Math and Science....

[steve-potocin.livejournal.com]

One of our education system's biggest problems is that there is not enough emphasis on the Maths and Sciences.....America is falling behind in the world because our students are not gaining the necessary knowledge in these fields....

Too much emphasis on useless book learnin and abstruse theories and nto enough on PRACTICAL skills....students shoudl learn about the greatness of the Capitalist system, why Marxism is evil and Socialism doesn't work, how to invest in the stock market, balance their finances...and so on....

Arts and Humanities programs should be defunded since many teachers in those fields only fill students minds with revisionist histories and make them hate their country.....in addition,the skills learned in those fields are not as important as those of MATH and SCIENCE,which are the wave of the future....

Most academics can't even fix a doorknob....and yet they want to advocate for socialism....most of the socialists who support Obama have never ran a business....never done payroll,none of it...

Comments

[dv8nation.livejournal.com]

Remeber, kids, if it don't keep the cash flowin it ain't worth knowin'!

Now get out your copies of "The Fountainhead."

[steve-potocin.livejournal.com]

HA!....ask your average college graduate how far a Liberal Arts degree takes em....useless subjects.

[op-tech-glitch.livejournal.com]

One of our education system's biggest problems is

students shoudl learn

most of the socialists who support Obama have never ran

Ah Steve-O, how we missed ya.

[jerseycajun.livejournal.com]

You continue to give credence to the idea that you're the result of an auto-meme program. Not one word of any of this has that ring to it that tells me an authentic person writes these posts.

I swear it's either that or you're actually some kind of bored progressive trying to play the role of an over-the-top conservative for yuks on slow nights.

[mrbogey.livejournal.com]

http://community.livejournal.com/talk_politics/477769.html?thread=34016841#t34016841

[telemann.livejournal.com]

Your spelling sucks hairy donkey testicles; and you have the nerve to whine about colleges?

[steve-potocin.livejournal.com]

HA! way to edit your typo there bucko....learn the difference between Your and You're

[silver-chipmunk.livejournal.com]

The problem with the educational system is that it doesn't spend enough time on history. It's pathetic what kids don't learn about history. Like the real results of unbridled capitalism.

BTW, I'm a wooly liberal librarian, and I can fix a doorknob just fine, thank you. And rewire a lamp, replace a phone jack, and all sorts of useful things. Many of them I learned by reading books.

[root-fu.livejournal.com]

Lead the way, steve_potocin!

Write a nice post for us about math and science! Show us what we've been missing!

[dv8nation.livejournal.com]

It's not nice to mock peope who are...special.

[allhatnocattle.livejournal.com]

Courses in doing taxes are overdue

[dv8nation.livejournal.com]

Doing taxes isn't that hard. It's a pain in the ass, but it's not especially hard.

[chipuni.livejournal.com]

Hah.

Pure mathematics is among the least useful disciplines. Pure mathematics has no necessary relation to reality -- to anything except itself. It's nearly the definition of "book learning", or "abstruce theories".

Arts and humanities programs at least teach people how to communicate.

[x-eleven.livejournal.com]

That's not true. Mathematics certainly does have a necessary relation to reality since it is the product of reality. Being a product of reality, it may be used to model other aspects of reality. How accurate your results are depends on how accurate your methods are.

A good example of that is Quaternions (more precise) versus the Heaviside/Gibbs Simplification (less precise).

Q= a + jb + kc + ld -- Where:

a, b, c, and d are real numbers, and where:
j ≠ k ≠ l And

j² = k² = l² = jkl = -1

Or alternatively:

Q= (a, V)

Being that this is a four dimensional entity consisting of a scalar and a vector, the Quaternion more accurately models the reality of a four dimensional space/time. When applied to a practical problem, Maxwell's Equations:

Q_E= (0, E) Electric field
Q_B= (0, B) Magnetic field
Q_O= (∂/∂t, &nabla) Operator

Go through the calculations, and your results are pretty much what you'd expect:

∇ * B= 0 (No magnetic point "charges", for every "N" there must be an "S")
∇ * E= ρ (Electric charges exist)
&nabla X E= ∂B/∂t (Time varying magnetic fields give rise to electric fields)
∇ X B= J + ∂E/∂t (AC gives rise to magnetic fields)

The last one is interesting, in that it is often called Ampere's Circuital Law with Maxwell's Correction. It's that last term that Maxwell added without any mathematical justification because he realized that displacement (i.e. capacitive) currents must also contribute to the resulting magnetic field. Of course, Maxwell had to do many calculations for each direction in the 3-D coordinates, since vector math wasn't so highly developed in those days. You also won't get that result from the H-G Simplification either. However, it drops right out if you use Quaternions to attack the problem. There's no need to add a correction at all.

Rowan Hamilton understood this perfectly, however, the idgits of the mid-19^th century couldn't wrap their tiny little minds around the concept of a four dimensional space/time, and that's why you probably never heard of Quaternions. When Heaviside and Gibbs proposed their simplified vector algebra, everyone heaved a big sigh of relief now that they didn't have to worry about Hamilton's Quaternions and their implication for the nature of space and time.

Mathematical exercises that at first glance appear "abstruse" -- such as the proof of Fermat's last theorem -- lead to other proofs and methods that do have practical applications.

Hate to break it to you...

[mrsilence.livejournal.com]

...but the more highly educated a person is in Mathematics and Science, the more likely that they are to be a liberal.

See, if you had taken the time to learn some non-practical things in your life, you might already know that.

Re: Hate to break it to you...

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

[citation needed]

[anfalicious.livejournal.com]

The reason the US education system is comparable with Mexico is largely because the dumbing down teaching "practical skills" you advocate. But then, your proclivity to spout nonsense solutions to imaginary problems based on fallible ideas suggests that you are exemplary of the problems in the education system; you have an opinion, and if you say it loudest it makes you most right.

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

No, it's actually because of "teaching to the test" rather than actually teaching so that students learn.

[new-wave-witch.livejournal.com]

Vocation over intellect. Yeah, that sounds like a plan rooted in success.

[chemchick.livejournal.com]

LOL that macro!

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

I know maffs right. And I'm a bloody pinko commie. Go fig.
Btw my spell-checker just went asplode.

[futurebird.livejournal.com]

math major?

[ddstory.livejournal.com]

I love it when you pwn yourself like that.

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

seconded

[tridus.livejournal.com]

Oh boy, it's this guy again.

[headhouse.livejournal.com]

Why is it one priority vs the other? Teach them both. A fundamental understanding of the sciences can easily intertwine with a deep appreciation of (or production of) creativity.

[kenderkin.livejournal.com]

This. :)

I don't understand why the two can't be taught equally well. Personally, I was a lover of Math in HS and then changed to learning about Literature and Philosophy in college. Now I'm back to Math & Science.

I also see students graduating from college not really knowing much about either subject (M.S. or L.A.) ~sigh~

[malasadas.livejournal.com]

[jellomarx.livejournal.com]

There is more to life then making a living. Learning about Shakespeare, Mozart, Picasso helps a young mind learn how to think. Not be robotic.

[girlspell.livejournal.com]

I work at a university. Math and science majors are a minority here. And have been for a long time. All natural sciences are. So I don't think they are they are the wave of the future. They are being replaced by computer science and computer engineering. New technology in the US and around the world are the wave and will be for a long time. Kids have a toy in front of them (the computer and variations of it) and want future jobs to play with it. Humanities are a minority too. Kids aren't stupid. They want jobs when they walk out the door.

[eracerhead.livejournal.com]

I suppose many people completely missed the "satire" tag in your post.

[iamthemythos.livejournal.com]

I didn't, but I wasn't positive he knew what "satire" meant.

[pmax3.livejournal.com]

While everything that people have said above is true, and arts education is very important for understanding advanced science and maths, and is fulfilling on its own, it is not the least bit isolated from money making enterprises. For example the B-school I study in has an entire course called Indian Philosophy for Leadership Excellence.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

In lieu of the brutal and ugly statement I was going to say, I'm just going to say this-Go on worshiping at the altar of Houston Stuart Chamberlain, you Hitler-lover.

[kinvore.livejournal.com]

You, sir, are the poster child of the failure of our educational system, so it's fitting that you post this. Tell you what, maybe we'd do a better job of teaching science if wingnuts would stop trying to teach their religion as science.

[geezer-also.livejournal.com]

I knew it, it's the fundies fault!

[kardashev.livejournal.com]

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

heh, i approve this macro