On Fri, Aug 5, 2011 at 4:20 AM, Chris Warburton <chriswa...@googlemail.com> wrote: > On Friday 05 August 2011 11:43:04 BGB wrote: >> On 8/4/2011 6:19 PM, Alan Kay wrote: >> > Here's the link to the paper >> > >> > http://www.vpri.org/pdf/rn2005001_learning.pdf >> >> inference: >> it is not that basic math and physics are fundamentally so difficult to >> understand... >> but that many classes portray them as such a confusing and incoherent >> mess of notation and gobbledygook that no one can really make sense of >> it... > > It's often been said that to explain a concept simply, one has to understand > it intimately. My favourite example of this, also from Physics, is the various > ways that elastic bands can be described: > > * Approaching an elastic band from a Newtonian point of view, you will find > that the force you apply when stretching it, integrated over the length you > stretch it over, gives the elastic potential energy of the band. When it's > released, the derivative of this energy over the length the band contracts > makes the band accelerate. > * Approaching an elastic band from a Thermodynamics point of view, you will > find that the "work" you're putting into the band when you stretch it is > decreasing its entropy, and thus increasing its heat (but increasing your own > entropy). When it is released, this heat drains into the band's pool of > entropy. > * Approaching an elastic band from a Statistical Mechanics point of view, you > will find that the multiplicity (and therefore probability) of a stretched > band is far lower than a relaxed one, and thus to stretch it you will need to > modify the system's contraints such that the stretched probability dominates. > Likewise, to contract it, such contraints must be removed. > > There are even more ways of describing an elastic band, all of which are > valid. However, if you want to 'get' how an elastic band works, in an > uncomplicated way, just ask Feynman ;) > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRxAn2DRzgI > > Only when one truly understands something, are they confident enough to throw > away enough of the pompous and historical cruft to make it simple. Those who > don't truly understand something end up thinking that the cruft is part of > what's important. > > The problem is, there are nowhere near enough Feynmans in the world compared > to the number of teachers and educators we need :(
I feel that's our (humanity's) main problem: the ratio of "Feynmen" to, uh, mere-men. It's got to be something over well over one to a million. That's one of the reasons why (IMO) things like Squeak & Etoys are so important: they provide for a sort of "technology transfer" from the more brilliant minds to the more normal minds. Growing up I was very frustrated by the obvious stupidities and inanities that were all around me. It only slowly dawned on me that we were, as a species, /clawing our way out/ of a dismal past of moribund ideas and tools. One example: In my twenties I took a train trip across the US and as you go over the Rockies they bring on board a sort of tour guide. She told a (to me shocking) story of one of Westinghouse's earlier inventions. Trains, it seems, had pneumatic brakes that failed "open" when the pressure was lost. If a train was on a hill and the pressure went out for some reason the train would roll down the hill. People died. Westinghouse "inverted the logic" so that the brakes failed "on" rather than "off"... Another example: In historical terms we've only had refrigeration for mere moments. It's a wonderful boon. But nearly every "fridge" in the world is built like a cabinet, rather than a chest of drawers... There's no reason for that. It's just the way it's always been done. As nanotech and biotech "hit" these kinds of bizarre oversights (backwards brakes; pointlessly wasteful refrigerators) will reach nightmarish proportions. We can't afford to squash the native genius of human children and disregard the profound projects of the grown geniuses like (if I may be forgiven such blatant fawning :D ) Professor Kay. As David Barbour said in the recent [Simple, Simplistic, and Scale] thread: "Too much power with too little perspective - that is the problem." I hold great hope that the VPRI's systems can be both exemplars and vehicles of the (desperately) needed perspective. Cheers, ~Simon -- I live on a Pony Farm: http://fertilefuture.blogspot.com/ My blog: http://firequery.blogspot.com/ "The history of mankind for the last four centuries is rather like that of an imprisoned sleeper, stirring clumsily and uneasily while the prison that restrains and shelters him catches fire, not waking but incorporating the crackling and warmth of the fire with ancient and incongruous dreams, than like that of a man consciously awake to danger and opportunity." --H. P. Wells, "A Short History of the World" _______________________________________________ fonc mailing list fonc@vpri.org http://vpri.org/mailman/listinfo/fonc
