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A new way to make quadratic equations easy (2019)

technologyreview.com

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Re: A new way to make quadratic equations easy (2019)

#41

Post by vector_spaces »

jonsen wrote: post #38
iandanforth wrote: post #36

The author should really remove the words 'simple', 'easy', and 'intuitive' from this article. They clearly know nothing of why most people detest math. If you're already familiar with the quadratic equation and you care about math and even enjoy it you might find this new equation interesting, useful, or intuitive, but I guarantee it is still a garbled mass of un-intuitive numbers and symbols to "[m]any former algeb…

No he should not. The words invokes the right connotations in a pedagogically minded reader. This can be the basis for better teaching. It depends of course on implementation.

I'm a "pedagogically minded" reader, and I find these words unnecessary at best, and off putting at worst. Math needs better marketing based on actual science, not egotism

Re: A new way to make quadratic equations easy (2019)

#43

Post by gh0std3v »

jonsen wrote: post #38
iandanforth wrote: post #36

The author should really remove the words 'simple', 'easy', and 'intuitive' from this article. They clearly know nothing of why most people detest math. If you're already familiar with the quadratic equation and you care about math and even enjoy it you might find this new equation interesting, useful, or intuitive, but I guarantee it is still a garbled mass of un-intuitive numbers and symbols to "[m]any former algeb…

No he should not. The words invokes the right connotations in a pedagogically minded reader. This can be the basis for better teaching. It depends of course on implementation.

Math is not an easy subject by any means. I see the same thing when people give programming tutorials and call it “easy” and “simple”. However, once the student starts to encounter difficulties with the subject later down the road, they feel stupid and lied to, since they were promised by their teacher that what they were learning was “easy”.

I agree that depending on the implementation, a subject can feel easy, but let’s not pretend that there are no difficulties in learning and teaching these concepts, and that it continues to feel “easy” later down the road.

Re: A new way to make quadratic equations easy (2019)

#44

Post by Terry_Roll »

vector_spaces wrote: post #41
jonsen wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No he should not. The words invokes the right connotations in a pedagogically minded reader. This can be the basis for better teaching. It depends of course on implementation.

I'm a "pedagogically minded" reader, and I find these words unnecessary at best, and off putting at worst. Math needs better marketing based on actual science, not egotism

Teachers & the educational system in general should give examples of why stuff needs to be learnt instead of being dictated to, because they have one of the largest influences on the future direction of a country's success. Teaching was a cop out, a cushy number for those who couldn't hack it in the real world and liked to take their failure out on pupils. Many teachers couldn't run a business the way they treated kids in the classroom so when they go on strike because they want more pay they are just demonstrating that bullying works, and hard work doesn't pay. Hypocrites!

Re: A new way to make quadratic equations easy (2019)

#47

Post by teg4n_ »

I must be stupid because I did not find the explanation easy. In fact after I read it I thought to myself: I think I’ll just rely on memorization for this (not that it’s actually needed in my day to day life and I’ll have to look it up if I ever actually need it).

Re: A new way to make quadratic equations easy (2019)

#49

Post by svat »

finite_jest wrote: post #17
cperciva wrote: post #14

Leaving aside the fact that this isn't new -- it's how I was taught to solve quadratic equations in the 80s -- if you look closely he's still completing the square.

Surprisingly, the article seems to be written by a smart mathematician, not a crackpot or a social scientist. [1] This kinda reminds me of that medical researcher who rediscovered trapezoid rule in 1994, and called it "Tai's Model". [2] To be fair, this is slightly better as it is supposed to be pedagogical, but it is still quite dishonest to pretend that it is new. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Po-Shen_Loh [2]:…

If this is indeed not new, one should be able to find a published source anywhere in the world's literature from before 2019 that does it this way, correct? The author mentions in his blog post / paper that he has looked for this exact method in many sources and not found it anywhere: can someone find it?

See section 3.3 "Brief historical context" of the paper: https://arxiv.org/abs/1910.06709v2 — he also mentions on his website of many attempts to find this exact derivation somewhere earlier: https://www.poshenloh.com/quadratic/

> In summary, the author has not yet found a previously-existing book or paper which states the same pedagogical method as this present article and precisely justifies the steps, but there exist independent references that contain the key ideas and can be adapted to achieve this. That said, it is entirely possible that the method in this present article was previously observed by people who did not share their findings.

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