Post AtFTFmHaDvSFdg40uG by llewelly@sauropods.win
(DIR) More posts by llewelly@sauropods.win
(DIR) Post #AtFTFl3ilylvqOZQf2 by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-04-19T11:50:20Z
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If you could take a math class for some reason now as an adult which of the following would you pick?Introduction to the History of Math: An eclectic survey. Math You Never Learned: A survey of "tough concepts" from school & undergraduate mathematics: trig, logs, fractions, logic traps, statistical fallacies.The Most Beautiful Formula: e^(pi*i)=-1 has been called 'beautiful' but what the heck does it even mean?The Normal Distribution: Why the normal distribution dominates stats.
(DIR) Post #AtFTFmHaDvSFdg40uG by llewelly@sauropods.win
2025-04-19T12:16:41Z
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@futurebird I didn't vote for the last one bc the normal distribution is perpendicular to the plane distribution, and therefore composed only of open source packages at right-angles to the packages of which the plane distribution is composed of. Meanwhile the abnormal distribution is perpendicular to the abdominal distribution ...
(DIR) Post #AtFTHPIodNS8wkPvLk by macacator@mastodon.social
2025-04-19T12:16:57Z
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@futurebird tax math
(DIR) Post #AtFTZYESAlQ1r01pEu by bloodripelives@federatedfandom.net
2025-04-19T12:20:15Z
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@futurebird oh hey, I did do this! (Take a math class for some reason as an adult and end up quitting my job and going back to school because of it.) Voted for the history course because I think it would have been the most accessible/interesting to me at that point... in theory I'd vote for the euler's formula one but my actual class I took was a high school algebra equivalency and I would not have had the tools to appreciate anything beautiful or interesting about that or the normal distribution without filling in the basic gaps in my understanding that that gave me.
(DIR) Post #AtFUEdfoqXgwbRQ90S by slotos@toot.community
2025-04-19T12:27:38Z
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@futurebird All of it? Who needs sleep anyways. There’s only so many years to live to not spend them on learning fun stuff.
(DIR) Post #AtFUZkntX0w6nYGZpQ by juliette@mastodon.green
2025-04-19T12:31:29Z
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@futurebird Absolutely math history, but also another option: Math You Did Learn But Were Too Young To Appreciate And Now You Forgot
(DIR) Post #AtFUwRx5mtJAzWOI0O by jmax@mastodon.social
2025-04-19T12:35:37Z
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@futurebird - The actual answer is representation theory or fractional derivation/integration.
(DIR) Post #AtFVHSfQKAOXI394ro by schizobovine@social.vivaldi.net
2025-04-19T12:39:19Z
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@futurebird i voted for myself personally (math never learned) since I have already had the “ah-ha!” moments from e^(pi*i)^2 and normal distributions.But I can *still* recall the exact moment in prob/stat class when the prof explained the Central Limit Theorem and it all clicked into place for me. Combinatorics, calculus and set theory all coming together to explain why that pattern is *everywhere*. It might be the better one for those with less formal training.
(DIR) Post #AtFVQulNEXLT2CR6Uy by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-04-19T12:41:03Z
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@PetraOleum When we teach stats we tend to get lost in process and recipes because you have these students, often without nearly enough math background for what you're expected to teach them, who really need to be able to deploy certain mathematical tools. There isn't much time to explain or justify any of it. It's part of what makes teaching statistics incredibly challenging. Only years later may students wonder "why do I trust ANY of this?"
(DIR) Post #AtFVrxKPnvE0oDiknw by joriki@infosec.exchange
2025-04-19T12:46:00Z
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@futurebird e^(pi*i)^2 because if they do a good job with the proof, you'll touch some of the sublime beauty you always hear about in the other classes
(DIR) Post #AtFW4XOzVaLcAHrQEC by InkySchwartz@mastodon.social
2025-04-19T12:48:15Z
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@futurebird A and D. Because history is fun and stats are handy to know every so often.I had a couple spatial stats classes and k means clustering is fascinating but hard tonuse well sunce you have to run so many iterations.
(DIR) Post #AtFWsgAzA1SRrADdXE by chris_hayes@fosstodon.org
2025-04-19T12:57:17Z
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@futurebird imo—1. As an adult, I have a renewed interest in history, that would be my first choice. :blobcatPirate: 3. I was lucky enough to do some of these classes in school and ngl, I don't want to go back. :blobcatOh: 4. I don't trust a mathematician's definition of "beautiful". :blobthinkingeyes: 2. While the normal distribution doesn't sound enticing, I do think the application of statistics in everyday life would be interesting. :blobcatthumbsup:
(DIR) Post #AtFYhAqbV2ZrPnKLdg by evannakita@mastodon.online
2025-04-19T13:17:38Z
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@futurebird I already know most of what'd be covered in the last three courses, but it'd be really cool to learn math history!
(DIR) Post #AtFaQS1YaGFLfmbVbM by MartyFouts@mastodon.online
2025-04-19T13:37:02Z
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@futurebird Can I ask for a class in Mathematical Philosophy? As a philosopher of science it fascinates me but I have never studied it in an organized way. Also, my undergraduate history of mathematics class might as well have been taught out of “Men of Mathematics” since it was entirely dead white men. It would be nice to cover the rest of the history.
(DIR) Post #AtFbts68ovjwtMLCfA by swope@mstdn.plus
2025-04-19T13:53:34Z
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@futurebirdI recently switched my client to Fedilab, and I've been wanting to try to inline math notation: \( e^{i\pi} = -1 \). Hopefully that looks ok even if your client doesn't render the TeX.
(DIR) Post #AtFc6VIysKFtxvN0sq by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-04-19T13:55:53Z
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@swope It didn't work for me. I had a LaTeX extension but it never seems to kick in.
(DIR) Post #AtFcGDrsYprumUKNrE by bloodripelives@federatedfandom.net
2025-04-19T13:57:34Z
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@futurebird @PetraOleum YEAH I have so many friends who had to do a first year stats class in college and felt so frightened and alienated by it, and the common thread is almost always not having taken calculus. Which makes sense in terms of prerequisites, there are lots of areas where you need to understand basic stats but don't actually want to weed out any student who can't pass calculus! But imagining learning about distributions without understanding basic calculus is like... well yeah this is wacky. this whole subject is completely out to lunch why would you do any of this
(DIR) Post #AtFcI77WcSu4QtY1zM by swope@mstdn.plus
2025-04-19T13:57:58Z
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@futurebirdIn Fedilab I have to tap the Sigma icon and then it renders.
(DIR) Post #AtFcYrpMjOjVvS2hQu by blipcast@mastodon.social
2025-04-19T14:00:59Z
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@futurebird I accidentally discovered e^(pi*i)=-1 while messing around with a calculator in high school and was amazed at how these unrelated terms all cancelled out. So Sign me up for that one I guess. :)
(DIR) Post #AtFcbQ3gQs4CfbxMga by VampiresAndRobots@writing.exchange
2025-04-19T14:01:26Z
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@futurebird I went with math I never learned, but given that I was female and grew up in the 80s, that's basically everything past somple trig.
(DIR) Post #AtFg0EbyQdSeGoWIhk by davew@mastodon.online
2025-04-19T14:39:32Z
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@futurebird History of Math especially would benefit from a James Burke (Connections, The Day the Universe Changed) approach. Edna Kramer had a great book in 1951 titled The Main Stream of Mathematics that is somewhat in this vein.
(DIR) Post #AtFjpk4pV4seUQGlWa by camless@m.ai6yr.org
2025-04-19T15:22:23Z
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@futurebird Bonus of the class includes ant facts
(DIR) Post #AtFmt0KpoDove20EYi by undead@masto.hackers.town
2025-04-19T15:56:33Z
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@futurebirdHistory of Math, because I'm a why person, and being one of those often self limits learning from most math teachers, who in my experience have been rote instructors.Even down to- why are order of operations done this way? Isn't there another way to represent long division (there are, but had to learn this as an adult when I needed it as a child, etc).
(DIR) Post #AtFuB5hfHvQLBZFk2q by westerling@wandering.shop
2025-04-19T17:18:15Z
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@futurebird I have actually been thinking about this very thing. I've had to do some complicated percentage stuff for my job recently and I made myself figure it out from scratch rather than trying to find out how on the Internet, and it was like stretching muscles that hadn't been used in ages. I would love to go through complicated stuff again. And the history. Actually I'd be interested in the other 2 options as well. Satisfying when the light dawns on a math concept.
(DIR) Post #AtFvxdT79WJNlF9twG by Jennifer@m.ai6yr.org
2025-04-19T17:38:18Z
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@futurebird I do not enjoy math at all. But I'd love a class about the history of math!
(DIR) Post #AtG3whVBTDnxc8BxYm by RustedComputing@discuss.systems
2025-04-19T19:07:47Z
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@futurebirdthe one with pi because I would do the whole class with tau (tau = 2pi. 2pi is the true pi).@Bluedepth
(DIR) Post #AtGAyftv5qLOuHeNou by lffontenelle@mastodon.social
2025-04-19T20:26:37Z
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@futurebird Have seen a video or two on the third one. And read a thing or two about the fourth one, learning stats for data analysis
(DIR) Post #AtGFH516qpCvpd2qf2 by bgrinter@mastodon.sdf.org
2025-04-19T21:14:44Z
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@futurebird @lisamelton all of them?