The Math Myth
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The Math Myth
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Re: The Math Myth
#2Last week I needed an arctangent at work. Looked it up on Wikipedia and let Wolfram Alpha compute the result.
It was partly my fault because I was using Blender instead of a CAD system. Had to rotate something to align it to the base plane for 3D printing. But hey, I'm no engineer and it worked. And all for a door stopper with the company logo.
Re: The Math Myth
#3I think this reflects more our culture of compartmentalizing specific "math" and specific "science" topics and putting them on a pedestal.
Linear algebra, computational complexity, type theory, Newtonian physics, circuit design (it's weird being a computer scientist a room full of electrical engineers and being the only person who knows Ohm's law off the top of his head and what it means for the project we're dealing with right now) all of it has been a constant companion for the last 15 years of my career. The more I can get my hands on, the better.
I know my colleagues in the past [0] haven't employed knowledge to the same degree that I have, but they have also typically given up and come to me to solve even fairly trivial problems in trigonometry or object oriented design. They don't "need" math because they don't care if the only work they work on is solved problems with easy copypasta solutions on StackOverflow.
My take away from this is not that math isn't "necessary" for work. To me, it is necessary because I could not be happy living the kind of mediocre, under achieving lifestyle that it takes to willfully ignore math. My takeaway from this is that most people are just bad at their jobs. If you want to be any good (and being this site is focused on startups, I think that is a fair assumption), you necessarily have to avoid doing what most everyone else does.
[0] I'm finally out of those sorts of environments.
Re: The Math Myth
#4Last week I needed an arctangent at work. Looked it up on Wikipedia and let Wolfram Alpha compute the result. It was partly my fault because I was using Blender instead of a CAD system. Had to rotate something to align it to the base plane for 3D printing. But hey, I'm no engineer and it worked. And all for a door stopper with the company logo.
Perhaps you're not aware of your math literacy? You knew, remembered, and understood what an arctangent is. That makes you tremendously more math literate than the typical non-STEM educated Joe or Jane.
Re: The Math Myth
#5Last week I needed an arctangent at work. Looked it up on Wikipedia and let Wolfram Alpha compute the result. It was partly my fault because I was using Blender instead of a CAD system. Had to rotate something to align it to the base plane for 3D printing. But hey, I'm no engineer and it worked. And all for a door stopper with the company logo.
Perhaps you're not aware of your math literacy? You knew, remembered, and understood what an arctangent is. That makes you tremendously more math literate than the typical non-STEM educated Joe or Jane.
And, according to the article, more math literate than most STEM-educated people, too.
Re: The Math Myth
#6Good, now replace "Math" with "liberal arts." Secondary education for most fields is a waste.
Re: The Math Myth
#7Of course, the economy doesn't depend on masses having solid mathematical education (and knowledge), but the world would be a much, much better place if all kinds of “advanced” math was common knowledge and skill (and not just math). I am aware that that is currently a bit of a sci-fi scenario. Anyway, the author need not worry a thing — wishful thinking aside, as long as we live in a capitalist society, we're in no danger of large percentages of population being educated in any advanced subject. Or at all.
Re: The Math Myth
#8There is some truth to it - almost all tasks can be done without higher math skills in my job as consultant.
On the other hand I tend to believe - possibly misguided - that a lot of my thinking is influenced by having gone through the math education. I may seldom need exponential functions but I know what is linear and exponential by heart. Consultants, engineers, architects and managers work with long levers and knowing how things scale up and down and when they don't matter. Understanding linear systems, frequency domain and where nonlinearity starts mattering informs quite a number of my decisions.
Math as a filter for hiring is questionable as imho. most grades. The skills that matter every day are mostly not analytical skills. Universities as they are set up are not well geared towards filling that educational need.
Re: The Math Myth
#9I think this reflects more our culture of compartmentalizing specific "math" and specific "science" topics and putting them on a pedestal. Linear algebra, computational complexity, type theory, Newtonian physics, circuit design (it's weird being a computer scientist a room full of electrical engineers and being the only person who knows Ohm's law off the top of his head and what it means for the project we're dealing…
I made an account just to upvote this. I think it also leads to the possibility that even if the authors simplistic conjecture that ~10% of MIT graduates actually use math, potentially this number (10%) doesn't vary with tremendously with the number of people taught. I.e. If we teach 100 people math, 10 use it but if we teach 10,000, 1,000 will. I'm in a profession where using higher level math is highly, highly encouraged although avoidable. It is incredible to see CMU level grads not taking advantage of their education. I think this leads me to believe that the application of math is more of a personal choice (do you desire to be helpful and add vale) than skill-based.
Re: The Math Myth
#10Reading someone call for in-depth study in one sentence and saying they're already convinced of their own pet theory in the next because of anecdata (anecdatum?) has me puzzled - I can't decide if it's an indictment of the author or merely ironic evidence for his thesis.