to an educated audience.

OP was not saying anything about intelligence or claiming to be highly intelligent. It was a personal (and very interesting, IMO) anecdote on their experience with math text books.

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

#549

Post by penetrarthur »

I was taught in university by soviet professors and had to study soviet textbooks and from what I can tell, Soviet textbooks are extremely steep and unfriendly. There is not a single odd word and it even feels like they had to save the paper. Text is often describing schemes that are 5-10 pages before. It takes significantly more concentration to understand the whole thing. It feels like authors used to compete in the precision of information rather than making it more available for someone who is going to read it.

On the other hand, books from USA tend to be more friendly and will first explain the basic intuition and only then dig deeper if necessary.

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

#550

Post by akarma »

V-2 wrote: post #446
paganel wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> One of the major factors is this weird anti-intellectualism culture that just doesn't exist in Russia. It was the same thing in Romania, at least in the '90s, when I went to school/high-school. It was always strange to me seeing all those American movies of the "nerds"/geeks getting persecuted by the "cool" kids, it certainly didn't happen to kids in my school and I'm pretty sure it generally didn't happen to kids…

Based on my experience (Poland) bullying typically targets social ineptitude and sycophantism towards teachers, which tends to be somewhat correlated with good performance at school. But I've never really seen anyone being persecuted for good grades as such. I wouldn't assume that's the case in American schools, though - not based on movies, at least. Could be just a convenient stereotype peddled by "college comedies…

> But I've never really seen anyone being persecuted for good grades as such.

As someone who went through the US public education system in a lower-class neighborhood in the 2000s, I can't speak for wealthier neighborhoods [1], but people are definitely persecuted solely for their grades.

[1] One of the most interesting things about American culture is the dichotomy we have due to the large population and inequality (meaning there's ~no group overlap prior to college) - educational experiences had been so vastly different for many I met in college, and we were shocked at hearing the other side's experiences.

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