Earlier quoted context omitted.
Heh, ditto. I don't think I got any new info that I didn't get in high school calculus, but it is a well done review of things I hadn't seen in a couple of decades
Another possibility is that mathematics education has gotten worse since you were in high school.
Calculus they won't teach you [video]
11–20 of 124 posts
Re: Calculus they won't teach you [video]
#12I.e. mathematical history. I think one power of calculus (and everything else) is that you don't need the history. The same way I don't need the history of the hammer to use a nail. What drives my interest is the examples. At the end, the book author talks about students not paying attention until the teacher starts talking about examples. To me, that suggests you should first contextualize and create a need for the…
As I'm sure you know, group theory arose as a novel yet natural way of investigating the conditions under which polynomials can have closed-form solutions, and when Galois began to sniff this out it allowed him to get to grips with the impossibility of a closed-form solution to the general quintic polynomial: a problem which had beguiled mathematicians for centuries, solved by a theory which crystallised a more structural way of approaching abstract mathematics. Even though Galois theory is a relatively niche topic within the broad context of academia, for me it draws out the true character of group theory in a way that matrix groups don't, and neither do contrived examples formed from the natural numbers under various quotients. And it clearly solves a problem that required a new way of thinking.
There's certainly a balance to be struck here. If you fixate on historical origins then you aren't engaging with the reasons why the topic is still relevant today, so you risk missing the point. It also slows down the pace at which you can absorb the tools needed for applications. But if you only engage with the modern approach you risk building a disconnected, lifeless archipelago of knowledge, unable to see the beautiful links that unify so much of mathematics.
Re: Calculus they won't teach you [video]
#13I.e. mathematical history. I think one power of calculus (and everything else) is that you don't need the history. The same way I don't need the history of the hammer to use a nail. What drives my interest is the examples. At the end, the book author talks about students not paying attention until the teacher starts talking about examples. To me, that suggests you should first contextualize and create a need for the…
Re: Calculus they won't teach you [video]
#14I.e. mathematical history. I think one power of calculus (and everything else) is that you don't need the history. The same way I don't need the history of the hammer to use a nail. What drives my interest is the examples. At the end, the book author talks about students not paying attention until the teacher starts talking about examples. To me, that suggests you should first contextualize and create a need for the…
I disagree. The biggest thing that can help you learn something complex is by introducing it as it was discovered, and making someone feel like they could have come up with it on their own.
Re: Calculus they won't teach you [video]
#15Earlier quoted context omitted.
The comparison between a hammer and math doesn't make sense, math is much more than a tool. Personally, I'm able to learn best when I understand the context and the "why" questions that people had which led them to the answer. I know other people learn differently so to each its own. Also, I agree with you in that the traditionally-taught history is awful because it lacks relevance. It's now about "how is this useful…
I think the dual role of means (tool) and end in itself is part of the reason mathematics is so difficult to motivate. There is this constant tension within the pedagogy between the desires to teach the beauty and the practicality of mathematics. From what I’ve seen, the beauty side tends to come from mathematics teachers and professors who have developed a passion for the subject and genuinely want to share that pas…
Re: Calculus they won't teach you [video]
#16Great video but there was no need for that clickbaity title.
Re: Calculus they won't teach you [video]
#17I.e. mathematical history. I think one power of calculus (and everything else) is that you don't need the history. The same way I don't need the history of the hammer to use a nail. What drives my interest is the examples. At the end, the book author talks about students not paying attention until the teacher starts talking about examples. To me, that suggests you should first contextualize and create a need for the…
Re: Calculus they won't teach you [video]
#18literally what they taught me
Re: Calculus they won't teach you [video]
#19I.e. mathematical history. I think one power of calculus (and everything else) is that you don't need the history. The same way I don't need the history of the hammer to use a nail. What drives my interest is the examples. At the end, the book author talks about students not paying attention until the teacher starts talking about examples. To me, that suggests you should first contextualize and create a need for the…
This has to be the world's worst analogy ever used.
Re: Calculus they won't teach you [video]
#20Earlier quoted context omitted.
I disagree. The biggest thing that can help you learn something complex is by introducing it as it was discovered, and making someone feel like they could have come up with it on their own.
Things were usually discovered in a confusing way that kind of made sense at the time, but had false starts and conceptual limitations driven by people still being in an older mindset when they were trying to discover it. A good teacher sands off those edges, leading to an oversimplified history, but not starting from the firm conceptual footing we only got later on still makes things overly difficult to grasp. Good…
To know this gives us some perspective on our own biases/limitations and not take things as gospel.