A Mathematician's Lament: maa.org
The lament laments how maths are not taught in school - or universities, probably - and that a perverse mockery of it is taught instead.
Do you know any math books that fall somewhat within Lockhart's ideals?
A Mathematician's Lament:
Tyler King
Logan Anderson
>le math is beatiful and interesting meme
sure, there is some level of creativity involed later on
but if you can't follow highschool level stuff you will never get it anyway
Evan Martin
Basically this, teaching math to people who can't get past highschool basic trivialties is like teaching to draw to people with tetraplegia, there is no point if you can't even hold the pen.
Nolan Phillips
I read the entire thing.
I'm just glad this guy's not in control of mathematics education.
John Morales
>can't get past highschool not-math means can't understand math
That's not a logically coherent argument!
Lockhart does point out in the latter parts of the lament that not everyone would be good at math if taught like he outlines, but opines that at least those attempted-taught would then at least know what math actually is.
>but if you can't follow highschool level stuff you will never get it anyway
meanwhile, seven year olds are being creative with their basic math learning
Props for reading the whole thing.
Curious as to what you have against his view - I thought the lament was very interesting, and good.
Landon Cook
desu a book written like this seems painful to read
Dylan Morales
But that's the answer to the problem! You're supposed to come up with the answer yourself!
Dylan Foster
Pretty much any book
The difference is you have to do it on your own and have the right kind of autism to enjoy it
Zachary Lopez
Alright, I've read it.
It reminded me of one of my favourite mathematicians who constantly argued about teaching mathematics (and who has written absolutely beautiful books), V. Arnold.
I think the author is retarded, though, because he assumes one fact which, if isn't true, destroys his reasoning completely: maths is taught at school so that students would learn math. This is false.
Josiah Williams
Thanks! I've skimmed V. Arnold's wikipedia page now, and looked through the web pages for some of his books.
( bookstore.ams.org
( bookstore.ams.org
>Seems to have parallells to the mathematical creativity mentioned in Lockhart's Lament, yup yup.
Sounds like they're absolutely beautiful books indeed. I'll probbly order those two and check them out! Thanks, user.