Argh trig identity! That’s the word i was looking for. Couldn’t think of it.
A year or so playing poker and doing the required math for play and bankroll management would be a pretty solid practical curriculum for the math needed in life.
1 Like
Agreed that statistics needs to be taught sooner in schools. Looking back on high school, I’m still stunned that probability and statistics were never taught as part of the base curriculum — the only course you could take was a fifth-year course that was the equivalent of university prep.
Statistics is pretty much the only math that shows up in non-STEM programs in university. My wife needed to take it as part of her public admin MA program. People need a much firmer grounding in it, and it needs to start early.
1 Like
I think even if the formal learning isn’t retained, exposure to the correct mode of thinking persists and informs people’s heuristics. Poker got a lot harder when training sites became a thing. I have improved at blitz chess over the last year for much the same reason (I started watching a YouTube channel that analyses master games). Having the correct thinking and answers demonstrated repeatedly is great for improving heuristics and instinctive thinking.
The vast majority of pros don’t even follow good bankroll management though.
Everyone who is still alive.
1 Like
Throughout my three years of calculus I was just continuously thinking “someone came up with this shit on their own? In the 1600s? HOW!?!!”
2 Likes
“get by” is doing a lot of work there. We can strive for better.
My biggest/favorite mind-blowing moment when I was learning math was when I was shown this video by one of our teachers. Dude from ancient Egypt was able to accurately calculate the circumference of the Earth. Also Carl Sagan is still amazing to listen to.
4 Likes
I think this particular time period is bringing out the worst in all of us. Seriously this sucks a lot and I’ll be the first to admit that right now I’m not doing so good. My wife filled her first prozac prescription this morning. We’ve been doing a good job on eating better lately, but the last 2-3 days the wheels just came off the wagon…
Yeah it is what it is. Simp is probably doing a better job of dealing with all of this if he’s being a bit more abrasive than usual on this forum instead of what I’m doing.
9 Likes
Any solid that goes straight up in the air without getting fatter or thinner has a volume equal to the area of the base times the height. Obviously. For many years my intelligence ranking has perpetuated a great fraud upon the public. I am besides myself.
I heard that David Sklansky was so brilliant at math that he could’ve gotten a Field’s medal but simply didn’t consider it worth his time. Instead he focused his efforts on 538 riddles, SAT math competitions, and thought experiments in an online poker forum. He also came up with the Fundamental Theorem of Poker. A theorem which is so difficult to prove that he figured no one else could possibly understand the proof so he omitted it altogether.
9 Likes
That awkward moment when what you thought was contemporary architecture turns out to be the wreckage of extreme weather.
5 Likes
The next great opera house has been inspired.
https://twitter.com/aIeturner/status/1298372968838508546
I don’t get it, why is she being mocked for espousing a reasonably defensible philosophical view? “Math isn’t real” is just about literally what mathematical nominalists believe. You can read about mathematical nominalism here (and about mathematical fictionalism here). These views may not be ultimately right, but they’re not trivial to refute, and they’re certainly beyond the ignorant contemptuousness of the twitter hoi polloi.
This also brushes up against the topic of nonexistent objects, which is a very pleasant irony because there’s no firm historical evidence that Pythagoras ever existed, so calling him Pythagrias is just elite trolling by her.
Frankly, this is a pretty gross twitter dragging of a promising young mind, and it’s attributable to the cultural predominance of a kind of patriarchal and under-scrutinized Platonism that would have us worship invisible realities instead of coming to terms with the fact that humans are making shit up about 100% of the time. You can read more about this phenomenon here.
4 Likes
Yeah, my reaction was similar.
Math is beautiful. I pity people who can’t appreciate it. That’s like being blind.
3 Likes
I agree with what people are saying about some maths such as trig being unnecessary for most people, but to reduce education down to its utilitarian essentials misses this point about the beauty inherent in a lot of maths.
(You could equally argue that some other subjects kids are taught are superfluous and should be ditched in favour of things which will be of practical value, so goodbye Shakespeare, chemistry and biology too.
It doesn’t leave us with very much apart from a culturally barren generation.)
Best wishes to you both.
https://twitter.com/graciegcunning/status/1298804338727489536?s=19
I’m kinda anti- how she frames her “deep” math questions but she’s cute, so it’s basically a tie.
Here’s a good resource that addresses some of her questions, especially regarding methodology and proof in early mathematics. Descartes’ Mathematics (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
One of the early debates about calculus was over the addition of infinitesimals and other dodgy moves. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0315086089900190/pdf?md5=0d3fe59ae75cb99aa71c4b453cb3ce7a&pid=1-s2.0-0315086089900190-main.pdf (pdf)