Shameless promotion: I'm writing a book in which I introduce mathematics for programmers specifically. If you found yourself here you may be interested. https://jeremykun.com/2016/04/25/book-mailing-list
Steven Strogatz on chaos theory, game theory, and why math isn’t boring
11–20 of 66 posts
Re: Steven Strogatz on chaos theory, game theory, and why math isn’t boring
#12Mathematics is the study of objective truth in a universe that has certain rules. How could knowing the universe in all its glory be boring? Wish they taught this rather than calculation at school. It's very uninspiring to not realize this and do math. In fact, natural numbers are the basis for almost all of mathematics. And natural numbers are a manifestation of counting. Information theoretically, to count, one nee…
Yea, mathematics is more fundamental than physics, in the sense that it would be possible for different universes to exist with different physics, but it's not clear at all that universes could exist with different mathematics. What would that even mean? You may like Max Tegmark's idea that the universe is math: https://arxiv.org/abs/0704.0646 But it's nonsense that the natural numbers require two dimensions. Time ap…
Do you know what the uni~ i universe means? It means only (one-ly). How could there be multiple? That's just non-sense.
The parent implied counting, not the natural numbers, need two dimensions. But even in Set Theory you need at least one level deep nested sets to build the natural numbers. Qunatification is the (a?) difference between zero and higher order logic, I suppose.
Re: Steven Strogatz on chaos theory, game theory, and why math isn’t boring
#13So here's the dilemma. People who see the beauty and elegance of mathematics are always going to go into something that exercises that, and will never go into teaching. Why would anyone who is seriously good at lots of math go into teaching? Especially in the USA, UK, or other countries where teaching has such a low status. In many cases teachers are genuinely despised. Why would anyone good at math ever go into teac…
By that logic no student is ever exposed to the real beauty and elegance of any subject.
Re: Steven Strogatz on chaos theory, game theory, and why math isn’t boring
#14So here's the dilemma. People who see the beauty and elegance of mathematics are always going to go into something that exercises that, and will never go into teaching. Why would anyone who is seriously good at lots of math go into teaching? Especially in the USA, UK, or other countries where teaching has such a low status. In many cases teachers are genuinely despised. Why would anyone good at math ever go into teac…
Because one way to appreciate beauty is to show others. One of my math teachers in school had no kids, lived frugally. He could have retired a long time before I ran into him.
Instead, he gave me extra classes and put me on the math team. He spent lots of his own time to show me the interesting bits while also making sure I wouldn't get anything less than the top mark on the exams.
You're right though. It's not enough to rely on passionate people, there's not enough of them. I mean I like math too, and I'm not gonna be a teacher. You can't even send your own kids to school on a teacher's salary.
Re: Steven Strogatz on chaos theory, game theory, and why math isn’t boring
#15So here's the dilemma. People who see the beauty and elegance of mathematics are always going to go into something that exercises that, and will never go into teaching. Why would anyone who is seriously good at lots of math go into teaching? Especially in the USA, UK, or other countries where teaching has such a low status. In many cases teachers are genuinely despised. Why would anyone good at math ever go into teac…
By that logic no student is ever exposed to the real beauty and elegance of any subject.
You can be, just not in school - only at university level and above, when some time ago someone figured out a trick to combine research work with teaching responsibilities. This works well as long as there is no significant market demand for a given discipline.
Re: Steven Strogatz on chaos theory, game theory, and why math isn’t boring
#16Proffesor Strogatz wrote a book called Ninlinear Dynamics and Chaos which is the best intro book on non linear diff eq I have ever come across. I highly recomenend it: https://www.amazon.com/Nonlinear-Dynamics-Chaos-Applications...
Re: Steven Strogatz on chaos theory, game theory, and why math isn’t boring
#17Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yea, mathematics is more fundamental than physics, in the sense that it would be possible for different universes to exist with different physics, but it's not clear at all that universes could exist with different mathematics. What would that even mean? You may like Max Tegmark's idea that the universe is math: https://arxiv.org/abs/0704.0646 But it's nonsense that the natural numbers require two dimensions. Time ap…
Do you know what the uni~ i universe means? It means only (one-ly). How could there be multiple? That's just non-sense. The parent implied counting, not the natural numbers, need two dimensions. But even in Set Theory you need at least one level deep nested sets to build the natural numbers. Qunatification is the (a?) difference between zero and higher order logic, I suppose.
> Do you know what the uni~ i universe means? It means only (one-ly). How could there be multiple? That's just non-sense.
Do you know what "atom" in "atom" means? "Indivisible". But somehow we've been dividing them for power for quite some time.
Arguments from etymology are invalid, because words are not obliged to be backwards compatible.
Re: Steven Strogatz on chaos theory, game theory, and why math isn’t boring
#18Shameless promotion: I'm writing a book in which I introduce mathematics for programmers specifically. If you found yourself here you may be interested. https://jeremykun.com/2016/04/25/book-mailing-list
I just wanted to say that I have really enjoyed Math ∩ Programming over the past year. Lot of interesting reading material for my commute. Keep up the good work! (Signed up for the mailing list. Good luck!)
Re: Steven Strogatz on chaos theory, game theory, and why math isn’t boring
#19Shameless promotion: I'm writing a book in which I introduce mathematics for programmers specifically. If you found yourself here you may be interested. https://jeremykun.com/2016/04/25/book-mailing-list
I'd be willing to spend a good 40 bucks on something like this (that may not seem like a lot but 40$ to a college student is a lot). Something that has a twinkle of a promise in teaching a programmer math is something I need in my life.
I just don't "get" what is being told to me when it's in the context of math-notation. As a result I do horrible in math classes in college. The only thing that was taught with a CS-Style notation was approximating using Newton's method. After I saw that it made sense, it was just a recursive method that zeroed in on that location.
Very little aside from that in my calc 1 class made sense. Probably limits, but that's it really. It didn't click as well.
I'd like to get to the point where I understand math concepts as well as I do most of the CS but I just think that's impossible at this point. It seems to be very "this is our garden, you stay in yours".
Re: Steven Strogatz on chaos theory, game theory, and why math isn’t boring
#20Mathematics is the study of objective truth in a universe that has certain rules. How could knowing the universe in all its glory be boring? Wish they taught this rather than calculation at school. It's very uninspiring to not realize this and do math. In fact, natural numbers are the basis for almost all of mathematics. And natural numbers are a manifestation of counting. Information theoretically, to count, one nee…
I first came across an alternative view in Godel, Escher, Bach, where Hofstadter was writing about Euclid's parallel postulate and the development of non-euclidean geometry. The latter could have been accepted sooner, he suggests, if people were not hung up on the idea that geometry was about physical space, rather than a derivation from axioms. Ironically, it turned out later that physical space is not euclidean.