A funny???

Posted on by March 29, 2022

Or is this coming true with the dumbing down of STEM and higher math in HS and college???

I really hope not, especially if anybody is designing buildings, bridges, etc…

If you don’t know who Marc Andreessen is, he founded Netscape back in the day, so he just ‘might’ know what he’s talking about…

Comments

A funny??? — 19 Comments

  1. Actually, there is a TV show that seems to showcase some of that math. It’s called “Engineering Disasters.” 🙂

  2. I have always had problems with physics and advanced math simply because I never learned the Greek alphabet. I don’t have a sound/concept in my head for that squiggle on the page.

    • Most of the concepts are learned slowly enough that you can simply learn the symbol at the same time, and remember that symbol 4 means a thing, and symbol 5 means a different thing, etc.

      Then there are the textbooks that talk about the same concept using different symbols.

      You can use a notation based around the Shavian and Aramic alphabets, or random scribbles, and it would make no difference except that people wouldn’t understand it unless you explained it first.

      Big D, little d, big Delta, and little delta are all used as part of the symbols for a set of related concepts. How screwy they are to learn isn’t much to do with the annoyance of the symbol.

      little d’s ordinary derivative is a bit easier than little delta’s partial derivative, or big D’s material derivative.

      But big Delta is for the difference, or the difference equation, which is related to the derivatives of a differential equation. Difference equations, depending on personal affinity, can be easier or harder to understand than ordinary differential equations.

      Struggling with the mathematical concepts is painful, but learning the symbols by sight (instead of by sound or by name), was the least painful part of it.

      Calculus is pretty fundamental to physics, and there are two competing notations used for basic calculus. It is basically normal for the textbooks to spend the first 1-4 chapters explaining WTH they mean with the notation in this textbook. Assuming that you haven’t found a book that can handle the notation in the preface, or which spends the /majority/ of the book carefully walking the reader through mathematical foundations of the equations that you bought the book to tell you how to use.

      • Oddly enough I don’t have a problem with the concepts, the procedures or the equations. It’s the danged funny “nameless” squiggles that get me. I’m just wired a bit different, I guess.

  3. I remember some of those symbols from high school math, but haven’t seen/used any of them, since. Math? Folklore? What’s the difference?

    • There is no difference if you ask the damned critical theorists.

  4. Don’t worry, they’re only designing bridges in Florida, with the best illegals and diversity hires that money can buy!

  5. I disagree with Mr. Andressen only for his inclusion of “trade school” in his amalgam of a modern university. Trade schools actually produce graduates with useful and marketable skills.

  6. Serious question: What is the role of hedge funds in society? Apart from enriching the people who run them, what do they produce, how do they enhance the common weal, what services do they provide?

    Now a person doesn’t have to be or do anything useful to have a right to exist. If you want to make ugly pottery and paint yourself purple, rock on with your own idiot self. So long as you leave me and mine alone. But hedge funds do NOT leave us alone. So far as I can tell, they are parasitic.

  7. The first one is XKCD having fun. He’s pretty dang smart, actually.

    • a) His BLM/Hillary/netscape censorship stuff.
      b) He did a visualization of some research done on voting patterns of the federal house and senate, and failed to draw the obvious conclusion from the ‘accidental’ alignment between the confederacy and the modern left.

      There’s a narrow slice of stuff where he impresses a little, but he is basically borderline retarded.

  8. Bob/John- Yeah… sigh

    McC- Good point.

    Rev- LOL

    NRW- Excellent point! They DO, and are a LOT cheaper too!

    Mike- They make money off our hard work for their benefit.

    Igor- That he is!

  9. There are a lot of slices to a modern university, and functional people can be found.

    Basically, the current state of academic research has rendered the university obsolete. The scholarly fields basically need to be segregated, and not train people at organizations with management in common. Because critical theory and mathematics are not really compatible, and current organizations do not prevent the critical theorists from ruining the mathematical training effort. The schools should be spun off as many separate entities.

    Yet, the status quo will probably be tolerated, because the sports fan have a significant financial influence, and basically do not care how much else is ruined so long as the football team has a good track record.

    XKCD bit is a little funny, but I’m familiar with at least three things sigma can stand for. I’m guessing he probably meant the stats?

    I have a vague recollection of a second meaning for rho, but I’m guessing this is a joke about density? The last is I think a psi, and a joke about the shape?

    There’s definitely reason to be concerned about dumbing down of schools, but the big issue is people at them being ‘too clever by far’. They are bureaucracies, the administrators work a lot by blind rote, by fad and by popularity seeking, and they do insane dysfunctional things believing the stupidity to be smart.

    Effin’ law faculty, and the January 12, 2021 letter for one.

  10. Here I was, being amused by XKCD and congratulating myself for knowing the names and meanings of some of ’em. 🙂 Then I read the comments. 🙁 You guys are real downers.

    • There is a real world cost to the pseudo-intellectuals pursuing the superficial markers of education, without learning to really think.

      This seems to be a current and significant fad.

      There are obvious and concerning signs that we may be very near eating a huge cost as a result.

      Applied mathematics has zero purpose, if it does not usefully predict physical reality. The question at the core of the whole reason for learning applied mathematics is ‘does it accurately predict physical reality?’. The math can not be entirely separated from the habit of asking ‘does it match’, and trying to figure out the explanations for all failures to match.

      So, just about everyone with half a brain is deeply worried about the obvious and concerning mismatches going on with theoretical efforts in the areas that are not applied mathematics, and physics.

  11. He’s wrong about mu. I deal with ‘micro’ quantities every day.