May
30, 2017 Tuesday
Bedtime
Story
Understanding Why Reading Mathematics is Difficult
Mathematics
and formal logic is vast and huge, thanks to the thousands of great minds who
have worked on it for 5000 years and maybe more.
Even
though an extremely tiny fraction of few human apes actually contribute
anything new to mathematics, given so many years and our ability to document
and store information, great accretion and advancements have been made - just
like evolution and origin of life - in it.
In
fact so much of knowledge has now been accumulated that a modern average child
and for that matter, even an adult finds it both overwhelming and scary.
Even
the books that are supposed to be easy reading on mathematics aren’t that plain
sailing.
So
how should one read a book on mathematics (mark you, I am insisting on ‘book on
mathematics’ rather than a ‘mathematical book’)?
When
you read a story or a book on mathematics, try to get a sense where exactly you
are located.
Is
it algebra (the fashion of this century), numbers, geometry, analysis or logic?
In
what epoch of history of mathematics is the story you are reading dealing with.
Getting
a historical perspective of any idea or event gives a distinctive satisfaction
- much like a piece of a jigsaw puzzle falling in the right place - besides
adding an element of human interest to a subject so abstract.
Remember,
the mathematics that is taught in high schools to most average apes or at least
the mathematics that most average human apes seem to know is extremely
primitive; even more antediluvian than what was known in the medieval European
ages of 12th century.
So
it is quite normal to know very little mathematics.
Hence
reading mathematics becomes a slow process as we are all guilty of serious ignorance
in this arena.
Besides,
mathematics demands thinking and asking questions.
It
will even mean going back to the chapters that you read and rereading them
again with the new perspective that the later chapters gave you.
It
will also need searching some interesting points on the internet and YouTube as
they are littered with fantastic videos.
Let
me quote Edward Rothstein once again:
“Reading
mathematics is not at all a linear experience; …Understanding the text requires
cross references, scanning, pausing and revisiting.
A
three-line proof of a subtle theorem is the distillation of years of activity.
Reading
mathematics involves a return to the thinking that went into the writing.”
In
popular literature, too much is written and too many words are used to depict
scenes or emotions.
It
is quite the opposite in mathematics; mathematics says a lot with a little.
Stay tuned to the voice of an average story storytelling
chimpanzee or login at http://panarrans.blogspot.in/
Good night mon ami and my fellow cousin ape.
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Another great educator and a teacher that I am aware of is
Professor Subhashish Chattopadhyay in Bangalore, India.
While I narrate stories, Professor Subhashish an electronic
engineer and a former professor at BARC, does and teaches real mathematics and
physics.
He started the participation of Indian students at the
International Physics Olympiad.
Do visit him here:
All his books can be downloaded for free through this link:
For edutainment and English education of your children, I
recommend this large collection of Halloween Songs for Kids:
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