On Mon, Oct 6, 2008 at 1:28 PM, Ivan Krstić < [EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> [Kirby, I find it very difficult to follow your messages; they tend to be > long and meandering. I'm certain I'm not the only one. Please try to be more > directly on-topic and succinct.] > [ they have been lately, yes, though if you go back in the archive you'll find more succinct ones ] > > On Oct 6, 2008, at 10:56 AM, kirby urner wrote: > >> What passes for "pure math" would be something to study in college, after >> getting a broad sampling ahead of time, good overview, the job of a >> pre-specializing curriculum. >> > > > Speaking with no experience teaching mathematics, only learning it, this > statement strikes me as sheer nonsense. It's like saying "what passes for > painting would be something to study in college, after getting a broad > sampling of brushes, stroke techniques and paint chemistry ahead of time, > all without ever seeing an actual painting." More I'm saying mathematics has a long and proud history outside of Ivory Tower specialties, a johnny come lately invention, whereas Leibniz, to take an example, was what we'd today call a polymath. Pre-college we do polymath, until you're old enough to make your own choices and maybe not get suckered by folks who talk a brave talk, but seem to dish out the same crufty / stale pablum year after year, left to their own devices, despite tremendous advances in the literature. > > > This isn't a discussion that's particularly on-topic for Python's edu-sig, > so I won't belabor it much. I share the views expressed at some length in > Paul Lockhart's excellent "A mathematician's lament" (< > http://radian.org/~krstic/LockhartsLament.pdf<http://radian.org/%7Ekrstic/LockhartsLament.pdf>>). > In summary, if you don't show kids that mathematics is something beautiful, > how are they supposed to have anything but bored disregard for the seemingly > meaningless mechanics they're taught for 8 years before college? Fractions > don't qualify as beauty. Many aspects of pure mathematics do. Continued fractions do, especially: IDLE 1.2.1 >>> from __future__ import division >>> 1/(1 + 1/(1 + 1/(1 + 1/(1 + 1/(1 + 1/(1 + 1)))))) 0.61904761904761907 >>> 1/(1 + 1/(1 + 1/(1 + 1/(1 + 1/(1 + 1/(1)))))) 0.61538461538461542 >>> 1/(1 + 1/(1 + 1/(1 + 1/(1 + 1/(1 + 1/(1 + 1/(1 + 1/(1 + 1/(1 + 1))))))))) 0.6179775280898876 [ much easier when you have color-coded parentheses checking, like in IDLE ] Better in Akbar font. We appear to be approaching something, from above and below. Kirby > > > -- > Ivan Krstić <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> | http://radian.org > >
_______________________________________________ Edu-sig mailing list [email protected] http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig
