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The National Academies Press - 0 views

www.nap.edu education books science math
shared by Peter Kronfeld on 06 Jun 11 - Cached
  • Peter Kronfeld on 06 Jun 11
     
    Bernie Dodge tweeted this resource -- science books available as free pdf downloads. Found some cool ones, now I just need some 'free' time to read all the 'free' books.
  • Peter Kronfeld on 06 Jun 11
     
    If you come across one you like, please post to Math-a-manics. Thanks!
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Haresh Lalvani's SEED54 - A Sculpture With a Twist - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...-a-sculpture-with-a-twist.html math art sculpture
shared by Peter Kronfeld on 07 Feb 13 - No Cached
  • “I’m interested in seeing what design principles nature uses,” Dr. Lalvani said. “Math, perhaps; maybe physics, whatever. The whole D’Arcy Thompson-type stuff.” The biologist D’Arcy Wentworth Thompson’s book “On Growth and Form,” published in the early 20th century, was a seminal work on the subject of patterns in nature. Thompson, a Scotsman, argued that growth and the structures that resulted were governed by physical principles and could often be described in mathematical terms. He saw examples throughout nature — in the spiral shell of a nautilus, the branching veins on an insect wing and the scales of a pine cone, to name just a few.
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Vijay Iyer: The Physical Experience of Rhythm : NPR - 1 views

www.npr.org/...-physical-experience-of-rhythm math science music
shared by Peter Kronfeld on 17 Mar 12 - No Cached
  • He studied math and physics at Yale, got a masters in physics and was working on his Ph.D. at UC Berkeley. Then he realized his real love was music, and his Ph.D. turned into the study of music perception and cognition.
    • Peter Kronfeld
      Peter Kronfeld on 17 Mar 12
       
      Interesting how he went from math to music perception and cognition. Reminds me of the Daniel Levitin book (that I have yet to get around to reading) "This is your Brain on Music"
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The Singular Mind of Terry Tao - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...ingular-mind-of-terry-tao.html math learning
shared by Peter Kronfeld on 29 Jul 15 - No Cached
  • his view of mathematics has utterly changed since childhood.
  • But it turned out that the work of real mathematicians bears little resemblance to the manipulations and memorization of the math student.
  • he ancient art of mathematics, Tao has discovered, does not reward speed so much as patience, cunning and, perhaps most surprising of all, the sort of gift for collaboration and improvisation that characterizes the best jazz musicians.
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  • n class, he conveys a sense that mathematics is fun.
  • at 8 years old, Tao scored a 760 on the math portion of the SAT — but Stanley urged the couple to keep taking things slow and give their son’s emotional and social skills time to develop.
  • Tao became notorious for his nights haunting the graduate computer room to play the historical-­simulation game Civilization. (He now avoids computer games, he told me, because of what he calls a ‘‘completist streak’’ that makes it hard to stop playing.) At a local comic-book store, Tao met a circle of friends who played ‘‘Magic: The Gathering,’’ the intricate fantasy card game. This was Tao’s first real experience hanging out with people his age, but there was also an element, he admitted, of escaping the pressures of Princeton
  • Gifted children often avoid challenges at which they might not excel.
  • At Princeton, crisis came in the form of the ‘‘generals,’’ a wide-­ranging, arduous oral examination administered by three professors. While other students spent months working through problem sets and giving one another mock exams, Tao settled on his usual test-prep strategy: last-­minute cramming. ‘‘I went in and very quickly got out of my depth,’’ he said. ‘‘They were asking questions which I had no ability to answer.’’
  • The true work of the mathematician is not experienced until the later parts of graduate school, when the student is challenged to create knowledge in the form of a novel proof.
  • As a group, the people drawn to mathematics tend to value certainty and logic and a neatness of outcome, so this game becomes a special kind of torture. And yet this is what any ­would-be mathematician must summon the courage to face down: weeks, months, years on a problem that may or may not even be possible to unlock.
  • Ask mathematicians about their experience of the craft, and most will talk about an intense feeling of intellectual camaraderie. ‘‘A very central part of any mathematician’s life is this sense of connection to other minds, alive today and going back to Pythagoras,’
  • ‘Terry is what a great 21st-­century mathematician looks like,’’ Jordan Ellenberg, a mathematician at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, who has collaborated with Tao, told me. He is ‘‘part of a network, always communicating, always connecting what he is doing with what other people are doing.’’
  • Early encounters with math can be misleading. The subject seems to be about learning rules — how and when to apply ancient tricks to arrive at an answer. Four cookies remain in the cookie jar; the ball moves at 12.5 feet per second. Really, though, to be a mathematician is to experiment. Mathematical research is a fundamentally creative act.
  • Peter Kronfeld on 29 Jul 15
     
    Great insight into how math is learned, and how it should be taught
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Will Africa Produce the 'Next Einstein'? | WIRED - 0 views

www.wired.com/...l-africa-produce-next-einstein math Africa teaching
shared by Peter Kronfeld on 02 Jan 15 - No Cached
  • There are three formal AIMS undertakings: a master’s degree program in Mathematical Sciences, research, and teacher training. The master’s program offers free tuition to accepted students and trains them in both general principles – problem formulation, the scientific method, communication – and cutting-edge math in subjects including computer science, biomathematics, and financial mathematics. Research will allow for international collaborations and advanced student training.
    • Peter Kronfeld
      Peter Kronfeld on 02 Jan 15
       
      Brilliant: applied math (CompSci, bio, financial) and 3 keys: problem formulation, the scientific method, and communication
  • Traditionally, classrooms were led by an authoritative teacher who disseminated information to silent students, but Zomahoun hopes to turn that paradigm on its head. “We train people who can challenge the status quo,” he explains, “not just people who learn from books, listen to lectures, and just repeat it.” Rather, he hopes to instill qualities like “critical thinking, independent thinking, and problem solving” in order to prepare students for real-world problems.
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