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Math from Three to Seven

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Re: Math from Three to Seven

#41

Post by cyberax »

Onavo wrote: post #31
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 fr…

Hah. In the USSR an average engineer earned less money than an average worker.

I'm not joking.

But STEM was seen as far more prestigious than manual labor. This was very much a cultural thing, pushed by the government (engineers are useful!).

Another thing, there was a huge societal pressure to excel at school. It was common for parents to check their children's marks every day.

There's a very famous picture about it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low_Marks_Again - a kid knows that his parents are going to check his marks and berate him.

And this attitude was everywhere. For example, getting low marks and then overcoming them was a theme for a lot of iconic Soviet cartoons and stories ("The country of undone homework", "Vovka in a Faraway Kingdom", etc.). I have not seen anything similar in the US.

Re: Math from Three to Seven

#42

Post by munificent »

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.

> Eastern Europeans and Asians have a larger percentage of people who end up good at math compared to the US.

These are two different claims:

Eastern Europeans and Asians who are in the US have a larger percentage of people who end up good at math.*

Eastern Europeans and Asians who are in their respective countries have a larger percentage of people who end up good at math.*

If you are making the first claim, you're just restating the parent comment's survivorship bias claim. If you're making the second, then you are making a strong claim, but it would be interesting to see data behind it. (I don't have any insight one way or the other.)

Re: Math from Three to Seven

#43

Post by cyberax »

chongli wrote: post #39
cyberax wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

You can also look at Fields Medal winners. The majority of award ceremonies have at least one Slavic person: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fields_Medal

Re: Math from Three to Seven

#44

Post by [deleted] »

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.

[deleted]

Re: Math from Three to Seven

#45

Post by nine_k »

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…

> the barrier for entry was incredibly high

Hmm, for some values of "incredibly".

John Carmack, a juvenile delinquent, dropped out of university and went on career programming, soon upending the game industry.

Linus Torvalds released Linux while being a university student, five years before obtaining a master's degree.

Vitalik Buterin dropped out of university and created Etherium, funded by a grant from Thiel foundation. Whatever you may say about cryptocurrencies, Etherium is a nontrivial piece of software, showing remarkable longevity in the fast-moving field.

None of them had a ton of formal qualifications. None of them had to obtain a license. They could just sit at a computer, write great software, and release it to the world, changing the world quite much.

What they all have is a passion for (and resulting deep knowledge of) computers, mathematics, logic, plus independent thinking, and, well, not asking for permission.

This is what a low barrier to entry plus universal availability of powerful tools (computers, compliers, etc), and books leads to.

(High barriers bring very different results: look now many small aircraft still fly with engines designed in 1950s, burning leaded avgas. A worthy challenger still fails to step over the sky-high barrier.)

Re: Math from Three to Seven

#46

Post by otar »

> 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.

This is the most important point from the article. My theory is that if you are not obsessed with something, you won’t be good enough with it, wether it’s a math, coding, business or something else… Thats how most of us got started in tech from the early ages.

Re: Math from Three to Seven

#47

Post by nine_k »

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

That's exactly the bias. Immigrants are self-selected for higher risk tolerance, higher endurance, often wider or deeper knowledge, and readiness to think hard and work hard to achieve a better place in life.

Unsurprisingly, these same qualities help achieve results in studying and professional career.

Coming from a culture that respects abstracted knowledge (Chinese, Jewish, Russian, Indian, etc) helps additionally, but is by far not sufficient by itself.

Re: Math from Three to Seven

#48

Post by dyauspitr »

He almost lost me when he said the USSR was punching about its weight with a lower population which is untrue. The USSR had a significantly higher population than the US during the Cold War.

Re: Math from Three to Seven

#49

Post by richardw »

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…

Hasn’t that happened already? As someone who started coding a long time ago and who did it for fun, I’ve seen the industry move from enthusiasts to mainstream and finally to massive comp optimisers who spend more time on angling for a promotion than building.

I’ve fallen in and out of enjoyment of engineering many times. But I still come back because I love making something that adds value.

There will always be space for the builders who give a shit.

Re: Math from Three to Seven

#50

Post by redundantly »

munificent wrote: post #40
redundantly wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 ma…

I never said anything about laziness, so I’m not sure why you’re adding that qualifier. I take it you believe that without pure love or enjoyment in something, a person could only be lazy.

Inspiration doesn’t require passion for the art to come first, or even at all. Look at Gene Simmons. He co-founded one of the most successful, influential rock bands ever, driven by the goal of becoming rich and running a successful business, not by an unadulterated love for music.

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