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Masterclass on mathematical thinking

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Re: Masterclass on mathematical thinking

#51

Post by nefitty »

NikolaeVarius wrote: post #19
klyrs wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's 90% genes , 10% other factors. Do you have evidence to support these numbers, or the more general claim of genetic supremacy?

Genes must have something to do with it. Take the case of Srinivasa Ramanujan No formal training in math. Made insane contributions to mathematics including solving "unsolvable" problems. > A child prodigy by age 11, he had exhausted the mathematical knowledge of two college students who were lodgers at his home. He was later lent a book written by S. L. Loney on advanced trigonometry.[18][19] He mastered this by the…

I'm not sure why people feel so allergic to the idea of a genetic intelligence boost.

Our genes encode the layout of physical race tracks on which marbles of matter and information travel. Some people's bodies have a bunch of muscle tracks, so as they grow, their body benefits from the activity on those. They grow up to find it easier to gain muscle than other people.

For geniuses, I imagine that the brain is a perfectly laid out super highway. Any information that comes in gets to where it needs to go because there's signs and signals and traffic cops patrolling. If some piece of information can't find where to go, well, damned if we don't have a construction worker and a navigator jumping in the passenger seat with you to help out.

Ultimately, I think the brain is so plastic that each of us can one day decide to elect a new mayor to our body town. The new mayor can decide to tear up roads and fix potholes etc. Yeah, it would have been great if we had founded the town with a plan and hadn't had that college riot but here we are. Time to pave some roads.

Re: Masterclass on mathematical thinking

#52

Post by vicda »

dandellion wrote: post #30
EMM_386 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am a subscriber. It's totally worthwhile, but it depends on your interests. I originally subbed, for all things, to see Penn & Teller teach the basics of magic. I've since moved on to learning about cooking and how movies are made from the best in the business. You can get a feel for what is offered here: https://www.masterclass.com/categories I'm not affiliated with them in any way.

I also liked The Art of Negotation by Chris Voss, there's some tips that can be useful for salary negotations, for example.

I've wanted to watch that, but I'm expecting it to only be a polished highlights of his book, which I thoroughly enjoyed.

Re: Masterclass on mathematical thinking

#53

Post by gompertz »

throwawaygh wrote: post #32
forgotmyoldacc wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like motivation porn more than education. Not that there's anything wrong with that, just knowing which one is which is useful.

I think of it like "listen to an expert in X talk about why they love X" instead of "learn the basics of X". It's sort of more like an interview than a lecture.

Well said... Unfortunately some will then transfer this to their own resume in some sort of spin that they are a subject matter expert.

Re: Masterclass on mathematical thinking

#54

Post by BeetleB »

paulpauper wrote: post #9
klyrs wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's 90% genes , 10% other factors. Do you have evidence to support these numbers, or the more general claim of genetic supremacy?

He was a demonstrating adult level math ability even at the age of 5. Also, he was genius level at other subjects too. How would it not be genetic. Think of how hard parents push their kids in today's super-competitive economy and high-stakes higher ed system, how many turn out even close to as talented as him?

So in other words, the answer to your parent's question is "No, you don't have any evidence."

You are providing questions as a substitute for actual evidence. Your questions are worthy of being asked, but they are still questions.

Basically a variant of "I cannot explain ... therefore it must be Y! How could it not be Y?"

Just because people don't have adequate explanations for nurture doesn't make it an automatic "genetics". All it means is that they don't have adequate explanations. This does not make your stance any stronger or more likely to be correct.

(Disclaimer: I can easily believe genetics is the answer. I won't, however, be sure of it).

Re: Masterclass on mathematical thinking

#55

Post by raphlinus »

nefitty wrote: post #50
raphlinus wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unusually, we have pretty good documentation about Prof Tao's background, childhood, and mathematical education. I found this a good read. http://math.fau.edu/yiu/Oldwebsites/MPS2010/TerenceTao1984.p... My favorite part is when he was asked, at age 8 minus epsilon, whether addition distributes over multiplication (after having established that multiplication distributing over addition is an example of a distributive…

If I asked the people close to you what you do/think differently than others, what would they say?

I don't think I come across as an alien. For example, I'm very deeply involved in my local Quaker meeting, and I don't think any of that is particularly different than others. That said, I can nerd out extremely deeply into a problem, to a point where I've noticed other people's eyes glaze over. Case in point, I've become interested in memory models for GPUs, and while most people in the field would be content to leave it there, I've actually dug into the Alloy code for the formalization of the Vulkan memory model (and found some issues along the way). I'd estimate there are probably less than two dozen other people in the world who have dug that deep, and, thinking about it now, I can see a pretty direct line to what child-prodigy-me would do in a similar situation.

Re: Masterclass on mathematical thinking

#56

Post by cloudedcordial »

Graffur wrote: post #7

My first reaction to this blog post was kind of negative because Master Class is not free. I watched the teaser video and it's actually pretty inspiring. As someone who has done undergraduate Computer Science level Math, but completely forgotten most things about Math except for simple Algebra, I am going to try this. The cost is €16/month which is cheaper than Netflix. I just cancelled my Spotify recently so this is…

I had a similar negative knee jerk reaction upon learning that Yo-Yo Ma gives one of the courses from MasterClass. The whole MasterClass business seems like entertainment as you've noted. Music could be entertainment but there's some deep subjects just like mathematics. One cannot just sit back and gain deep understanding.

Re: Masterclass on mathematical thinking

#58

Post by somerando7 »

pedrosorio wrote: post #37
drexlspivey wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Tao has 2 brothers - why aren't they mathematical supergeniuses too? The previous sentence from the one you quoted states that “Tao also has two brothers, who are living in Australia. Both formerly represented the country at the International Mathematical Olympiad”

Very impressive no doubt, and again, they are brothers, so genetics plays a part. But their achievements aren't even close. His (younger) brother, Nigel achieved two bronze medals (placing 132nd and 114th overall) at the age of 15 and 16 [0]. Quite good, specially at a younger age than most participants. Terence [1] got a gold medal (13th place) right before completing 13 years of age. He achieved a similar feat (28t…

If I were to guess, his brothers and parents pushed him, and had more experience with teaching compared to their older son. They got him interested, and he went from there.

He was probably lucky to be the younger brother growing up.

Re: Masterclass on mathematical thinking

#59

Post by krackers »

raphlinus wrote: post #35
uoaei wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it really common opinion that TT is smart because of his genes? I would think having a helpful and engaged math-fluent father and lots of encouragement from an early age has way more to do with it. You can't seriously believe that an introduction into mathematical thinking from an early age and close advision from math-fluent parents is only 10% of the reason that TT is where he is today.

Unusually, we have pretty good documentation about Prof Tao's background, childhood, and mathematical education. I found this a good read. http://math.fau.edu/yiu/Oldwebsites/MPS2010/TerenceTao1984.p... My favorite part is when he was asked, at age 8 minus epsilon, whether addition distributes over multiplication (after having established that multiplication distributing over addition is an example of a distributive…

The entire Q&A is great. My favorite part is the snippet of his basic program for fibonacci computation.

   300 print "mr. fibonacci is leaving now,"
   310 print "and wishes to see you again sometime in the future"
   312 print
   313 print
   315 print "here goes his car!!!!!!!!"
   320 print "(brmmmm-brmmmm-putt-putt-vraow-chatter-chatter bye mr. fibonacci!)"

Re: Masterclass on mathematical thinking

#60

Post by calf »

ConnorCallahan wrote: post #57

I just watched the first 8 out of 12 episodes and I was disappointed. There were certainly a couple good nuggets but I'm afraid that Masterclass puts too much emphasis on making things simple such that he spends most of the time talking about really simple ideas.

Is there anything there that you wouldn't learn in the process of college-level STEM classes?
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