tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16612221.post9213454808077830814..comments2024-03-19T03:14:04.172-04:00Comments on Rabett Run: Thoreau's LemmaEliRabetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07957002964638398767noreply@blogger.comBlogger13125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16612221.post-64207781536913231822012-01-26T00:39:57.827-05:002012-01-26T00:39:57.827-05:00"The History of Numbers" points out that..."The History of Numbers" points out that place notation, with a zero, was (re?)invented in India and exported to Europe via the Arab traders. It certainly made keeping accounts and other calculations easier. While the abacus was (and probably still is) popular, the first mechanical calculator was AFAIK Pascal's; one can still purchase plastic versions.<br /><br />In college I used Marchant calculators (on which one had to be carful about dividing properly). Of course in the intervening 50+ years computers have taken over most of those roles as well as some of the more symbolic parts of applied (and even pure) mathematics.<br /><br />That's good. Have most students learn (higher) mathematics (and statistics, please) as these become necessary for their chosen subjevts. [I'm sufficiently old fashioned that I think all middle/high school students ought to larn Euclidean geometry and some of the associated proof methods; part of the culture.]<br /><br />On another blog thre was an article about Mersenne primes; most of the readership commented they didn't follow, didn't understand (and clearly didn't wnat to). This included a retired 2nd grade teacher who of cours taught 2nd grade arithmetic for her 37 years of service; oh well.David B. Bensonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02917182411282836875noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16612221.post-9429060469540817422012-01-26T00:35:32.823-05:002012-01-26T00:35:32.823-05:00I'm not going to worry about high tech machine...I'm not going to worry about high tech machines until they make one that can replace a broken ski edge or make a trashed Huffy rideable.Don Gisselbecknoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16612221.post-17284950071978110252012-01-25T22:47:04.331-05:002012-01-25T22:47:04.331-05:00Look on my works ye mighty and despair...<i>Look on my works ye mighty and <b>despair</b></i>...David B. Bensonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02917182411282836875noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16612221.post-18045266828027009512012-01-25T20:32:52.522-05:002012-01-25T20:32:52.522-05:00"I think what needs to happen is more "o..."I think what needs to happen is more "order of magnitude" classes"<br /><br />Couldn't agree more. Except the concept needs to be inculcated long before leaving high school. <br /><br />I'm really a very nice tutor, really I am. But I sometimes despair when dealing with year 10 or 11 students who really, truly cannot deal with decimals, percentages or powers. Simply because they've never learnt to recognise multiples of 10 or 100.<br /><br />MinniesMumAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16612221.post-73535931412675747382012-01-25T16:06:11.251-05:002012-01-25T16:06:11.251-05:00Mathymouse says,
Sometimes Eli's irony is har...Mathymouse says,<br /><br />Sometimes Eli's irony is hard to distinguish from his ... mangenesia? ... but surely he would admit that math is all about being sure that you're right.<br /><br />Let the engineers have their Matlabs and their Mathematicas. They need answers, not proofs. <br /><br />But the mathematicians really will never be comfortable with proofs that only a computer can verify (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer-assisted_proof#Philosophical_objections).<br /><br />(And yes, Mathymouse's students have to be able to compute in their heads, at least to one place)<br /><br />MMAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16612221.post-76938458605059228532012-01-25T15:16:49.546-05:002012-01-25T15:16:49.546-05:00> don't trust Excel
No shit. My beloved m...> don't trust Excel<br /><br />No shit. My beloved makes her living finding and fixing spreadsheet problems (and data flow and associated human density gradient problems).<br /><br />Academic research on spreadsheet (and proofreading) errors:<br /><br />http://panko.shidler.hawaii.edu/My%20Publications/Whatknow.htmHank Robertshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07521410755553979665noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16612221.post-31550576970257764662012-01-25T14:45:02.997-05:002012-01-25T14:45:02.997-05:00You left out Octave, which is even cheaper than Ma...You left out Octave, which is even cheaper than Matlab, i.e. free, although it may not be 100% compatible with Matlab.DeWitthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06921810076159914432noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16612221.post-23122800685665838782012-01-25T13:07:25.801-05:002012-01-25T13:07:25.801-05:00The biophysics students weren't people who had...The biophysics students weren't people who had learned derivatives but got rusty because Mathematica always does it for them. They were people who never learned what a derivative even means. There's a big difference.Thoreauhttp://www.highclearing.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16612221.post-3012728038523545802012-01-25T11:41:11.391-05:002012-01-25T11:41:11.391-05:00I think what needs to happen is more "order o...I think what needs to happen is more "order of magnitude" classes: I know that Caltech offered one that was very popular, though I didn't take it. Basically, you need to know enough to be able to tell when an answer is wrong, so you can double check what happened, even if you don't need to actually do all the math yourself. <br /><br />http://www.its.caltech.edu/~oom/<br /><br />-MMMAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16612221.post-38927928464021123032012-01-25T04:31:30.162-05:002012-01-25T04:31:30.162-05:00I still don't trust Excel, and have to check s...I still don't trust Excel, and have to check sample answers by hand.severnnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16612221.post-29221893563324217592012-01-25T04:18:58.691-05:002012-01-25T04:18:58.691-05:00Oh, and the fixed hyperlink.
-- frankOh, and <a href="http://bozeman.genome.washington.edu/compbio/mbt599_2006/hmm_scaling_revised.pdf" rel="nofollow">the fixed hyperlink</a>.<br /><br />-- frankfrank -- Decoding SwiftHackhttp://climategate.tk/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16612221.post-47578900773311908562012-01-25T04:17:42.365-05:002012-01-25T04:17:42.365-05:00...spit out an essay telling you what to think.
-......spit out an essay telling you what to think.<br /><br />-- frankfrank -- Decoding SwiftHackhttp://climategate.tk/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16612221.post-66457377967658383052012-01-25T04:15:57.494-05:002012-01-25T04:15:57.494-05:00The next logical step, of course, is for someone t...The next logical step, of course, is for someone to develop a program which will accept as input an essay by some pundit, and spit out an essay<br /><br />And while we're on the subject, in certain situations people actually write programs to <a href="bozeman.genome.washington.edu/compbio/mbt599_2006/hmm_scaling_revised.pdf" rel="nofollow">do multiplications in log space</a>. This makes a lot of sense when you expect *'s and /'s to be much more common than +'s and -'s, for example when dealing with long chains of conditional probabilities.<br /><br />-- frankfrank -- Decoding SwiftHackhttp://climategate.tk/noreply@blogger.com