Apr 10
…and got a number of truly terrible grades, while at the same time learning programming on my own and succeeding.
The motive to do that? Tearing apart and tweaking with computer games.
via MetaFilter: A Mathematician’s Lament
The .pdf in the giant link is long, but the story on its first page is worth a read in itself. I bet it rings profoundly true with more than just me.
I eventually did enjoy math. But as in the story, that came much later in college. The enjoyment definitely occurred despite all of my previous education — Not because of it.
Makaze said
April 10 2008 @ 4:53 pm
I agree with him up to a point. Basic math skills are so important that I believe everyone should learn them no matter what. His ideas of letting the individuals curiosity take them into the act of learning math only work up to a point. Some people simply will never have that spark and so you’ve got to grind it into their heads through whatever means necessary. Algebra and geometry are in my opinion actually used in the real world (or should be) so I’m a bit on the fence on those.
On the other hand he’s dead on about higher math. Calculus is an absolutely useless skill for 99.9% of the population. If someone enjoys it then great encourage them and let them learn and explore it to it’s fullest potential. We certainly need that 0.1% that both needs and likes it. But forcing it down the throat of every college bound kid with an extra large helping for anyone in any branch of science no matter how irrelevant to their field is pointless.
*Rant*Computers don’t do calculus. Neither do programmers. We do algebra with lots and lots of significant digits. Stop making CS students take calculus and give them a couple more classes in things that are in some way relevant to modern programming.*/Rant*
Don Neufeld said
April 10 2008 @ 7:34 pm
There was one thing I saw when I was a kid that I’ve never forgotten, a Disney movie called Donald in Mathmagic Lan. Every child should see this movie, it shows you a very alive kind of math and helped me a great deal.
You tube of the start of it: http://youtube.com/watch?v=CNFOvOJZoWw
Zygwen said
April 11 2008 @ 12:28 pm
Modern computer programing is only a small subset of the Computer Science field. I would think the problem is not that Calculus is taught to Computer Scientist but that programmers are taking degrees in Computer Science for the sole purpose of getting a job as a programmer.
Makaze said
April 11 2008 @ 2:01 pm
@Zygwen
I think it’s both. Back when I got my degree it was CS or nothing and I remember I and most of my classmates wanted to do at least some type of programming. At least I didn’t go to school to learn to program but rather to make me a better programmer, which happened. Fundamental concepts are invaluable.
But I don’t think anything but the most basic calculus much applies to more than a tiny subset of CS. Computers just don’t do calculus. Limits, curves, derivatives, heck even circles are all foreign concepts to a machine that really just has highly detailed approximations of them.
So if you don’t like the suggestion of replacing calculus in the average CS curriculum with straight programming (and I can understand that) then how about the wide multitude of actually relevant things that we could be teaching instead?
Dane said
April 11 2008 @ 4:19 pm
Although the linked paper is very math specific, I find it very interesting to start thinking in tangent and applying what he is saying to most of the things that you learn in school. I have been of the opinion for quite a while that one of the main problems with our school system is the lack of specifics and the abundance of repetition. I don’t think that a person should hate school for their entire lives until their Jr. year in College when they are actually able to learn the specifics of what they WANT to learn. How many english classes does it really take to prove that you can read. (Which seem to be failing even at that task.)
I think that if we were able to take more elective style classes where the teachers were impassioned about their subject and the love of telling others about that passion, we might actually be a smarter nation as a whole.
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Off subject of this post:
Scott,
Loving the posts friend. Many good thoughts and great things to think about.
Ogrebears said
April 11 2008 @ 4:36 pm
Ya for my BS in Computer Science that i’m getting next year i had to take Calculus 1, 2, 3. Discreet math, linear algebra and Stats. Out of those Linear algebra and some of the stat class i found a few application in program that i could use them… Triple Integrals… nope
Scott Hartsman said
April 11 2008 @ 5:00 pm
Exactly. I had to take all of those classes too.
By the time I’d graduated, I’d compared my classes with what a state-run non-engineering university described as a math minor, and all of my friends and I qualified for those as well.
That said, after all of that math - It finally did get interesting. When we were applying it to physics. Magnetics. Optics. Thermodynamics. And so on.
Finally. 13 years later. Applications for all of it that was interesting in the same way that exploring and hacking at computer games was interesting.
I don’t think that math is a particularly great field to let people do “touchy-feely free-range explorations of math-as-art,” but I damn sure think that getting to some the interesting parts could done a whole lot sooner.
And I don’t mean “story problems.” I mean things that make students react with the same kind of “Oh, cool! So THAT’S how that works,” that I was fortunate enough to make it to in college.