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Math from Three to Seven

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Re: Math from Three to Seven

#31

Post by Onavo »

com2kid wrote: post #26

From the book being reviewed: > All joking aside, we fledgling mathematicians understood that the single most important thing was not raw intelligence or knowledge (Americans tend to lag behind in the latter compared to all international students). What mattered was passion. The way to become successful in mathematics, like almost every endeavor, is to care about it, to love it, to obsess over it. And in this, Easter…

> They had been trained, from an early age, to love mathematics more intensely.

Nonsense, sounds like post-hoc rationalization. Maybe talk to some actual Slavic people. Sure the Russians had "math clubs" and "chess clubs" but it wasn't as if the US didn't have RadioShack and garage/ham culture. Talk to some of the older generations that still remember the Berlin Wall and you might also understand why so many women from the ex USSR states are in STEM while it's the opposite in the West. TL;dr: STEM was a quick way to prosperity, the eastern bloc countries were poor, and engineers are useful even in a communist regime. They studied math because there wasn't much else they couldn't have done.

Re: Math from Three to Seven

#32

Post by komali2 »

myth_drannon wrote: post #22
lovegrenoble wrote: post #4

The USSR was indeed the most reading country in the world. Soviet citizens spent approx. 11 hours a week reading books, newspapers and journals on average, which was twice more as the British, North Americans and French people did. It was the findings of the world study of 1966.

Yes, people had a lot of time for hobbies. Reading, writing poems, electronics. Sometimes I watch old interviews of people on the streets and compare with the interviews they do on the streets now. It's night and day. Even people, like working class, drunk in a bar in the end of 80's collapse were more well spoken and intelligent then the people now. Either it's Putin, emigration or capitalism or whatever but there i…

I've noticed this aspect in general of revolutionary societies. What I'm personally quite selfishly interested in is whether this is unique to leftist revolutionary societies - were Germans or Italians in 1936 having spirited debates about fascism and how best to serve the Fatherland? I have no idea, from what I've read so far it sounds like no.

Meanwhile, for example in Spain in the same time period, there was a remarkably broad activation of the population in revolutionary activism and political engagement, which allegedly doubled productivity and dramatically increased agricultural yields, which to me indicates that the anarchists were basically everywhere (how else did they syndicalize such wide swaths of the economy?).

Similarly there's the whole French Revolution cafe / salon culture.

Re: Math from Three to Seven

#33

Post by cynicalsecurity »

com2kid wrote: post #26

From the book being reviewed: > All joking aside, we fledgling mathematicians understood that the single most important thing was not raw intelligence or knowledge (Americans tend to lag behind in the latter compared to all international students). What mattered was passion. The way to become successful in mathematics, like almost every endeavor, is to care about it, to love it, to obsess over it. And in this, Easter…

Survivorship bias. Eastern Europeans are actually very bad with math, no better than your regular American. But immigrants you see were very really motivated to leave the post-Soviet hell, so they had to show excellent results.

Math is taught horrifyingly badly in Eastern Europe. It presented as something extremely overcomplicated and most teachers, having a laughably low salary they barely survive on, don't care teaching it in a way kids would understand.

Re: Math from Three to Seven

#34

Post by redundantly »

com2kid wrote: post #26

From the book being reviewed: > All joking aside, we fledgling mathematicians understood that the single most important thing was not raw intelligence or knowledge (Americans tend to lag behind in the latter compared to all international students). What mattered was passion. The way to become successful in mathematics, like almost every endeavor, is to care about it, to love it, to obsess over it. And in this, Easter…

> I suspect we'll see a continuous slow decrease in all aspects of quality of software as those who have a genuine love and passion for the field are replaced by those in it just for the money.

This seems narrow minded. In the early days of software development, the barrier for entry was incredibly high. The possibility of people making high quality, unique software is greater than it ever has been.

It's also narrow minded to insist that only passion for engineering itself can produce high quality results. It's like claiming famously wealthy musicians can't and don't make remarkable, impactful music.

Re: Math from Three to Seven

#35

Post by avmich »

m_mueller wrote: post #27
avmich wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Soviet Union wasn't called a superpower for nothing. USSR had many world class achievements in scientific and applied areas, and some organizational achievements in social and manufacturing areas. There are examples and counterexamples, but the result is what we have, and while at some areas ex-Soviets were seen as backwards people in early 1990-s, in some others they really brought some positive advancements to the…

Case in point: The reason why the US heavily relied on Soviet rocket engines for their launches for ~15 years (before SpaceX dominance) was because they were simply more advanced and cost effective. Material science apparently was a step above - Soviet scientists were able to create an alloy for use in oxygen-rich engines which was unbelievable to Western counterparts till they visited and had it demonstrated.

This is one example, and there could be many - both where USSR had an edge and where it was behind. I believe here we want to have the overall picture - and that picture was that there actually were some novelties which were interesting on the West, even though in overall quality of life and some associated parameters USSR was notably losing. Or, saying it from another end, USSR wasn't advanced enough to avoid dissolution after - not necessarily caused by - the Cold war, even though it had some achievements unavailable on the West.

Re: Math from Three to Seven

#36

Post by cyberax »

cynicalsecurity wrote: post #33
com2kid wrote: post #26

From the book being reviewed: > All joking aside, we fledgling mathematicians understood that the single most important thing was not raw intelligence or knowledge (Americans tend to lag behind in the latter compared to all international students). What mattered was passion. The way to become successful in mathematics, like almost every endeavor, is to care about it, to love it, to obsess over it. And in this, Easter…

Survivorship bias. Eastern Europeans are actually very bad with math, no better than your regular American. But immigrants you see were very really motivated to leave the post-Soviet hell, so they had to show excellent results. Math is taught horrifyingly badly in Eastern Europe. It presented as something extremely overcomplicated and most teachers, having a laughably low salary they barely survive on, don't care tea…

> Survivorship bias. Eastern Europeans are actually very bad with math, no better than your regular American.

Most people everywhere are bad at math. However, Eastern Europeans and Asians have a larger percentage of people who end up good at math compared to the US. And it's not even close, if you look at math competitions. Immigrants and children of immigrants are over-represented among the US team members.

Re: Math from Three to Seven

#37

Post by cyberax »

com2kid wrote: post #26

From the book being reviewed: > All joking aside, we fledgling mathematicians understood that the single most important thing was not raw intelligence or knowledge (Americans tend to lag behind in the latter compared to all international students). What mattered was passion. The way to become successful in mathematics, like almost every endeavor, is to care about it, to love it, to obsess over it. And in this, Easter…

> IMHO this is what drove American superiority in software engineering for several decades. The people who self selected into software engineering really loved the field.

People in the Soviet Union had much less access to computers than in the US. And the first years after the fall of the USSR were quite lean for the vast majority of the population. Only by the late 90-s people in the xUSSR started getting enough money to buy computers en-masse.

Re: Math from Three to Seven

#38

Post by Illniyar »

Regarding Soviet prowess, I always considered the fact that going to higher education considerably shortened and made easier your military draft term to be a main factor.

Everyone who could went to university, because why wouldn't you? This incentive pressure and selection bias we're probably insane.

Re: Math from Three to Seven

#39

Post by chongli »

cyberax wrote: post #36
cynicalsecurity wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Survivorship bias. Eastern Europeans are actually very bad with math, no better than your regular American. But immigrants you see were very really motivated to leave the post-Soviet hell, so they had to show excellent results. Math is taught horrifyingly badly in Eastern Europe. It presented as something extremely overcomplicated and most teachers, having a laughably low salary they barely survive on, don't care tea…

> Survivorship bias. Eastern Europeans are actually very bad with math, no better than your regular American. Most people everywhere are bad at math. However, Eastern Europeans and Asians have a larger percentage of people who end up good at math compared to the US. And it's not even close, if you look at math competitions. Immigrants and children of immigrants are over-represented among the US team members.

Immigrants and children of immigrants are over-represented among the US team members.

Still survivorship bias. Immigrants from China and India are not selected randomly from the population, they're selected by their means and determination to emigrate. Furthermore, if you include the fact that the US caps the number of visas granted on a per-country-of-origin basis and the fact that China and India have the 2 largest populations in the world, the people who successfully obtain visas from these countries are the survivors of the most stringent selection process.

Re: Math from Three to Seven

#40

Post by munificent »

redundantly wrote: post #34
com2kid wrote: post #26

From the book being reviewed: > All joking aside, we fledgling mathematicians understood that the single most important thing was not raw intelligence or knowledge (Americans tend to lag behind in the latter compared to all international students). What mattered was passion. The way to become successful in mathematics, like almost every endeavor, is to care about it, to love it, to obsess over it. And in this, Easter…

> I suspect we'll see a continuous slow decrease in all aspects of quality of software as those who have a genuine love and passion for the field are replaced by those in it just for the money. This seems narrow minded. In the early days of software development, the barrier for entry was incredibly high. The possibility of people making high quality, unique software is greater than it ever has been. It's also narrow…

> It's also narrow minded to insist that only passion for engineering itself can produce high quality results. It's like claiming famously wealthy musicians can't and don't make remarkable, impactful music.

I think you're making a logical fallacy, or at least you seem to be implying that the set of "famously wealthy" people is disjoint with the set of people who are passionate.

Sure, famously wealthy musicians can make great music. So can poor ones. But I haven't seen a lot of lazy, uninspired musicians make great music.

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