[HN Gopher] Lessons I Wish I Had Been Taught (1996) [pdf]
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Lessons I Wish I Had Been Taught (1996) [pdf]
Author : zerojames
Score : 234 points
Date : 2024-06-27 10:06 UTC (12 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.ams.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.ams.org)
| sebg wrote:
| Love these reflections from Gian-Carlo Rota
|
| In the past, similar discussions have occured:
| https://hn.algolia.com/?q=Gian-Carlo+Rota
| mkl wrote:
| (1997)
|
| The last time it was discussed, four years ago:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23722803
| bambax wrote:
| Yes it does come back on HN frequently; it's worth a re-read
| every time though! ;-)
| dang wrote:
| Yup! Related:
|
| _Gian Carlo Rota 's Ten Lessons_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40113970 - April 2024 (2
| comments)
|
| _Lessons I wish I had been taught (1996)_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32081288 - July 2022 (62
| comments)
|
| _Ten Lessons I Wish I Had Been Taught (1997) [pdf]_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23722803 - July 2020 (52
| comments)
|
| _Lessons I Wish I Had Been Taught (1996) [pdf]_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15989599 - Dec 2017 (28
| comments)
|
| _Lessons I wish I had been taught (1996)_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11747598 - May 2016 (20
| comments)
|
| _Lessons I wish I had been Taught_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3220746 - Nov 2011 (20
| comments)
|
| _Ten Lessons I Wish I Had Been Taught_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=110091 - Feb 2008 (1
| comment)
|
| _" Ten Lessons I wish I Had Been Taught", by Gian-Carlo Rota_
| - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=85611 - Dec 2007 (1
| comment)
|
| Also related:
|
| _Gian-Carlo Rota on Alonzo Church (2008)_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9073466 - Feb 2015 (1
| comment but it's so good I put it in
| https://news.ycombinator.com/highlights)
|
| and
|
| _Lessons I wish I had learned before teaching differential
| equations [pdf] (1997)_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38248532 - Nov 2023 (248
| comments)
|
| _Lessons I wish I had learned before I started teaching
| differential equations [pdf] (1997)_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32530035 - Aug 2022 (177
| comments)
|
| _10 lessons I wish I had learned before I started teaching
| differential equations_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19005798 - Jan 2019 (2
| comments)
|
| _Lessons I Wish I Had Learned Before Teaching Differential
| Equations (1997) [pdf]_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15163979 - Sept 2017 (108
| comments)
|
| _Ten lessons I wish I had learned before teaching differential
| equations (1997) [pdf]_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11207183 - March 2016 (118
| comments)
|
| and
|
| _10 Lessons of an MIT Education_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32115290 - July 2022 (17
| comments)
|
| _Lessons of an MIT Education_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31775074 - June 2022 (1
| comment)
|
| _Lessons of an MIT Education_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15628869 - Nov 2017 (247
| comments)
|
| _" 10 Lessons of an MIT Education" by Gian-Carlo Rota_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=53322 - Sept 2007 (14
| comments)
| Frummy wrote:
| That's pretty good. Feynman keeping problems in his mind
| constantly, like a monk, is easy said but difficult to do.
| Attention and the harmony required to maintain it, in this day
| and age, is a few new theorems the reward for that? I guess you
| have to enjoy the process of working on problems like that as
| well, to dedicate your attention to it all day long even
| passively.
| mightybyte wrote:
| I really like an expansion of this idea that I heard somewhere
| awhile back:
|
| Keep a few significant problems in your mind...and also keep a
| few significant solutions / problem solving techniques in your
| mind. Then when you encounter new problems, check them against
| your set of solutions and see if any of them apply. Also, when
| you encounter new problem solving techniques, check them
| against your set of problems to see if they're applicable.
| Whenever you encounter a new problem or solution that seems
| unusually significant, add it to the list that you keep track
| of
| almostgotcaught wrote:
| > heard somewhere awhile back:
|
| This is verbatim how Feynman describes it in "surely you're
| joking" (the chapter with spinning plate and QED iirc).
| mightybyte wrote:
| Ahh ok. I think my source was someone else, but it sounds
| like they were probably citing Feynman. Good to know.
| pm215 wrote:
| Hamming's _You and Your Research_ (another HN perennial) has
| a variant on the theme too:
|
| "Most great scientists know many important problems. They
| have something between 10 and 20 important problems for which
| they are looking for an attack. And when they see a new idea
| come up, one hears them say ``Well that bears on this
| problem.'' They drop all the other things and get after it. "
| almostgotcaught wrote:
| > problems in his mind constantly, like a monk, is easy said
| but difficult to do.
|
| You're misunderstanding what's being described - there's
| nothing monk like about it.
|
| Using myself as an example, you have a couple techniques you're
| good at (linear programming) and a couple of problems you've
| tried to solve before but failed (fixed parameter tractable
| problems). Every time someone tells you about a problem (or you
| run into one) you try apply the thing you're good at ("will an
| LP work here"). Every time someone tells you about an approach
| they took with their problem you try it out on your thing.
|
| It all happens completely automatically/naturally/fluently if
| you're good at the technique and have actually tried to solve
| said pet problem. Like I don't need to write code or calculate
| anything because I know by now exactly where/what my blockers.
| Conversely I know very quickly when an LP is appropriate
| because I know the assumptions/requirements very well.
| lupire wrote:
| On a lay level, people think I'm a genius because I can
| finish their unfinished crossword puzzles. But they never see
| me when I fail to do a crossword puzzle from scratch myself.
| Suppafly wrote:
| I used to be amazed that my dad could finish crosswords
| when I was a kid until one time as an adult I was sitting
| across from him at the table and realized that I knew
| several of the answers that he hadn't figured out yet. I
| suspect a lot of it is generational too, where the
| questions get updated for more current events and that
| makes them more approachable for working aged adults vs the
| children or the retired class.
| BizarroLand wrote:
| A simple way to do that is to write your problems down
| somewhere where they are seen often, with a simple command at
| the top like:
|
| Solve these:
|
| or a question to kick start this like:
|
| What is the solution to these problems:
|
| You'll quickly reach the point where you are ignoring what is
| written, but the subtle visual reminder will keep a small
| portion of your mind churning away at them.
| robinhouston wrote:
| If you enjoyed this, I am sure you will enjoy Rota's funny and
| charming book _Indiscrete Thoughts_. It includes this essay,
| together with many others.
| great_wubwub wrote:
| It may be funny and charming but Amazon wants $105 for it (or
| $35 to rent the ebook) and it's nowhere to be found in my
| statewide library system.
|
| wow.
| achenet wrote:
| if you're the type of ruthless criminal who would commit
| horrific crimes like downloading a car, your diseased
| conscience may enable you to use pirate websites like library
| genesis to get it for free.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| Um... am I missing something? Legalities aside, how does
| one download a car? Is that actually a thing?
| madcaptenor wrote:
| It's a reference to this old PSA:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-pYiWGSN8w
| blipvert wrote:
| Related IT Crowd bit
|
| https://youtu.be/ALZZx1xmAzg
| almostgotcaught wrote:
| no one will ever be able to convince me that i should feel
| bad for using https://libgen.is/
| robinhouston wrote:
| I said you would enjoy it, not that you would be able to
| afford to buy it. :-)
|
| I would guess that quite a few HN readers are in the happy
| position of being able to spend $105 on an interesting book
| without suffering financial hardship as a result.
| dylan604 wrote:
| That's just how much Amazon thinks you will enjoy it. I
| mean, if something is that enjoyable, surely it's worth a
| higher monetary price tag? It's a luxury read.
| vgk7 wrote:
| Open library has it. https://openlibrary.org/books/OL22471553
| M/Indiscrete_thought...
| eleveriven wrote:
| Thank you for suggesting it!
| xanderlewis wrote:
| > After fifty minutes (one microcentury as von Neumann used to
| say)
|
| I like this. I also had to check: 100 years * 10^-6 = 52.56
| minutes.
| jeffwass wrote:
| And on a similar note :
|
| Pi seconds is a nanocentury!
| gniv wrote:
| It's a cute remark, but why is 50 minutes the right cutoff? For
| a technical talk it seems long. For an entertaining keynote it
| seems short. Movies are 90+ minutes.
| xanderlewis wrote:
| At both the universities I've attended, lectures lasted 50
| minutes. The odd few we had that were 100 had a short break
| in the middle supposedly inspired by research on how
| attention levels decay and recover over time. Conference
| talks seem to usually hover around the 60 minute mark.
|
| I find movies have become too long -- especially in recent
| years.
| meristohm wrote:
| Same here, regarding movies- we preferentially watch films
| under two hours, ideally 90-100 minutes, because that both
| fits between our child's bedtime and ours, and it's a
| better economy of time for a story in that format, rather
| than an indulgent marathon.
|
| I doubt I will ever watch Heat again, unless over a couple
| days, and unless my child wants to I won't watch the Lord
| of the Rings again (and especially not The Hobbit movies;
| that was largely a waste of time, though I will gladly read
| The Hobbit at least once more before I die).
|
| Mad Max: Fury Road (Black & Chrome version) I watched for
| the third time recently, but over two days.
|
| Engaging conversation, though? I recently had the luxury of
| time and privilege of talking for three hours straight with
| a well-read college student. Not being a high school
| teacher anymore I'm out of touch with young-adult
| perspectives, and I have so many follow-up questions now.
| 082349872349872 wrote:
| Have movies really become longer again?
|
| I consider 3+ hours indulgent (we get ice cream and beer,
| once or twice, during what used to be the reel changes
| here), but two and half hours is about right.
|
| Two hours would be my bare minimum for "feature length",
| and when I see one and half hour "films" I wonder "why was
| this not made-for-TV"?
| xanderlewis wrote:
| The Matrix (which was being shown in cinemas recently,
| remastered, for the 25th anniversary), is 2 hours and 16
| minutes. It feels like the perfect length to me.
| endofreach wrote:
| Still haven't seen some of recent movies that got
| recommended to me & that probably would like a lot.
| Because i know i just cant stop mid-movie and finish
| another day like some people can. And i can't justify
| watching a 3h movie... what a commitment... while i have
| no issue watching just one episode(... after another...
| before the sunlight screams that i am an irresponsible
| moron for binge-watching 6h during the week...)
| eleveriven wrote:
| It seems like movies have been getting longer. Streaming
| platforms has influenced movie lengths I think in some
| ways.
| tialaramex wrote:
| Humans don't do well concentrating on something for more than
| about an hour. So fifty minutes seems like a reasonable rule
| of thumb.
|
| You can improve this if you make it more varied, adding
| interactions, changing media, multiple speakers taking turns,
| that sort of thing, but having a rule of thumb helps.
|
| And it fits calendars nicely, fifty minutes per talk, ten
| minutes break between, one talk per hour.
| gniv wrote:
| > fifty minutes per talk, ten minutes break between
|
| Yes, I suspect that's the real reason.
| dylan604 wrote:
| But that break was typically how long it took to get to
| the next class. So it might have been a break from active
| brain activity (as evidenced by the brain dead decisions
| of navigating hallways/lockers), it's not a break per se.
| Maybe one was determined by the other, but I remember
| having to hustle to get from one end of campus to the
| other in those 10 minutes in a very un-break like use of
| energy
| LodeOfCode wrote:
| > I remember having to hustle to get from one end of
| campus to the other in those 10 minutes
|
| Yeah, personally I read it less as 50 minutes being some
| biological limit of human attention and more as once you
| go over people start thinking about how much longer
| you're going to be, how long it'll take to get to their
| class, weighing missing the end of this talk vs the start
| of the next one vs skipping their bathroom
| break/sprinting. Plus the added the distraction of people
| who have reached their limit getting up and squeezing
| their way past to leave.
| eleveriven wrote:
| That's why Pomodoro Technique works great..
| WalterBright wrote:
| In lectures in college, I always looked at my watch 35
| minutes in, and it was downhill from there.
| velcrovan wrote:
| Some of my favorites:
|
| nanoacre = about 4 square millimeters
|
| microfortnight = about 1.2 seconds
|
| beard-second = 5-10 nanometers (depending on who you ask), or
| the length an average beard grows in one second
| schubart wrote:
| And a light foot is a nanosecond. Think about it...
| daynthelife wrote:
| Beat me to it!
| __rito__ wrote:
| You will like this:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9eyFDBPk4Yw
| tutipop wrote:
| a light nanosecond is a foot :)
| anal_reactor wrote:
| I think the beauty of "microcentury" is that things that take
| 50 minutes indeed feel like a "microcentury"
| eleveriven wrote:
| The feeling of how long certain tasks can feel!
| dingnuts wrote:
| my mind immediately went to college classes, which were
| almost always exactly 1 microcentury
|
| perfect
| daynthelife wrote:
| Working in HFT, my favorite is 1 nanosecond [?] 1 foot
| harrison_clarke wrote:
| grace hopper would carry around nanosecond-long wires, for
| demonstrations
|
| https://youtu.be/ZR0ujwlvbkQ?si=aAj2OkbS8cj_MeGo&t=2707
| cubefox wrote:
| My favorite from What if? (xkcd):
|
| 20 miles per gallon [?] 0.1 mm2
|
| https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=1%2F%2820+mile%2Fgall
| o...
| volemo wrote:
| Also attoparsec [1] [?] 3 cm.
|
| [1]: https://youtube.com/@attoparsec
| myself248 wrote:
| Saturating 100Mbps will move about 1TB/day.
| jihadjihad wrote:
| I love GNU Units for stuff like this, it's just such a fun
| utility: You have: microcentury You want:
| minutes * 52.594877 / 0.019013259
| eleveriven wrote:
| Love that! One nanocentury - about 3.16 seconds
| kkfx wrote:
| Hum... Mine personal ones would be:
|
| - teach enough IT at the right time, a teenager MUST know enough
| to produce nicely formatted docs with graphs, tables etc, LaTeX
| level, at least with some pre-made templates, how to take notes,
| do simple computations etc on a desktop, it's the writing ability
| of today, people MUST know enough or they will suffer for the
| entire life struggling with bad tech and allowing bad tech to
| spread;
|
| - teach like universities from the start, I do no know how does
| primary schools works in the USA, here in EU they teach with
| regular assignments and continuous checks instead of pushing
| children to take notes ALONE, study in their own notes and form
| their own knowledge valuating more their memory and conformism
| than the knowledge they really have acquired;
|
| - teach without frills, I do not need slides and co, I need
| lectio magistralis who INTEREST people and makes them feel the
| passion in any subject, than test the acquired knowledge making
| your students teach a lesson on what they have learnt, that's the
| way to prove themselves what they have understood instead of
| blindly remembered;
|
| - be clear, giving real life examples you audience should have
| lived sometimes.
| thfuran wrote:
| >teach like universities from the start
|
| Do you know of any research suggesting that would be an
| effective way of teaching first graders?
| Miraltar wrote:
| I'm wondering as well, because it seems to me that it would
| just cause most children to drop school very early
| JackFr wrote:
| "Sticking Crayons Up Noses: A longitudinal study"
| screye wrote:
| Most advice for creating high achieving people is meant for
| high achieving kids of high achieving parents.
|
| Independent study is perfect when the student has a strong
| base for subject navigation and requisite enterprisingness to
| investigate by themselves.
|
| A beginners needs to be hand held, because they often don't
| know what they don't know. Keeping the cognitive load low
| helps keep the student from developing aversion foe the
| subject.
|
| I only fully grasped this when I tried to learn drums as an
| adult. Training wheels and strictly guided practice is
| essential to reach the first level of competence. You can own
| your development journey after that.
|
| Exceptions exist, and those are the geniuses. To me, a genius
| is someone who can demonstrate competence in a field, despite
| bad pedagogy. They should never be used to guide teaching
| methods for the other 99%.
| kkfx wrote:
| I suggest an old book, the Carl von Clausewitz short
| summary of his treaty on war, where he say "even an
| imbecile who understand few basic rules and apply them
| slavishly could drive an army and being seen as a war
| master", that's to say that even very modest child can
| learn if they are taught by a Teacher, while even very
| smart child without a good teacher are easily frustrated
| and dispersed by schools.
|
| A teacher who know, know how to communicate, how to
| interest his/her audience will be able to makes good
| students out of any kind of students, certainly not all
| will became luminaries, but they'll keep going anyway
| without frustration and finding their way in the society.
|
| So yes, I'm advocate to teach ALL with the teaching
| technique that works for the most skillful students in top
| schools. Some will dig, in a direction or another, some
| others not, but all learn something, while the classic
| "standard school only indoctrinate mediocrity frustrating
| the smartest and the dumbest as well, dispersing knowledge
| and only forming useful idiots
| https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/08/i-was-
| usef...
| jimhefferon wrote:
| I wonder if you have any experience in teaching at the primary
| level?
| kkfx wrote:
| No, I have not. But I help some son friends and "my" teaching
| have "made miracles" for them, switching from "under-
| performing, unable to understand" to "brilliant". Just
| interesting them, just showing them practical reasoning and
| examples and pushing them going further alone.
|
| You might like as well a book from a real teacher
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Mathematician%27s_Lament as a
| good example of the same concept.
| dotancohen wrote:
| > Be Prepared for Old Age
|
| This sums up the last two years of my life exactly. Somehow I've
| become a fixture - and I've had a hard time identifying exactly
| what happened until I read this. Spot on.
| noso wrote:
| I can relate to this experience as well. The transition catched
| me off guard. My advice would be to embrace the change while
| staying true to yourself. Live without regrets and, as Arnold
| Schwarzenegger would say, don't listen to the naysayers.
|
| I also love the fact the paper has the word "miffed", you do
| not hear this much!
| jp42 wrote:
| Over the time I can see my dad getting that feeling. He is 76,
| it took him years to make peace with that feeling. Apparently
| it's unfortunate reality that we all have to go through it.
| adamnemecek wrote:
| Gian-Carlo Rota is probably the best combinatorist of the 20th
| century.
| spennant wrote:
| Personal story: I sat in his office as an undergrad and he
| presented a problem to me concerning counting balls in boxes
| that had applications to quantum theory. It blew my freshman
| mind.
| mamonster wrote:
| Is there any coherent argument for him to be considered more
| important than Lovasz(considering that Lovasz did most of his
| heavy work in the 80s)?
| adamnemecek wrote:
| He is generally considered to be responsible for creating
| modern combinatorics.
| richrichie wrote:
| > The etiquette of old age does not seem to have been written up,
| and we have to learn it the hard way. It de- pends on a basic
| realization, which takes time to adjust to. You must realize that
| after reach- ing a certain age you are no longer viewed as a
| person. You become an institution, and you are treated the way
| institutions are treated. You are expected to behave like a piece
| of period furni- ture, an architectural landmark, or an incunab-
| ulum.
|
| This hits home hard. It is depressing to see that "boomer" is a
| derogatory term :)
| groby_b wrote:
| You _can_ avoid this. It seems (based on my experience, at
| least), a duration-of-tenure problem, not an age problem.
| Switching fields when you're heading towards "landmark" status
| does seem to do the trick. It's scary as heck, but you can
| avoid that corner for a while longer.
| teddyh wrote:
| > _Write Informative Introductions_
|
| > _Nowadays reading a mathematics paper from top to bottom is a
| rare event. If we wish our paper to be read, we had better
| provide our prospective readers with strong motivation to do so._
|
| True.
|
| > _A lengthy introduction, summarizing the history of the
| subject, giving everybody his due, and perhaps enticingly
| outlining the content of the paper in a discursive manner, will
| go some of the way towards getting us a couple of readers._
|
| That does not sound like a very good way to accomplish this.
|
| I would instead recommend the approach explained here:
|
| <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtIzMaLkCaM>
|
| (It's Larry McEnerney's lecture _The Craft of Writing
| Effectively_ )
| crazygringo wrote:
| I suppose it depends on whether you're looking for readers
| outside of your sub-sub-field, or readers within it.
|
| If you're looking for readers _outside_ your sub-sub-field,
| then it definitely sounds like a good way to me.
| teddyh wrote:
| No, I think that's a common fallacy. The lecture I linked
| uses the example of someone writing a paper to get grants,
| etc. This is not "outside your field". Other academicians in
| your field are regular people too, and _all_ readers (who are
| not your immediate teachers) will benefit from the techniques
| described.
| reaperducer wrote:
| _" In the summer of 1979, while attending a philosophy meeting in
| Pittsburgh..."_
|
| Too many people in the tech industry get tunnel vision and think
| that they should only focus on learning one thing. One
| discipline. One science. It becomes one truth. One religion.
|
| The true "smartest people in the room" are the ones who are well-
| rounded in a lot of disciplines and able to apply knowledge from
| one to another.
|
| The smartest people I know - whether they work at NASA, USC, or
| BNY Mellon - all started out in fields other than the one they
| ended up in, and bring a diversity of knowledge to what they do
| every day.
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