- This article can be found at phyorg.com and this excerpt discusses a prejudice about cs that i've heard before.
(To clarify, the article seems to be in a Q & A format, but there are no Q's or A's anywhere. The responses are from Bernard Chazelle, professor of computer science at Princeton University.)
comment if you like; i still haven't formed an opinion about this one. - Princeton professor foresees computer science revolution
.. Computer science is not just about gaming, not just about the Internet. Computer science theory offers a profound window through which to view the world. Computing promises to be the most disruptive scientific paradigm since quantum mechanics. It will transform society in profound way.
Isn't computer science really just a stepchild of mathematics?
As the recent breakthroughs on Fermat's Last Theorem indicate, the field of mathematics has never been more fertile with new ideas. Mathematics is original and deep, but it does not force you to think differently. If a math giant from the past –- someone like Gauss – were to come back to Earth, he would have a lot of catching up to do but he would find that math is done much the same way that it was done during his life.
i expect some outrage from a few mathematicians about that line. under a particular interpretation, it almost sounds insulting.- Computer science, by contrast, is a new way of thinking, a new way of looking at things. For example, mathematics can't come near to describing the complexity of human endeavors in the way that computer science can. To make a literary analogy, mathematics produces the equivalent of one-liners – equations that are pithy, insightful, brilliant. Computer science is more like a novel by Tolstoy: it is messy and infuriatingly complex. But that is exactly what makes it unique and appealing -- computer algorithms are infinitely more capable of capturing nuances of complex reality in a way that pure mathematics cannot.
.. An algorithm is not a simple mathematical formula. It is a set of rules that govern a complex operation. You can look at Google as a giant algorithm. Or you can think of an economy or an ecological system as an algorithm in action.- i'm curious what prof. chazelle thinks "mathematics" is.
- Computer science, by contrast, is a new way of thinking, a new way of looking at things. For example, mathematics can't come near to describing the complexity of human endeavors in the way that computer science can. To make a literary analogy, mathematics produces the equivalent of one-liners – equations that are pithy, insightful, brilliant. Computer science is more like a novel by Tolstoy: it is messy and infuriatingly complex. But that is exactly what makes it unique and appealing -- computer algorithms are infinitely more capable of capturing nuances of complex reality in a way that pure mathematics cannot.
the title of the next article isn't what you think it means, but i admit, it spurred me to read it. you can find it on the new scientist website.- Hand waving boosts mathematics learning
Gestures that complement rather than simply illustrate verbal instructions can boost children's ability to complete problems in mathematics, researchers report.
.. Goldin-Meadow and her colleagues gave 160 children between the ages of eight and 10 a set of mathematical problems to solve. The students were randomly assigned to receive either verbal instructions alone or also with gestures. Those in the latter group either received gestures that copied or complemented the spoken guidance.
.. Children who saw the complementary gestures did best, solving three of the four addition problems correctly, on average. By comparison, those children who witnessed simple illustrative gestures typically solved fewer than two of the problems correctly. And students who received only verbal instructions solved only one of the four problems correctly, on average.- thinking naïvely about this, i suppose this method could help the learning process by incorporating a more visual method of understanding arithmetic. then again, teaching is subjective: can you really incorporate gestures and cues without changing other things in the lesson? were the examples done in class the same?
murky waters. such is the brain, and it amazes me how much we can learn. - thinking naïvely about this, i suppose this method could help the learning process by incorporating a more visual method of understanding arithmetic. then again, teaching is subjective: can you really incorporate gestures and cues without changing other things in the lesson? were the examples done in class the same?
Saturday, February 18, 2006
article post.
i found these off the blogs of a few online acquaintances i've beFriended on livejournal. one of them concerns computer science, and both are on "science" news archives.
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2 comments:
1) Chazelle gave this speech at a meeting of American Association for the Advancement of Science. Obviously, he used a Powerpoint or its equivalent. The text published at physorg.com was probably extracted directly from a .ppt file.
2) Hmm, so nonverbal communication is a part of teaching? Who would have thought..
regarding the gesturing
:) i second the duh for (2) (if that's what it was) although i guess it's nice to quantify things with studies, whatever they're worth. but in the actual example described in the article, it feels a little like cheating! "scooping" away the five sounds like a major clue. i guess would apply to "math" in the sense of those easy QR problems we always hope for, where the puzzle is in interpreting the problem and the math part isn't hard. but in any case, if i were faced with a problem and a person hiding from me the answer, i know i'll look for clues anywhere--how they ask the question, hand gestures, intonations, whatever.
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