OT Math rant, was Re: [sdiy] DSP book recommendation wanted

[cheater cheater]

> 2. Polish, Russian, and Slavic people in general have an advantage learning math because their language is very difficult. It
> imposed upon the speaker a responsibility to be able to follow a fairly complicated set of grammatical rules just to communicate.
> Having once learned such a system, they are more likely to be able to apply it to other logical systems such as mathematics.

Not true. Knowing Polish, Russian, English and German among others, I
can certainly say that the Germanic languages are much better suited
to laying out logical discourse - certainly, in most part, due to
roots in Greek and Latin.

German is the best language I have ever used for engineering - be it
because of german culture of engineering, or because the vocabulary is
just so well developed, or because it is so technical and 'exakt'
(sic). English is a very good language for mathematics. Newton's
language, after all, and Maxwell's.

Polish is much better suited for poetry... there is no doubt the
hard-consonant, amelodic Germanic languages will never flow as well as
French, Polish or Russian. That's why many maths books in Polish are
written in the form of discourse, with many examples and hypothetical,
imaginative, comparisons. What the language lacks in terseness (some
logical constructs possible in English and even more so in German are
very awkward in Polish), it makes up in the ease of reading of longer,
more descriptive passages. More text, but not necessarily slower to
read.

I certainly can pinpoint the whole 'maths phenomenon' on cultural
differences. Similar to the football phenomenon in Argentina..

One reason is that in both Russia and Poland - before the War - there
was a big Jewish population. Cyrillic is after all a script brought by
the Jews. As many people know, the values and characteristics of
Jewish people in those times were very similar to the ones that let
scientists strive well: typically silent, introverted, laborious
individuals who were usually the ones receiving very thorough
education in both trivium and quadrivium; in turn science came
naturally to those who were part of, or friends to, the Jewish
community. Even with them removed, the effect of their - still very
recent and very relevant - contribution to our society is continuing
to ripple through the scientific and the thinker's communities in
Poland and Russia. I can tell you for one thing that the brightest,
most ingenious mathematicians I have ever met were Jewish.

Another reason is that university education is much more accessible to
the lower middle and the working classes in both Poland and Russia.
You don't really have to pay much at all to study in Poland or Russia.
There is no problem with loans, stipends, and so on. The family on
welfare with 8 kids who were living down the street had two kids who
will probably go to uni, or at least tech college. The father was a
lorry driver and mechanic and the mother worked at the post office.
This sort of thing doesn't happen in the UK or USA.

Another is that there is a lot of competition here. Because of the
ease with which people can attend university, those universities can
choose who to admit. It can be legendarily difficult to get into
undergrad maths in, say, Warsaw. And even more difficult to make it
through the first year. But the competition starts much sooner -
college, high school, primary school - even kids as young as 10 years
old are affected by this...

There is a much heavier stigma of education in Poland than in any
country I have been to. People really judge you based on what sort of
education you have achieved - segregate themselves - they don't want
to be with people who are 'smarter' or 'dumber'. If that makes any
sense at all. Does not to me.. but it does stimulate the people to put
value in education. What value does education have in the UK? Quite
often it's nothing other than 20k more p.a.

D.

On Fri, Sep 25, 2009 at 4:16 PM, Bradley Slavik <fire at dls.net> wrote:
> OK, so I'll address briefly what was already transpired in this thread.
>
> 1. Math books are written for the convenience of the teacher, not the student. (there are exceptions) This is true about
> electronics books too. Think how many bad ones there are before you come to "The Art of Electronics" by Horowitz and Hill.
> Textbooks are written to make money and laid out in a way that is convenient to teach and test, not necessarily in a good order to
> learn the material.
>
> 2. Polish, Russian, and Slavic people in general have an advantage learning math because their language is very difficult. It
> imposed upon the speaker a responsibility to be able to follow a fairly complicated set of grammatical rules just to communicate.
> Having once learned such a system, they are more likely to be able to apply it to other logical systems such as mathematics.
>
> 3. I don't know where you missed out in math class. The e^i0 notation for complex numbers is usually taught in the second algebra
> class in high school, trigonometry, pre-calculus, calculus, differential equations. So while you may have missed one of these
> courses, you should have had several opportunities to pick up the method of Argand diagrams without having to go too far into
> mathematics. Bad on your teachers and school board if you took more than two of these courses and the material was not really
> covered in at least one of them.
>
> Feel free to write with any math questions you have. I have less electronics theory and hands-on experience than almost anyone on
> this list, but I have plenty of math knowledge that I am not trying to hoard or snub you with.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Bradley Slavik
>