SamuelMulder

Thanks! I'm very interested in this approach and will take a look. Wish I could find something like it in English, as I don't speak Russian :)

Do you mind sharing more information? What school was this?

Your two points are really the same point. The reason that people don't understand what mathematicians do, is because we've been referring to calculation as mathematics our whole lives. If we did a better part separating the two out earlier, people would understand which part mathematicians work on.

Maybe not as simple as you think: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYemnKEKx0c

I just realized it might not be that easy to find my contact info. I added it to the website, but it is my username here, no caps, at gmail.com

The Lego Friends theme doesn't have firefighters because it is focused on social relationships, not overcoming conflict. It doesn't have to be a girl vs boy thing (although it is undoubtedly targeted toward girls to compete with other non--confrontational toys that have proved popular with girls), it is just part of the theme. Ninjago doesn't have firefighters either.

I think it is great that Lego has developed a theme that isn't focused on physical confrontation. I have three girls who play with Lego and they request a mix of sets. For Christmas, they requested sets from Friends, Lord of the Rings, and Ninjago. My four year old got a Chima set. They don't see it as a girl vs boy thing.

As a mathematician, how much time do you spend studying proofs written by other people?

I'm genuinely curious, because I think that if I wanted to be a novelist, I would spend a lot of time reading novels before trying to write one. I feel like we never have children read the great "literature" of mathematics, but then expect them to write their own proofs and are surprised when they hate it.

I'm still struggling with how to handle this. On the one hand, it makes a lot of sense for it to be public. On the other, I've given up a lot to spend time developing it (including going part time on my day job), and I would love to be able to devote more time to it, which would require making some money off of the material in some way.

I've been thinking about doing a kickstarter, but I'm interested in exploring other models. I don't have a ton of time, and I'm always torn between spending time trying to figure out how to publish/market/exploit the material versus spending the hundreds of hours reading history and math and trying to actually write the curriculum. So far I've just been punting on it till I get this first course done.

I think you're absolutely right that math has to be motivated. A lot of the effort to motivate it is to provide problems that students understand relate to the real world. Most of them come across as contrived.

You hit on a good concept with the idea of incorporating the history of math. I'm working on a Geometry curriculum that does just that. Understanding math in the context of a grand story of mankind trying to understand the world around us is a lot more interesting than as a set of received wisdom that must be memorized.

I would love to see more math material along these lines, but there isn't much out there, and it takes a long time to produce. I've been working on mine for around 6 months and am just up through looking at how the discovery of incommensurable lengths influenced Plato's philosophy. The idea is to work through the history and philosophy in parallel with Euclid's Elements, relating points back and forth where possible.

I've tried teaching a history of math class to local homeschool kids along those lines, focusing on Egyptian - Greek history, with some success. It takes a lot of research and work though.

ESR is being extremely condescending and patronizing. I don't consider that friendly or helpful. He's giving tons of hand-wavy pop psychology in response to a technical issue on which he's out of his depth. His "experience" was not with anything the size and complexity of the Linux kernel and was not particularly relevant. He does like to set himself up as the wise old mentor to people who don't really want or need to listen.

Linus wisely declined to respond to this extremely condescending comment by someone who was out of their depth and didn't clearly understand the issue at hand.

Probably depends on whether you are in Minnesota, trying to get warmth, or in Phoenix trying to stay in the shade...

He didn't ask whether it was an honorable, noble thing to do, he asked whether they were "obligated" to do it. Once you are obligated to do something, it is no longer honorable or noble just to do it. Your uncle stood out because he went beyond what he was coerced to do.

I agree completely. I'm working on a curriculum just like this :)

Abstract algebra, number theory, geometry, logic, topology, graph theory - off the top of my head.

Agreed, but I'm not sure the solution is upping the statistical standards so much as educating researchers about what the statistical standards actually mean, how to use them, and how to construct a valid, repeatable experiment.

The number of us who look at the school system today and see it as barbaric and ineffective is growing rapidly...

There is something to this, but I think it is very easy to discount the amount of work that others put in. Also, these things are cumulative, so someone who has put in more work earlier in their schooling will have an easier time learning the new material than someone who has coasted by.

I've thought a lot about this and haven't found many good resources. I finally gave up and started reading history of math books. Unfortunately, most of them are aimed at grad students in history or grad students in math.

It has frustrated me enough that I've started developing my own versions. I taught a history of ancient mathematics class to homeschoolers locally and now I'm writing a book that works through Euclid while placing everything in historical context and focusing on the story of its development.

You are good at math and bad at calculation. There are branches of math where calculation is not so important... also, use a computer for the calculations :)

Good for you!

"The difference between good at math and bad at math is hard work. It’s trying. It’s trying hard. It’s trying harder than you’ve ever tried before. That’s it."

I love this quote. I think that nails it. When you see someone run a marathon, you don't think they are just naturally good at exercise, you recognize that they've put in a lot of hard work.

I think the value of hard work is under appreciated. Thanks for writing this.

By this criteria, there is very little science going on anywhere. We don't teach philosophy of science enough anymore. In most of the fields that I'm familiar with, reproducibility is very hard and rarely bothered about by either the original researcher or others in the field.

It would be interesting to look into this. My experience has been that multi-disciplinary researchers are more likely to be familiar with a broader range of research and familiar with statistical techniques across their different disciplines. Someone with a narrower perspective is more likely to get into bad habits related to their field.

I think your comment about them being less likely to be able to handle depth from a personality/self-habits point of view is really projecting and probably based on experiences with a few bad apples. My experience doesn't reflect that at all.

I feel like a lot of the problems with statistics come from overly insular journals and conferences where everyone does it wrong and nobody realizes that because they're all doing the same thing. I've seen this in some computer science fields.

I haven't seen any reason to believe that being multidisciplinary makes this more likely. The whole problem is caused by the fact that most of the single-disciplinary researchers are using bad statistics.

Very few degree programs give scientists enough background in statistics and experimental rigor to prevent these problems.

True, the millions of children killed by chemistry sets don't live to tell...

I don't understand the liability issue. He isn't selling it as a toy, it is a science kit. Anyone can walk into any store and buy stuff that is dangerous if ingested or misused... cleaning supplies, cooking knives, etc.

Parents should be responsible for teaching their children how to work with dangerous things that we encounter every day in a safe way. The chemistry set should be used to teach science. I don't see the issue, but I guess I'm not surprised in our litigation happy society.

I hope so too, but I hope that for those not buying the set as well. Seriously, parents should be looking for opportunities to teach responsibility and work with real "stuff".

This is not exactly as dangerous as a loaded gun. More like a kitchen knife, which is dangerous but parents should be teaching their older children how to use safely.

I wish I lived near enough to visit. Very inspiring story.

Well, every major shop sells knives which will mess you up and you shouldn't let kids play with unattended without some training.

I don't see why the chemicals are such a big deal. Should be an opportunity to teach responsibility.

Main comments in the original video about taste were that it was pretty nasty. Also smells bad.