IME (as a math-degree-haver) the value of mathematics is in improving one's ability to mentally model and reason about complicated real-world phenomena . A lot of folks lose sight of the reality and get lost in the mysticism, especially within the academic regime. > [Mathematics] is the purest and most beautiful of all the intellectual disciplines. It is the universal language, both of human beings and of the univers…
So you want to study mathematics
141–150 of 371 posts
Re: So you want to study mathematics
#142Earlier quoted context omitted.
My strong opinion as someone who majored in math is that, at least within the US, the standard calculus requirement should be replaced with statistics. So much more useful and so much more important as an adult. The analytical type of thinking that proof-writing is certainly useful, but you can make much the same argument of many other curricula, and besides, it's not like most intro calc courses even do any proofs.…
FWIW (and I know you're not making this claim) I don't believe Math 55 is a good example of how mathematics should be taught at large, nor do I think calling it an intro class accurately conveys what it is. It's effectively the compression of an entire undergraduate degree into a single freshman course. I say "effectively" because the material covered depends heavily on who's teaching it, but certainly anyone coming…
Not at all, you are only prohibited from taking "freshman courses"[1]—that's what 55 is supposed to cover (definitely not all of the undergrad math curriculum), though some professors go beyond that. Many students go on to take at least some undergrad courses, with those in the 140's range being mathematical logic gems with no real counterpart in the graduate department.
[1]Students from Math 55 will have covered in 55 the material of Math 122 and Math 113. If you have taken 55, you should look first at Math 114, Math 123 and the Math 131-132 sequence. https://legacy-www.math.harvard.edu/pamphlets/courses.html
Re: So you want to study mathematics
#143Are there any "math for people who just want to use it" tracks in math pedagogy? I don't care a bit about proving any of it's true, or even reading others proofs of same. "Recognize which tool to apply, then apply tool", all focused on real-world use (so, yes, it wouldn't be "real" mathematics). That's the math education I'd like—try as I might, I just can't make myself care even a little about math for math's sake.…
Re: So you want to study mathematics
#144Are there any "math for people who just want to use it" tracks in math pedagogy? I don't care a bit about proving any of it's true, or even reading others proofs of same. "Recognize which tool to apply, then apply tool", all focused on real-world use (so, yes, it wouldn't be "real" mathematics). That's the math education I'd like—try as I might, I just can't make myself care even a little about math for math's sake.…
I'm a little snarky, but you have a broken idea of what math is. It's not even your fault. I don't even claim an unbroken idea for myself, I went through public education too, though I do think it's less broken. Somehow compulsory education has managed to get near universal basic literacy, but seems to have failed on whatever equivalent some sibling comments have hinted at exists for math or at least mathematical reasoning. A lot of algebra work taught for junior high can be understood as just a foundation to be able to understand later things (though you can of course use some of it directly as taught without having to learn more for every-day things like some boy scouting activities, or helping with putting together a garden or a fence, or programming -- and some of course is entirely useless). But instead of pushing algebra even earlier, states are instead moving to push it even later. (Let alone trying to spread awareness of even a hint of the subtle divide between more general algebra and analysis that a lot of STEM undergrads don't even really get a whiff of except maybe knowing it's often said to be a thing.)
To try and be more helpful, I'll suggest you don't actually want to learn math at all. So don't! At least, not directly. Instead, find something you want to learn more about in science, engineering, or technology/programming, and dig into it until you start hitting the math being used. For many things, especially at the introductory level, it's fundamentally no more complicated than being able to read a junior-high-school level equation. Occasionally you'll need to know about some functions like square root, or sine, or exponentiation, or some other new functions that will be explained (like a dot product) in terms of those things. When you don't understand something, you may need to find an outside reference (or a few) for it, if the book itself doesn't cover it enough or to your liking. Even then, you can often find outside presentations of that thing which are still motivated by the general field and are thus not proof-heavy.
However sometimes the best explanation may still be found in a "pure" book just about the thing, and if you can get over whatever problem you have with proofs you can learn to see how they can be used to build your understanding of the thing in smaller pieces, not just as tools to say whether this or that is true or false. In other words, proofs can serve the same function as repetitive problem-solving exercises, and are often given as exercises for that reason.
I'm a fan of the Schaum's Outlines series of books just for the sheer amount of exercises available in them, I just wish I had better self-discipline to actually do more exercises. Though they maybe aren't the best resources for a brand-new introduction to something.
To give a small example, maybe you're interested in game programming, and eventually want to dive into studying 2D collision detection more specifically so you can implement it yourself instead of using someone else's library, so you might stumble on a copy of "2D Game Collision Detection: An introduction to clashing geometry in games". Its explanation of the dot product comes early (its whole first chapter is on basic 2D vectors), consisting of 2 diagrams and two code examples (the first mostly defining dot_product(), the second using it as part of a new enclosed_angle() function) and some text all over 2.5 pages. It gives things in programming notation instead of mathematical notation, apart from some ² squared symbols occasionally. It gives a few equivalences like a vector's dot product with itself is its length squared, shown as dot_product(v, v) = v.x² + v.y² = length², without proving them, and points you to wikipedia of all places if you want to know more about how that or another detail are true. Why learn it? It's used immediately after in explaining projection, and then later in collision detection functions. Generally that book is structured as: learn the bare minimum of vectors, use them to implement collision detection for lines, circles, and rectangles.
I'm not saying this is a great book but it's representative of what you'll find that I think you're really after, which is motivated use of some bits of math. If you don't like that book's treatment of vectors, there are a billion other game programming books that cover the same thing as a sub-detail of their main topic, and maybe even better for you because it'd be grounded in e.g. a graphical application you've already got setup and running to see results rather than a standalone library. Or there's special dedicated math books like "Essential Mathematics for Games and Interactive Applications". Or you can go find dedicated "pure math" books on linear algebra if you want. Or maybe your junior high / high school math education was good enough you can more or less skip most of this and move on to something more interesting, like physically based rendering (https://www.pbr-book.org/) which also of course has vectors and dot products with brief explanations. Or maybe you don't care at all about game programming, and want to learn about chemical engineering, or economics, or the mechanics of strength and why things don't fall down, or...
Re: So you want to study mathematics
#145See Brett Victor’s 2011 proposal: http://worrydream.com/KillMath/
Re: So you want to study mathematics
#146Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not sure I agree with that - you also have to take into account that calculus is a requirement for many other sciences. I suppose you could just of course make it a pre-req for things like that but I found that in highschool rarely did they go that deep. Physics becomes a hell of a lot easier with basic calculus for example. If anything should be dropped from a highschool level its all of the insane memorization you…
> If anything should be dropped from a highschool level its all of the insane memorization you have to do for some of the lower level math classes - I found that totally useless. You then learn some basic calculus and realize "I just wasted so much of my life" and never need to memorize those things again. What sort of memorizations do you have in mind that you no longer need to memorize once you know calculus?
Re: So you want to study mathematics
#147Are there any "math for people who just want to use it" tracks in math pedagogy? I don't care a bit about proving any of it's true, or even reading others proofs of same. "Recognize which tool to apply, then apply tool", all focused on real-world use (so, yes, it wouldn't be "real" mathematics). That's the math education I'd like—try as I might, I just can't make myself care even a little about math for math's sake.…
You have generations of teachers who barely know math and view it as a punishment, teaching kids and instilling the same views in them.
And then you have outsider still saying "can't we have condense it and simplify it further so we won't have to learn all these useless abstractions" and the curriculum bends further this way. But these actual situation of math is that not understanding what's happening is the thing makes it an empty and unpleasant activity.
Edit: Also, yeah, 90%-99% of math can be accomplished with some math software. It's just for the remaining small percentage of stuff you need some understanding and for a small percentage of that you need lots of understanding. So most of this seems useless but 99% correct is actually not enough in some significant number of technical situations, etc.
Re: So you want to study mathematics
#148Are there any "math for people who just want to use it" tracks in math pedagogy? I don't care a bit about proving any of it's true, or even reading others proofs of same. "Recognize which tool to apply, then apply tool", all focused on real-world use (so, yes, it wouldn't be "real" mathematics). That's the math education I'd like—try as I might, I just can't make myself care even a little about math for math's sake.…
My strong opinion as someone who majored in math is that, at least within the US, the standard calculus requirement should be replaced with statistics. So much more useful and so much more important as an adult. The analytical type of thinking that proof-writing is certainly useful, but you can make much the same argument of many other curricula, and besides, it's not like most intro calc courses even do any proofs.…
Re: So you want to study mathematics
#149Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree that this does not on its surface seem possible, but I can think of a few explanations. 1. I recently spent a week on one section of one chapter of a math book. I was able to follow it within an hour on the level of "these are the rules and this is the sequence of their application," but I have stuck with it since then because I wanted to understand it well enough that the proof they chose to use would seem o…
> Intelligence is equally distributed between genders, but most professional physicists are men, Why limit yourself to gender? Why not white vs other skin color? Why not the US vs another country? Why not democrat vs republicans? Why not western culture vs whatever other culture? Seriously, this kind of categorization is just ridiculous, especially when you speculate instead of showing evidence. No, I won't be surpri…
>The researchers say that as last author is usually associated with seniority, based on this data, their model predicts that it will be 258 years before the gender ratio of senior physicists comes within 5% of parity.
https://physicsworld.com/a/gender-gap-in-physics-amongst-hig...
Re: So you want to study mathematics
#150Earlier quoted context omitted.
My strong opinion as someone who majored in math is that, at least within the US, the standard calculus requirement should be replaced with statistics. So much more useful and so much more important as an adult. The analytical type of thinking that proof-writing is certainly useful, but you can make much the same argument of many other curricula, and besides, it's not like most intro calc courses even do any proofs.…
Not sure I agree with that - you also have to take into account that calculus is a requirement for many other sciences. I suppose you could just of course make it a pre-req for things like that but I found that in highschool rarely did they go that deep. Physics becomes a hell of a lot easier with basic calculus for example. If anything should be dropped from a highschool level its all of the insane memorization you…