Understanding mathematics

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This is an interesting viewpoint.

http://www.maa.org/devlin/LockhartsLament.pdf

Pretty darned frigged topic

My computer does not handle downloading PDF files well. Nasty things happen. If there was an HTML version, I would read it.

Absolutely brilliant article. Thanks for the link.

Almost makes me think my almost ten year old son shouldn't try school this coming year after all. We have just registered him at the local middle school after 4 years of homeschooling, because the laws on homeschooling got stricter this year ( now have to cover exactly the same material, all of it, as would if were in school ), and we were having trouble just fulfilling the previous requirements. ... We decided that he'd better try it, for a term at least, because neither he nor I are willing to up-sticks, leave his french papa, and move to somewhere like Morocco in order to avoid the horrors of school, until we know for sure how bad it is. (Because it's not just mathematics school does this to/with! ).
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I was critical at first, but now I realize the author of the article is right.

There is really a mythical perception of mathematics. For instance, in Sweden some have proposed to lower the requirements of getting into an engineering school has been lowered, claiming that courses which have some very complicated, but somewhat useless, mathematics should be optional. And why not? It has few practical implications.

Leave real math to real mathematicians, I say.

Thanks for finding this Sand. Its an awesome read.

Thanks! That article made my day!

Excellent paper, thanks for posting.

I don't think it's mathematics as such, I think it applies to education in general - at least as it was in my day. You were expected to sit in the classroom learning for years without doing, then after that are expected to go out in the workplace and do without learning. Yeah, you want to learn at the workplace but they want you to do what you already know.

What you really want is a mix so you can learn, then quickly apply the things you have learned to the level that you become proficient, then learn more and repeat the process forever.

For mathematics though I thought it went the other way. In school I liked it but when it got to university much of it got to be "theorem, proof, theorem, proof...". Particularly my 2nd year at university was like that. And they thought a consequence was an example.

I've forgotten large amounts of what I learnt in my Maths degree through failure to ever apply it.

A lot of the article reminds me of Sheldon Cooper

Heh...I was one of the first to be stuck with 'new Math'. The whole system was based on 'how many different ways can you solve this problem?' Drove me crazy. I wound up considering math as arbitrary and capricious, which that should be the opposite of what it is.

After looking over the way I actually solve problems, it's backwards. At least I don't seem to be as alone...