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

Everyone is capable of, and can benefit from, mathematical thinking

quantamagazine.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 419 posts

Re: Everyone is capable of, and can benefit from, mathematical thinking

#111

Post by sethammons »

magicalhippo wrote: post #25

I'm not a math teacher, but I do enjoy math, and I have helped several family members and friends with math courses. I've long thought that almost all have the capability to learn roughly high school level math, though it will take more effort for some than for others. And a key factor to keep up a sustained effort is motivation. A lot of people who end up hating math or think they're terrible at it just haven't had…

One size doesn't fit all is what I believe Common Core math is attempting. The part that it misses is that a student should probably be fine demonstrating one modality instead of having to demonstrate them all

Re: Everyone is capable of, and can benefit from, mathematical thinking

#112

Post by rnewme »

ChaitanyaSai wrote: post #93

"mathematics is a game of back-and-forth between intuition and logic" I teach/guide Math at our school (we run a small school and currently have kids under age 10) and this is so so true. I just wrote about this. In fact, you can even see this at play in the video of the kids talking https://blog.comini.in/p/what-happens-in-math-class

This was a very tiring blog post for me. And I have a quip about posts that open with questions but close without obvious definite answer, no matter how simple it is.

Re: Everyone is capable of, and can benefit from, mathematical thinking

#113

Post by mr_mitm »

benreesman wrote: post #2

I’m far from being any kind of serious mathematician, but I’ve learned more in the last couple years of taking that seriously as an ambition than in decades of relegating myself to inferiority on it. One of the highly generous mentors who dragged me kicking and screaming into the world of even making an attempt told me: “There are no bad math students. There are only bad math teachers who themselves had bad math teac…

Wouldn't it then follow that all students of the same teachers end up with the same skill level in math? Not sure that's the case.

Re: Everyone is capable of, and can benefit from, mathematical thinking

#114

Post by sureglymop »

I think for most people the issue is that they never even get to the fun stuff. I remember not really liking math right until university where we had set theory in the first semester, defined the number sets from scratch went on to monoids, groups, rings etc. That "starting from scratch" and defining everything was extremely satisfying!

Re: Everyone is capable of, and can benefit from, mathematical thinking

#115

Post by katzenversteher »

kristopolous wrote: post #56

there's thinking mathematically and then there's being able to fluently read math articles on wikipedia as if they're easier than ernest hemingway. I can do the former and the latter I will insist until my grave is impossible for me.

I have a lot of trouble reading math formulas, implemented as code I understand most stuff though. Is there a good math book or something similar that teaches things using code or helps translating formulas to code?

Re: Everyone is capable of, and can benefit from, mathematical thinking

#117

Post by yodsanklai »

sureglymop wrote: post #114

I think for most people the issue is that they never even get to the fun stuff. I remember not really liking math right until university where we had set theory in the first semester, defined the number sets from scratch went on to monoids, groups, rings etc. That "starting from scratch" and defining everything was extremely satisfying!

totally agree! in high school, lots of things were vaguely defined. I remember, I didn't fully understand what "f o g" was until I was given the definition of a monoid. Also limits and derivations, once you get the proper definition, you can pretty easily derive all the formulas and theorems you use in high school. Also in high school, we mostly did calculations and simple deductions, but at university we were proving everything. Nice change of perspective.

Re: Everyone is capable of, and can benefit from, mathematical thinking

#118

Post by katzenversteher »

namaria wrote: post #62
cen4 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Waste of time. Just talk in terms of what they want to hear. They are just interested in the payoffs (not in the details). As info explodes and specialists dive deeper into their niches, info asymmetry between ppl increases. There are thousands of specialists running in different directions at different speeds. Leaders can't keep up. Their job is to try to get all these "vectors" aligned toward common goals, prevent…

> Their job is to try to get all these "vectors" aligned toward common goals, prevent fragmentation and division. This is overthinking it. People with power tend to be interested in outcomes. They can't evaluate all the reasoning of all their reports. It comes down to building credibility with a track record and articulating outcomes, when you want to advise decision makers.

I believe charisma, confidence and looks also play a huge role.

Re: Everyone is capable of, and can benefit from, mathematical thinking

#119

Post by atribecalledqst »

kristopolous wrote: post #56

there's thinking mathematically and then there's being able to fluently read math articles on wikipedia as if they're easier than ernest hemingway. I can do the former and the latter I will insist until my grave is impossible for me.

I used to judge myself for not understanding everything in math articles on Wikipedia, but as time has gone on I've realized that their purpose isn't really to be an introduction, but a reference. Especially as the topics become more esoteric. So they're not really there for you to learn things from scratch, but for people who already understand them to look things up. Which is why you'll sometimes see random obscure & difficult factoids in articles about common mathematical concepts.

(don't have any examples on-hand atm, this is just my general perception after years of occasionally looking things up there)

Re: Everyone is capable of, and can benefit from, mathematical thinking

#120

Post by sethammons »

LoganDark wrote: post #105
sethammons wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At such cost with such narrow advantage, why has it persisted so pervasively? I would counter that the advantage is wider and the cost narrower than your current value system is allowing you to accept.

Natural selection doesn't care about cost or advantage, only reproduction.

It is the sum of costs and advantages that lead to reproductive success. The trait is still here and still prevalent meaning people are still getting laid and starting families and presumably leading fulfilling lives.

I'm not sure what you are trying to say.

Post reply on HN