11–20 of 261 posts
“Why is it that no one has undertaken the task of cleaning the Augean stables of elementary differential equations? I will hazard an answer: for the same reason why we see so little change anywhere today, whether in society, in politics, or in science“ I see a lot of parallels with the Physics department and I think the reason is much more depressing. Both fields embrace a sort of masochism and active desire to keep…
Just out of curiosity, what was that classical mechanics textbook?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I had a lot of hope for things like Khan Academy, but the issue is video is not text and it's hard to iterate and improve on When the entire video is generated by an AI, that dynamic changes. It's no issue to improve "the script", and have it seamlessly regenerated. We can't be that far away from this capability, and it could have a profound impact on available learning resources.
The problem isn't writing a better text, it's having departments willing to teach it, or to try alternate approaches at all.
Can imagine a world where it doesn't matter where or how you get your education, all that matters is that you can have your knowledge verified by an accredited _testing_ institution. This would open education up to a world of creative competition for students, and allow individuals to find a learning paradigm that best works for themselves.
Previous discussion from 2022... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32530035
I have long thought such would be easier to work with on modern computers.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I had a lot of hope for things like Khan Academy, but the issue is video is not text and it's hard to iterate and improve on When the entire video is generated by an AI, that dynamic changes. It's no issue to improve "the script", and have it seamlessly regenerated. We can't be that far away from this capability, and it could have a profound impact on available learning resources.
The problem isn't writing a better text, it's having departments willing to teach it, or to try alternate approaches at all.
How are you ever going to learn anything truly novel in the world if you always delegate teaching to a teacher?
If when I started learning about calculus at 14/15 someone had explained why we were doing this it would have made it so much less confusing. Explaining in terms of speed/distance/acceleration seems to make complete sense now (one of several potential examples). However discussing a function and talking about splitting in into small (infinitesimal) strips of delta quantities and a list of equations / proofs made it c…
Exams are for people designing bridges and doing surgery. Basic science just learn and start doing some to see if it is for you.
If when I started learning about calculus at 14/15 someone had explained why we were doing this it would have made it so much less confusing. Explaining in terms of speed/distance/acceleration seems to make complete sense now (one of several potential examples). However discussing a function and talking about splitting in into small (infinitesimal) strips of delta quantities and a list of equations / proofs made it c…
Physics doing the work of actually teaching math is a universal embarrassment to math departments. Or, well, it should be.
“Why is it that no one has undertaken the task of cleaning the Augean stables of elementary differential equations? I will hazard an answer: for the same reason why we see so little change anywhere today, whether in society, in politics, or in science“ I see a lot of parallels with the Physics department and I think the reason is much more depressing. Both fields embrace a sort of masochism and active desire to keep…
So true, in many areas. I know a couple of young people that got destroyed by this kind of meat grinding machinery. Typically applies to every medical studies in France, where many kids (with parents that have the money to pay) are going to Spain, Romania or Belgium to study in a less oppressing environment and better teaching methods.