Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Calculus Made Easy by Silvanus P. Thompson (1910)

calculusmadeeasy.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 64 posts

Re: Calculus Made Easy by Silvanus P. Thompson (1910)

#51

Post by schoen »

andrewfromx wrote: post #41

When they came to require still smaller subdivisions of time, they divided each minute into 60 still smaller parts, which, in Queen Elizabeth's days, they called “second minùtes” (i.e.: small quantities of the second order of minuteness). Nowadays we call these small quantities of the second order of smallness “seconds.” But few people know why they are so called.

A "third minute" (of 1/60 second) could be useful in talking about human reaction times. We could say that people commonly have a reaction time of 7 to 15 thirds, and that alcohol consumption may slow that reaction time by a further 8 thirds or more.

Or, speedrunners and professional musicians can practice motions (relative to their own motions or to an ongoing rhythm) that are accurate to about 1 third.

I assume the terminology would be too easy to confuse with ⅓, so maybe they would have to be called "terces" or "tertians" or "tertiaries" or something. (Specifically, we want to say (1/60)³ hour rather than (1/3) minute!) And maybe it's not a great thing to introduce a non-decimal unit when we're also trying to get rid of them in many other contexts.

Re: Calculus Made Easy by Silvanus P. Thompson (1910)

#53

Post by drdec »

hotnfresh wrote: post #8
2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #2

My biggest mistake as a SWE (now in my 30s) was not learning higher level mathematics and allowing what knowledge I did possess to wither on the vine.

Late 30s here. I keep feeling like I should learn math better, but damn, I just never need it. It’s much easier to learn stuff I need. As it is, I’ve lost everything back to about 8th grade math because I’ve never used any of it, so it’s just as gone as all the French I used to know but never found an excuse to use. [edit] and I’m dreading my kids getting past elementary school math because they’re gonna be like “why…

Learning mathematics teaches you general concepts of critical thinking.

For example, the way to solve a quadratic is to reduce it to a form one knows how to solve (via competing the square).

The specifics of the mathematics are not the prize, the methods of thinking are.

Re: Calculus Made Easy by Silvanus P. Thompson (1910)

#54

Post by gilcot »

xcjs wrote: post #44
Almondsetat wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Epubs are horrible for technical documents

Only if they exist as poor conversions. Properly formatted epub documents are worth their weight in effort. Epub documents _are_ HTML files in a zip archive - I'd argue that if a web site is a proper presentation of the source material, an epub is even better. Additionally, PDF documents _are_ worse for any kind of document technical or otherwise. PDF documents are primarily Postscript instructions without any relati…

I think that what previous poster is pointing is that technical documents as epub are often difficult where they're no textual contents. Images may be the easiest case. Things are a bit more clunky when code source are involved and it's weird with complex formulas.

Re: Calculus Made Easy by Silvanus P. Thompson (1910)

#56

Post by jskherman »

lesona wrote: post #39

Would anyone have any recommendations for books/textbooks of this style and the comment's Elementary Calculus: An Infinitesimal Approach, by professor Jerome Keisler on Algebra/PreCalc & Trig? I've always wanted to learn math but my teachers could never explain it to me in a way that clicked and any textbook I've read couldn't either. These two above really seem to be in my wheelhouse.

Perhaps Axler's "Precalculus: A Prelude to Calculus"?

Re: Calculus Made Easy by Silvanus P. Thompson (1910)

#58

Post by hotnfresh »

drdec wrote: post #53
hotnfresh wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Late 30s here. I keep feeling like I should learn math better, but damn, I just never need it. It’s much easier to learn stuff I need. As it is, I’ve lost everything back to about 8th grade math because I’ve never used any of it, so it’s just as gone as all the French I used to know but never found an excuse to use. [edit] and I’m dreading my kids getting past elementary school math because they’re gonna be like “why…

Learning mathematics teaches you general concepts of critical thinking. For example, the way to solve a quadratic is to reduce it to a form one knows how to solve (via competing the square). The specifics of the mathematics are not the prize, the methods of thinking are.

If this is true, there is surely a way to present material honing that specific skill as a game or series of games that would generate more intrinsic interest from more kids than math does.

I don’t think the methods of thinking per se are why we teach math, though. Might be part of it, but if that’s all, I think we could do a lot better for a lot less effort for all concerned. I think it’s because the math itself is useful. If in fact the point were to teach methods of thinking, I doubt we’d teach it as we do math—why would we, when it generates such resistance and loathing from so many students?

Post reply on HN