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)

#611

Post by TomMarius » Wed, Apr 22, 2020, 4:57 PM UTC

de_watcher wrote: post #564

TomMarius wrote: post #475

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The "social capital" was based on the proximity to the ruling minority. The power was greatly centralized so there weren't many of those type of families. Majority had all same: same stuff like photocopied all over the place. Sounds like something from a school history textbook. It was way more complicated than that; the "ruling minority" or proximity to it was nearly irrelevant to most people (and also a direct th…

Well, you were apparently too far from that ruling minority. At the level of the shopkeepers/teachers/etc. For the positions like for example even drivers for the high party members it starts getting unequal. And about the nineties: inequality in the nineties is weird because very large amount of the criminals who got rich didn't bother to educate their children. Of course, some part of them opted for expensive teach…

Everyone was "too far" and no one wanted to be close, it was more of a death sentence than anything else, not a good price for not that much better life. You're talking at most about hundreds of people - out of hundreds of millions (in the Eastern Bloc as a whole).

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

#612

Post by V-2 » Wed, Apr 22, 2020, 4:59 PM UTC

Koshkin wrote: post #582

V-2 wrote: post #449

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obviously all culture, and certainly mass culture in the Soviet bloc was controlled for "proper social message". I don't suppose Romania was more lax in respect to that? A movie cheering for, or even trivializing anti-social behaviors would find it difficult to go past censorship (not to mention - to be conceived in the first place...) It's for the same reason that you'd be hard-pressed to find a pre-1989 Central/Eas…

In the West the mass culture is also controlled in some way (for political correctness).

You're correct, but anti-intellectualism (as defined for the context of this thread) doesn't belong to its targets.

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

#613

Post by varjag » Wed, Apr 22, 2020, 5:00 PM UTC

Koshkin wrote: post #587

varjag wrote: post #391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh not this again. The USSR coasted its first half of existence milking Tsarist legacy of science and engineering, then the other half copying the intellectual fruits of supposedly dumb Western jocks. Modern Russia isn't even half of that. Precious little to show for all the cheek puffing and talent grooming.

> milking Tsarist legacy I call it "preserving tradition."

Pre-1943 USSR was very much into violently rejecting anything Tsarist. Ioffe, Kapitsa and others survived only as pragmatic accessories to weapons and industrialization programmes.

Post-Stalin they had an opportunity to develop their schools of science but it's only so much a few, even dedicated, individuals can do. By 1990 these efforts largely fizzed out.

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

#614

Post by prime_factor » Wed, Apr 22, 2020, 5:01 PM UTC

winter_blue wrote: post #213

c-smile wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First 3 years all students of all Sciences (Math included) and all Engineering specialties were getting the same (mandatory) set of courses. Only rest 2 or 3 years were variable. As of Canadian Universities. UBC in particular. Anecdotical evidence, but still. Friend of mine, owner of small factory here in Vancouver, asked me once to assemble him software department specifically from Eastern Europe people. On question…

> asked me once to assemble him software department specifically from Eastern Europe people I hope your friend realizes that this is clear-cut racial/ethnicity-based discrimination . It's a violation of the Canadian Human Rights Act, see: https://www.canada.ca/en/canadian-heritage/services/rights-w...

No? If we interpret his intentions generously, he didn't say he only wanted to hire people of Eastern European descent, but people who went through their education system. This can include people from any ethnic group that happens to have people living there. That's like saying it's racial discrimination to only hire people who went to MIT.

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

#615

Post by n4r9 » Wed, Apr 22, 2020, 5:03 PM UTC

agent008t wrote: post #428

Symbiote wrote: post #407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> British universities bizarrely seem to often reward/celebrate athletics more than academic achievements. I'm not sure how you get that impression. American universities do this, but (with a couple of famous exceptions, like the traditional boat race between Oxford and Cambridge) British universities don't care about sport. The social hierarchy was just separate, and had no bearing on anything academic. I didn't car…

At Oxford, for instance, social life mostly happens at colleges. The way things are set up, you simply do not get to spend that much time with your course-mates - you do not interact with them during lectures, and then everyone goes back to their colleges. And social life in colleges is (sadly) dominated by drinking at the college bar, drinking in clubs, and dinners in the dining hall, where everyone seems to sit acc…

It varies by course and college. My college had a relatively small number of maths students and would give a prize to the top performers each year. We all knew who got the prize and what grade everyone got. Some of my friends were top athletes in niche sports, but none of us really cared about the boat race, varsity rugby, or anything like that. Social life was centred much more around drinking than sport. I don't think our dining hall arrangement had anything to do with sports teams, official or otherwise.

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

#616

Post by Koshkin » Wed, Apr 22, 2020, 5:03 PM UTC

atrettel wrote: post #575

elteto wrote: post #539

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Yes, indeed. Most people don't realize that the soviets were awful at product engineering. Their consumer-oriented products (TVs, radios, cars) were pretty terrible when compared to their western counterparts. My pet theor…

I'm reminded of the engineer's triangle here: "Good, fast, cheap. Pick two." The problem with a lot of Soviet design was that they always had to pick cheap since there were often shortages of resources. Their designs were fundamentally influenced by scarcity, and it makes it difficult to make anything good, especially if you need something quickly. That doesn't excuse the fact that many designs were knockoffs and ter…

> They could not waste precious metal on soda cans

I have read somewhere that metal in Soviet Union was pretty cheap...

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

#617

Post by V-2 » Wed, Apr 22, 2020, 5:03 PM UTC

paganel wrote: post #540

V-2 wrote: post #446

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

There is also this often link-to essay by Paul Graham, called "revenge of the nerds" [1], that was also one of the reasons why I wrote about the situation in US high-schools (of which I have no direct experience). [1] http://www.paulgraham.com/icad.html

Frankly I find it difficult to figure out how the essay relates to the subject. Care to expand on it a bit?

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

#618

Post by steve76 » Wed, Apr 22, 2020, 5:04 PM UTC

The answer points to ingenuity due to a lack of resources which is susceptible to obsolescence.

School in the USA does a lot more than just educate, for instance child protection services and employment. The USA also takes everyone, specifically the violent and malicious, due to compassion.

The USA suffered: - multiple World Wars - a fifty year Cold War that was just as bad - multiple nuclear standoffs - horrific terrorism - black market drug smuggling, probably the gravest problem today - repeated invasions - a Civil War which involved foreign intervention - attempts at colonial occupation - originally being made as a death camp and penal colony

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

#619

Post by jgwil2 » Wed, Apr 22, 2020, 5:19 PM UTC

wutbrodo wrote: post #92

Pxtl wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my experience, those rote mental muscles mean that the basics are never slowing you down when tackling a harder problem. It's comparable to having a perfectly organized toolbox vs a mess of tools in your shed - you can do the same things, but you're free to focus on the core of the current task instead of distractions in the trivial parts.

This is precisely it. I have a math-heavy job and play/write music, and the same phenomenon plays out in both situations: when reading sheet music or thinking in music theory is in your muscle memory, your entire conscious mind can focus on the actual, creative task at hand. This should be obvious from any number of examples, from driving a car to typing as a programmer. Reducing the friction between your brain and y…

Yes, we can easily experience this by writing code in an unfamiliar programming language, or playing tennis left-handed. The theory is all there, but the muscle memory is missing.

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

#620

Post by jgwil2 » Wed, Apr 22, 2020, 5:21 PM UTC

telchar wrote: post #116

jimmaswell wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The rote learner learned nothing more than the ability to regurgitate a mechanical process while the academic learner learned understanding, in my view. You have to work through some examples to solidify it but that should be totally secondary to understanding the meaning and concepts. Like a physics teacher of mine put it, rote math learning is like teaching sea lions to honk horns for fish - students give the right…

In my experience, it's easy to think one has understanding without actually understanding. The process of applying that tentative understanding to a problem to test it is essential to figuring out what the flaws are in the tentative understanding so that real understanding can eventually be achieved. Once it gets to the point that a person can crank through problems without significant errors, then I think further pr…

Hence the importance of word problems, I think. They force a synthesis of abstract and concrete that really tests/enhances understanding on all levels.