On Feb 1, 2010, at 1:39 AM, Stephen Guerin wrote:
> SFI External professor Steven Strogatz:
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/31/from-fish-to-infinity/>
Could someone who feels the same way as Strogatz's friend, see below,
follow the series to see if it actually works for them? And report
back to us!
I ask because we often collaborate with folks saying similar things,
and we've spent a bunch of time looking for solutions. Gowers's "Very
Short Intro to Mathematics" and Dunham's "Journey through Genius" are
books that we've tried with some success, but Strogatz has won several
awards for teaching excellence, so this may be the winner.
-- Owen
Quote: But when it comes to math, he feels at sea, and it saddens him.
The strange symbols keep him out. He says he doesn’t even know how to
pronounce them.
In fact, his alienation runs a lot deeper. He’s not sure what
mathematicians do all day, or what they mean when they say a proof is
elegant. Sometimes we joke that I just should sit him down and teach
him everything, starting with 1 + 1 = 2 and going as far as we can.
Crazy as it sounds, over the next several weeks I’m going to try to do
something close to that. I’ll be writing about the elements of
mathematics, from pre-school to grad school, for anyone out there
who’d like to have a second chance at the subject — but this time from
an adult perspective. It’s not intended to be remedial. The goal is to
give you a better feeling for what math is all about and why it’s so
enthralling to those who get it.
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