[Blindmath] intro

[qubit]

Hi Andrew -- love your definition of math...   Numeracy  is a good 
description of what is taught in public schools, and I would go further to 
say that math as you describe should be introduced in bits and pieces 
earlier in the education process so the very abstractness of it doesn't 
shock students when they get to the "real math" courses in college.  Now I 
have to sit back and think how that should be done...
As for me, I was good at "numeracy", but had never seen anything like 
abstract algebra before my freshman year in college. I confess I remember 
working pretty hard to wrap my brain around it, spending hours on homework 
for every class to keep my grade up -- then at the final looking back and 
wondering what the problem was as it all looked easy in hindsight. 
Interesting exercise.  I wonder how some of that could be spread out into 
earlier schooling.
Happy pattern matching.
--le

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Andrew Stacey" <andrew.stacey at math.ntnu.no>
To: "Blind Math list for those interested in mathematics" 
<blindmath at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Monday, November 23, 2009 2:07 AM
Subject: Re: [Blindmath] intro


Hi,

First up, I'm a sighted mathematician.  So I can't say anything about the 
hows
and how-nots of doing mathematics with partial sight or no sight.  However,
a couple of things in this exchange have made me want to chip in from my
perspective as a mathematician.

1. To get this out of the way, LaTeX is a typesetting system which is very
well suited to writing mathematics.  However, it is like a programming
language and so when you read it, you almost never read the actual source: 
you
read a compiled version.  From what I've read on this mailing list, it seems
that if what you need is not available in a suitable format then it can be
useful to get hold of the LaTeX source and read that.  However, I would hope
that there were suitable texts for you at the level that you describe so 
that
you don't need to worry about LaTeX yet.  To give some context, I didn't 
start
using LaTeX until my third year of undergraduate studies.

2. Let me say this very loudly.

      Mathematics is not taught in school.

What is taught in school is numeracy, not mathematics.  Occasionally there 
are
glimpses of what is real mathematics, but for the most part it's pure and
simple numeracy.  Mathematics is about spotting patterns and seeing
connections.  Mathematics is the science of ideas: we invent a game, lay out
the rules, and then simply play it to see what happens.  What, perhaps,
separates us out from other subjects is that when we play a game then we 
play
strictly by the rules: we never break them.  On the other hand, we do our 
best
to circumvent them.  (I should say that we also have no problem inventing 
and
adding new rules: if we see some behaviour that we don't like then we say 
"New
rule!  No huffing above the diagonal."  However, then we have a new game and
we don't pretend that the old game is the same as the new game.)

As well as what you are doing, I would recommend getting copies of the books
by Martin Gardner.  He used to write columns for Scientific American on
mathematical ideas.  All of the ones that I've read have been accessible to
almost anyone and all are about simply playing with ideas.  I find that an
excellent introduction to what mathematics really is, rather than what is
taught.

Lastly on this point, I didn't find mathematics particularly interesting 
until
my third year of undergraduate.  And I was doing a mathematics degree (that
is, 100% mathematics - I was in the UK where, unlike the US, you don't 
"major"
in a subject, you do just that subject).

Andrew

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