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Why are Soviet math textbooks so hardcore in comparison to US textbooks? (2017)

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Re: Why are Soviet math textbooks so hardcore in comparison to US textbooks? (2017)

#551

Post by madhadron »

playing_colours wrote: post #341
madhadron wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having worked from translations and occasionally originals of some of the Russian texts, they're actually utterly marvelous.

Can you please share some books you enjoyed?

The ones I spent most time with were volumes titled (translated) "Selected problems in higher mathematics." I worked out of a German translation for one volume while I learned a smattering of Russian and then the Russian for a second one. This was to fill in assumed background in things like integration that was assumed by Landau & Lifshitz.

It's been long enough where I have no idea of the author.

Re: Why are Soviet math textbooks so hardcore in comparison to US textbooks? (2017)

#552

Post by rramadass »

bluGill wrote: post #494
b0rsuk wrote: post #404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US has American Football, jocks, and cheerleaders. This is something notably absent elsewhere. When you watch a hollywood high school move, this strange obsession jumps at you. In Poland the word "nerd" is difficult to translate. It has no direct equivalent.

Don't mix up movies and reality. They are often based in reality, but movies exist for entertainment and that often means exaggeration of the truth for effect.

But there is an insidious mental effect on students growing up in such an environment unable to discriminate between the two. They learn not to value "knowledge" and "learning".

Re: Why are Soviet math textbooks so hardcore in comparison to US textbooks? (2017)

#553

Post by jeffreyrogers »

elteto wrote: post #539
wenc wrote: post #54

The linked article points to the fact that because the Soviets were resource-constrained, theory was more accessible than equipment which drove the education system to favor theoretical training. I wonder if there's a trade-off to this. On one hand you produce some really elite theoretical minds (Pontryagin, Lyapunov, Kolmogorov, etc.). But the counterfactual is that it excludes those with high IQ but are more practi…

> The linked article points to the fact that because the Soviets were resource-constrained, theory was more accessible than equipment which drove the education system to favor theoretical training. Yes, indeed. Most people don't realize that the soviets were awful at product engineering. Their consumer-oriented products (TVs, radios, cars) were pretty terrible when compared to their western counterparts. My pet theor…

But they were pretty good at engineering things like jets, helicopters, missiles, etc. I think the consume products were bad because they lacked market feedback and had trouble with supply chains, while the military products were good, arguably better than US equivalents in some cases, because of the more top-down, spec-driven nature of that work.

Re: Why are Soviet math textbooks so hardcore in comparison to US textbooks? (2017)

#554

Post by seneca »

missosoup wrote: post #268
lsh123 wrote: post #80

Disclaimer: I graduated from one of the top math high schools in Moscow in early 90s, I have MS in Math from Moscow State University, and a half finished PhD from the same place. I think on average the difference between a high school student from Russia and US is negligible. Either country doesn’t really require much to finish school and many kids just do the tests without understanding what is going on. What separa…

> I think on average the difference between a high school student from Russia and US is negligible I went to high school in Russia and then moved to Australia. The difference was immense. It felt like i just dropped 2 year levels. Even the accelerated programs were hopelessly behind the regular curriculum for my age group in Russia. AU/US high school students can't possibly compete against RU or CN high school studen…

You are confusing American media with American culture. In American movies of the past the smart "nerds" were bullied. In reality, at least in my experience as someone who was bullied a decent bit, this is actually conflating two separate, but overlapping, groups. This isn't surprising since most foreigners understanding of our culture comes from our media.

In my experience (left high school in the early 2000s), the kids who were bullied were the kids regarded as "weird", smart kids were mostly left alone or blended into popular groups. The "weird" kids were mostly kids with obvious issue. Social maladjustment, visible poverty, autism spectrum disorders, or just being unkempt. There is some overlap here with smart kids, largely due to autism.

The reason this narrative exists is that a lot of the children with issues told themselves they were bullied because they were smarter than everyone else, even though that wasn't the reality. I don't know if this was them internalizing the hollywood stereotype, or hollywood playing to an existing narrative. It's perhaps more tragic that kids who were already at a disadvantage were the ones who were bullied, but it makes more sense and is the actual reality as I experienced it.

Re: Why are Soviet math textbooks so hardcore in comparison to US textbooks? (2017)

#555

Post by missosoup »

sacks2k wrote: post #534
missosoup wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think on average the difference between a high school student from Russia and US is negligible I went to high school in Russia and then moved to Australia. The difference was immense. It felt like i just dropped 2 year levels. Even the accelerated programs were hopelessly behind the regular curriculum for my age group in Russia. AU/US high school students can't possibly compete against RU or CN high school studen…

"hence domestically popular tv shows like Big Bang Theory which have 0 audience in countries that value intellect" It's shown in 180 countries worldwide and very popular internationally (Including Russia): https://bigbangtheory.fandom.com/wiki/International_broadcas... While I don't necessarily love the show, I've known many PHD students from China, Taiwan, and Korea that absolutely love the show. Hardly from countri…

> It's shown in 180 countries worldwide and very popular internationally (Including Russia)

If you pick 10 random people in Russia and ask them about this show, all 10 will either not have heard of it or react with disdain. I have no idea where you get the notion that it's popular in Russia.

> It's easy to say we aren't popular because we are smarter than everyone else

I was popular in Russia. Then I had difficulty fitting in at the Australian school until I learned to act like an idiot and not reveal my 'nerdy' (a word that doesn't even have an equivalent in Russian) hobbies and interests outside of select circles. The same hobbies and interests that were perfectly average in Russia - electronics, astronomy, chess, that kind of thing. After that I fit in again. It's pretty hard to interpret this as some sort of social issues like you claim. I think you lack perspective on this. This is also the same culture that teaches teenage girls to act dumb in order to appear more attractive, which is pretty well studied at this point and will hopefully die now that it's in the public eye.

> It's sad to me that there are children out there that can't actually be kids for awhile

As one of the kids who would match your label, I think it's sad that children here are artificially held back from their natural maturation in order for the parents to selfishly extend the baby phase for their own enjoyment. Nor does this coddling have anything to do with stability. Plenty of stable countries across Europe where kids are allowed to grow at their natural pace, including several first-hand accounts in the comments section here. This is also why you'll find significantly lower age limits for things like consumption of alcohol, drugs, sexual activity in those same countries.

Coming back to the OP topic, soviet textbooks are 'hardcore' because the pupils are 2-4 years more mentally mature than their western counterparts due to cultural and education system differences. It's as simple as that.

Re: Why are Soviet math textbooks so hardcore in comparison to US textbooks? (2017)

#556

Post by b0rsuk »

krcz wrote: post #416
b0rsuk wrote: post #404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US has American Football, jocks, and cheerleaders. This is something notably absent elsewhere. When you watch a hollywood high school move, this strange obsession jumps at you. In Poland the word "nerd" is difficult to translate. It has no direct equivalent.

While there is no direct equivalent, kujon seem to be pretty similar. (For non-Polish people, kujon is a derogative term for someone having good grades, coming with a stereotype that such person spends all their time learning, not doing any fun stuff)

kujon is probably the closest, but it means a person who gets good grades because he works on them very hard, especially by rote memorization and repeating. His method to learn anything is brute force. You never call someone who asks great questions a 'kujon'.

Nerd is different in that it's more about interests. If you're interested in any kind of science, biology, history, literature you're a nerd. Anime nerd is also a valid combination but it wouldn't work for 'kujon' because there's no repetition.

In Russia it used to be pretty common to see chess players in a park or train. Books readers were also more common in public spaces than in Poland. Russia has many problems for sure, but it has certain respect for intellectuals, composers etc.

Re: Why are Soviet math textbooks so hardcore in comparison to US textbooks? (2017)

#557

Post by CalChris »

azernik wrote: post #387
Dahoon wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is just an excuse. You could easily take an "intro to programming" before trying to get into the school. All it does is lower the bar of entry and you can only teach so much in the time given so it will ultimately take time away in the other end.

UC Berkeley (where I did my CS degree) follows this model after admission. There's CS61A, an introductory class for people with some math/computers background, and CS3, an introduction for people coming in with no background. Successful and interested CS3 students are then funnelled into CS61A.

Yes but minus the math; what math there was in 61A was easy. 61A didn't really expect much prerequisite either, but then it took off quickly. A lot of work but not intellectually very hard. It was then taught in Scheme which no one knew. Scheme is an elegant language which we never used again. SICP was the course text which no one ever read.

What I really remember was EE40 taking like a week to explain Ohm's Law. I thought, Ok, I think I've got this class. But then it just went exponential and then the prof just dumped a bunch of chapters on us at the end that he didn't cover and said that'll be on the final. EE40 covered about a third of 105. EE40 just had an insane amount of material and labs. FWIW, I think 16A+B covers better material than EE40 did although I have a soft spot in my heart for what was EE20.

BTW, Calculus 1A at Berkeley, if you didn't take AP Calculus in high school, was brutal. Pointlessly so, since most math in non-math courses was pretty straightforward.

But all the freshman courses at Berkeley were hard. You either got up to speed or you got out. Upper division was even harder, but you were prepared by then.

Re: Why are Soviet math textbooks so hardcore in comparison to US textbooks? (2017)

#558

Post by rramadass »

mwcampbell wrote: post #450
missosoup wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think on average the difference between a high school student from Russia and US is negligible I went to high school in Russia and then moved to Australia. The difference was immense. It felt like i just dropped 2 year levels. Even the accelerated programs were hopelessly behind the regular curriculum for my age group in Russia. AU/US high school students can't possibly compete against RU or CN high school studen…

On the anti-intellectualism and bullying of nerds, how do we fix this? (I'm American.) I'm not a parent myself, but my brothers and sister are. Should I suggest to them that they home-school their kids to shield them from this toxic culture?

By going back to the roots of your "Sputnik Moment"(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhJnt3xW2Fc), rediscovering those lessons and actively pushing it everywhere again.

Re: Why are Soviet math textbooks so hardcore in comparison to US textbooks? (2017)

#559

Post by c-smile »

lower wrote: post #411
c-smile wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, and actually Soviet/Russian education system has it roots in classic German one where Spießrutenlaufen ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Running_the_gauntlet ) was a great educational tool (see also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birching#/media/File:Koerperst... ).

Spießrutenlaufen was used by the military and was a severe, often fatal punishment. It was certainly not a great educational tool.

Ha!

With my University diploma I've also got a rank of Lieutenant-reserve of РВСН (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_Missile_Forces) so the procedure is metaphorically close :D

Re: Why are Soviet math textbooks so hardcore in comparison to US textbooks? (2017)

#560

Post by mrscottson »

Avamander wrote: post #429
salty_biscuits wrote: post #375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's wrong with a low bar to tertiary education? It lets disadvantaged kids get in and catch up. As long as the standards are high by the end everything is fine right?

In my experience, it's like being sabotaged. If one has a previous interest in the subject but is forced to complete all the same courses it gets very very tedious. Akin to being forced to fill middle school worksheets - you can do it, but it takes time and is just mind-numbing.

I think US universities are forced to cover things again due to a failure in the K-12 system of schooling that precedes it, and the lack of adequate testing to weed out ill prepared individuals.

In many countries, these kids would probably not get into college in the first place due to failing preparatory tests. In the US there are many financial incentives to pull in as many kids as possible and that may cause a lowering of barriers.

An observation in the maths, many countries in Asia cover calculus at the middle school level and continue into high school, in the US I noticed many public schools categorize calculus as an advanced (sometimes elective) high school subject.

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