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)

#631

Post by elteto » Wed, Apr 22, 2020, 6:41 PM UTC

jeffreyrogers wrote: post #553

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…

But they were pretty good at engineering things like jets, helicopters, missiles, etc. I think the consume products were bad because they lacked market feedback and had trouble with supply chains, while the military products were good, arguably better than US equivalents in some cases, because of the more top-down, spec-driven nature of that work.

Yes, they were. Their military products actually competed in a "free market": they had strong competition from the US, NATO countries, China, etc. Ironically, this free market competition is what made Soviet weapons as good as they were :) I wonder if they ever thought about it in this way.

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

#632

Post by ozim » Wed, Apr 22, 2020, 6:41 PM UTC

literallycancer wrote: post #467

ozim wrote: post #417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If those people who do not waste time are so smart why they have to be hold by the hand and given curriculum? (tuition fees you can count as means for getting a diploma, but also if someone is soo smart, why does he need a diploma anyway?) What I imagine really smart person would do is: go to people giving the course for additional work or talk with them to show where they are at. Skip classes, read something else wh…

In principle, yeah. Read something else in class -- better to just skip it then. It is not uncommon for people to skip lectures and just do the exam. >If those people who do not waste time are so smart why they have to be hold by the hand and given curriculum? There's a culture of "rules apply to everyone" and people are not used to asking for special treatment. So if you don't make it super obvious, people will assu…

You did not get my point, if someone is truly exceptional they skip classes. If otherwise rules apply to everyone keep your head down.

People who think they are exceptional are mostly just casual. (wink wink instagram)

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

#633

Post by ozim » Wed, Apr 22, 2020, 6:44 PM UTC

Avamander wrote: post #474

ozim wrote: post #417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If those people who do not waste time are so smart why they have to be hold by the hand and given curriculum? (tuition fees you can count as means for getting a diploma, but also if someone is soo smart, why does he need a diploma anyway?) What I imagine really smart person would do is: go to people giving the course for additional work or talk with them to show where they are at. Skip classes, read something else wh…

> go to people giving the course for additional work Always seems to be the solution. It doesn't scale, even if you know how to make a PCB or a cupboard (for example), it doesn't take 0 time. That extra work would be extra time spent, which is nonsense if the goal is to demonstrate competency and reduce wasting time.

Does not scale in what way? Exceptional people are rare, just as I wrote if someone is really exceptional he will blow through all this with no issues and minimal time. There is loads of people who just think are exceptional just like all those people on Instagram.

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

#634

Post by owl57 » Wed, Apr 22, 2020, 6:52 PM UTC

agent008t wrote: post #469

g-erson wrote: post #457

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do think it's worth adding, though, that from what I've heard (and given my own experiences), the culture in Oxford/Cambridge is not at all representative of University culture generally in British Universities.

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…

In a top Russian university you simply would not have the time, and they would not hesitate to kick you out; graduating from university can be more difficult than getting into one.

Are you sure? I studied math in MSU in early 00's. Most of my coursemates drank a lot. I took some silly pride in drinking a lot and still learning enough to get good grades, but a lot of us just weren't bothered by getting worse grades. You had to be exceptionally and repeatedly bad at the exams to be kicked out.

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

#635

Post by tigerente » Wed, Apr 22, 2020, 7:07 PM UTC

MR4D wrote: post #576

tigerente wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, almost nothing of the $200 actually goes to the author. A typical share goes like this: (concrete numbers for Germany) 50% of the sticker price goes to the book seller, 7% to tax, the remainder to printing, typesetting, logistics, the publishing house etc. A typical author would get somewhere between 4-7% of the net sales. Most books, especially advanced science books, on the market (not your College 101, not NYT…

1,000 students per semester times $10 bucks is money I wouldn’t mind having. Professors write tons of pages on various topics as part of their job. We call that “research”. Not sure why contributing to a book effort should be looked at any differently than research papers. Plus, from an economic sense, when you lower the price of a compliment, your demand g or price ) goes up. So it’s actually in a university’s inter…

The few thousand copies is over the _entire_ lifetime of a book, not meant per year. Again, your College 101 book in Physics or Calculus will be used in large courses and thus sell a large volume, if it is being that used that is. There are also many competitors in the market, and yours might not see significant pickup.

So, let's suppose that you indeed sell 1,000 copies at $150 a piece. Your share is 6% of the net sales, so $8370. From this you need to pay services such as the person making the index, or pay royalty for pictures (yes, many publishing houses deduct this from the author's earnings).

Let's say your book has 700 pages, which is pretty normal volume size, and after you paid for additional services and expenses you are left with $7000. You are a good writer, so planning the book, writing it, creating examples, copy-editing and rewriting it, making reference solutions, etc. and you only spend on average 4h per page. You have made $2.50 / hour before tax. And you probably have a PhD in that topic.

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

#636

Post by ken47 » Wed, Apr 22, 2020, 7:27 PM UTC

zeroxfe wrote: post #547

ken47 wrote: post #421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I take no issue with his anecdote.

He said that getting into IIT was more difficult than getting into Harvard, which is a pretty clear claim about the intelligence of an IIT student, and by extension, his intelligence.

The IIT graduates I've met are generally quite smart, but I've also noticed occasional arrogance which can lead them to think, say, and do irrational things, such as implying the superiority of IIT to Harvard, e.g. comparing apples to oranges.

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

#637

Post by rurban » Wed, Apr 22, 2020, 7:28 PM UTC

Easy answer: Russia's education was for engineers, US for snowflakes.

Also it extents to CS. It's 10x easier to find competent Russian programmers than in the US. They are dominating the various math contents or chess for decades.

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

#638

Post by rurban » Wed, Apr 22, 2020, 7:28 PM UTC

Easy answer: Russia's education was for engineers, US for snowflakes.

Also it extents to CS. It's 10x easier to find competent Russian programmers than in the US. They are dominating the various math contests or chess for decades.

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

#639

Post by Viliam1234 » Wed, Apr 22, 2020, 7:56 PM UTC

missosoup wrote: post #555

sacks2k wrote: post #534

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"hence domestically popular tv shows like Big Bang Theory which have 0 audience in countries that value intellect" It's shown in 180 countries worldwide and very popular internationally (Including Russia): https://bigbangtheory.fandom.com/wiki/International_broadcas... While I don't necessarily love the show, I've known many PHD students from China, Taiwan, and Korea that absolutely love the show. Hardly from countri…

> It's shown in 180 countries worldwide and very popular internationally (Including Russia) If you pick 10 random people in Russia and ask them about this show, all 10 will either not have heard of it or react with disdain. I have no idea where you get the notion that it's popular in Russia. > It's easy to say we aren't popular because we are smarter than everyone else I was popular in Russia. Then I had difficulty f…

> 'nerdy' (a word that doesn't even have an equivalent in Russian)

I wonder how many languages actually do have an equivalent. Maybe English is the only one?

When I translate something to Slovak, I also struggle with the word 'nerd'. We do not have a word for this concept. A close one is "bifľoš", which means a person who puts a lot of effort into memorizing school material, but it is implied that the person does not truly understand it. Another one is "kockáč", which means a math-oriented person. But we do not have a word that means: a weird person, because they actually study and understand something.

To me it seems that America is like "no child left behind", while Russia and Eastern Europe are like "if a child gets behind, wolves will eat them, who cares, at least it motivates others to run faster". :D

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

#640

Post by hintymad » Wed, Apr 22, 2020, 8:07 PM UTC

Economic reasons aside, I think Soviet educators also believe that rigorous and challenging training will realize the greatest potential of students. The top students are self-driven and usually get the best resources anyway. It is the majority middle that need most rigorous and challenging training to realize their full potential. Unfortunately, US educators in K-12 decided to move in the opposite direction. David Klein's writing told appalling and sad stories of how National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NTCM) won over the course of last 100 years: - A quarter century of US 'math wars' and political partisanship - A Brief History of American K-12 Mathematics Education in the 20th Century

By the way, US's upper-level college course and post-graduate textbooks are hardcore too. If you don't believe me, go check out the Graduate Texts in Mathematics.