The correct way to learn math is chronologically
Wrong. Good look fooling around without algebra for years. New methods make old maths easy.
…and even newer methods make old math insanely complicated, but much more generalized. Like building definitions for things like numbers and basic arithmetic using set theory.
/s
No sarcasm. Being able to use numbers, integrals and derivatives makes a huge amount of maths easy. Exponential function and it’s relatives are so handy. (Sin, Cos, Tan, Cot, log).
The Greeks didn’t have any of that to do their math.
I’m the one being sarcastic Einstein
Start with set theory. After about 300 pages you’ll be able to show what 1+1 equals.
To be fair, the first 100 pages of that was justifying the set theory definition for what numbers are. The following two hundred papers are proving that a process of iterative counting we call addition functions in a consistent and useful way, given the set theory way of defining numbers. Once we get to that point, 1+1 is easy. Then we get to start talking more deeply about iteration as a process, leading to considering iterating addition (aka multiplication), iterating multiplication (aka exponents), etc. But that stuff is for the next thousand pages.
Remember, 0 is defined as the amount of things in the empty set {}. 1 is defined as the amount of things in a set containing the empty set {{}}. Each following natural number is defined as the amount of things in a set containing each of the previous nonnegative integers. So for example 2 is the amount of things in a set containing the empty set and a set containing the empty set {{}, {{}}}, 3 is the amount of things in a set containing the empty set, a set containing the empty set, and a set containing the empty set and a set containing the empty set {{}, {{}}, {{}, {{}}}}, etc. All natural numbers are just counting increasingly recursively labeled nothing. Welcome to math.
Science is validated by the new information replacing the old. Al-Khwarizmi worked out numbers so we don’t have to,
Now for applied mathematics on the other hand…
watched a video on tensors with ‘no math’. dude lost me in analogies. matrix vectors sumthin… brain is failing. no really the math is advancing more than that with computers and better theories for the physics experimenters.
"… Science is constantly proved all the time. You see, if we take something like any fiction, any holy book… and destroyed it, in a thousand years’ time, that wouldn’t come back just as it was. Whereas if we took every science book, and every fact, and destroyed them all, in a thousand years they’d all be back, because all the same tests would [produce] the same result.”
― Ricky Gervais
Have you met a bayesian guy? All prof on statistics in my uni keep talking how “traditional” approach is stupid, inferior, blah blah
As nearly always, there is a relevant xkcd.
On the other hand, physicists like to say physics is to math as sex is to masturbation.
Computer programming books … Lol we don’t print them any more, they’d be obsolete before hitting the shelves.
Do be fair, that’s less because the fundamentals behind programming are changing and more because the specific implementations are changed all the damn time.
Yep, I got that “introduction to algorithms” (1100 pages tightly written, love it) and it still holds up ofc. I should have stayed in uni…
Computer Science:
Oh, that textbook is outdated. That was before NodeJS 22.
One of the best programmers I’ve ever met told me, “All you need is Knuth everything else is just syntax.” And I don’t know if that’s 100% true, but can say I learned more from reading The Art of Computer Programming than I have in basically any other textbook/textbook series I’ve read on the subject.
For me its like “oh great a old textbook, now i can finally understand our legacy codebase”.
Or: The new version is reimplemented and incompatible, so everything you learnt about it from the previous versions is wrong.
Oh, you use the MediaWiki engine, too? The documentation is always a few versions behind, and between there and now they broke the interface three times…
This is one reason I really liked my Dynamics professor. On the first day of class, he wrote “F=ma” on the white board and said, “See that equation? It hasn’t changed much in the last 200 years. You don’t need to buy the newest edition of the textbook; it’s mostly just fixing errata. The lessons are virtually the same as the first edition.”
Electron was discovered in 1897. If you own a textbook on chemistry which is older than that, put it up on Ebay in the antiques category.
Newton lived in the 17th century, so if you got a textbook older than that give it back to the museum
I’ll drop it off for anyone if needed.
I’m very trustworthy.
Very.
I promise.
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Since you made the claim, the onus of proof is on you. Go on, it’ll be interesting to see your proof.
Nah mate, it was already in existence by last Tuesday afternoon and there is no way for you to disprove it.
That $300 stack of the cheapest thin paper was last semester. The online code you need for class is void, and the questions won’t match the answer key.
Mathematics teacher: That textbook was written thousands of years ago, and it is still as useful and relevant as ever, but I want you to buy this one I co-authored instead for the mere sum of $120, otherwise you won’t pass.
Conflict of interest detected
This really happened?
Not the original commenter, but I briefly had one professor in college that did that (their book was $50, though). It was an elective course for me, fortunately. I was able to switch for a different class that fit the same requirement without being forced to buy a book the professor wrote.
I took an environmental science class in college, and the professor was a former president of Shell. As part of the curriculum, we had to read his book, Why we Hate the Oil Companies. Predictably, it’s a corporate non-apologia, which—hilariously—completely avoids engaging with why we actually hate the oil companies.
environmental science class … the professor was a former president of Shell
Do they also invite Nazis to teach the elective in human rights?
Iirc, it was an energy/environment focus, so it was all about analyzing and comparing different energy sources wrt their usefulness, feasability, environmental impact, etc. This was in Houston, so the oil industry plays a huge role in the local economy, and funds the university endowments.
But yeah, the whole thing was pretty farcical.
Did people stand up to call the bullshit? I guess in this kind of situation you feel threatened that if you talk, you get penalized heavily
Not that I recall. I didn’t know anyone else in the class, and I don’t remember anything coming up in the class group chat. I did get quite heated with him at a couple of points, but I’m pretty sure he still gave me an A.
I admit I exaggerated a bit. It hasn’t happened to me, but I’ve had some teachers that strongly suggested buying their textbooks and frowned if you didn’t.
Fucking disgusting behavior
The textbook:
“After the likeness of [this] angel. He made the incorruptible [generation] of Seth appear to the 12 androgynous [luminaries. And then] he made 72 luminaries appear in the incorruptible generation according to the Spirit’s will. Then the 72 luminaries themselves made 360 luminaries appear in the incorruptible generation according to the Spirit’s will so that there’d be 5 for each. And the 12 realms of the 12 luminaries make up their father, with 6 heavens for each realm so there are 72 heavens for the 72 luminaries, and for each 1 [of them 5] firmaments [for a total of] 360 [firmaments. They] were given authority and a [great] army of angels without number for honor and service, along with virgin spirits [too] for the honor and [service] of all the realms and the heavens with their firmaments.”
