Even people who are naturally gifted would never come close to reaching their full potential without the education, the culture, the technology, and the opportunities that all come from the work of others. We're enmeshed in a whole web of interdependence. Each person's growth is to some extent a function of everyone else's. 🙏
YES! Math kicks my butt and I love it. But I also love the fact that I am never a master of anything. It's one of the few subjects that I know I will never master 100%. Usually, once I learn how to do something, I'm bored with it. However, math is constantly challenging me with new and different ways of doing things.
I know this book is free on project Gutenberg but Gardener adds a lot of helpful commentary plus a few good preliminary chapters. For example Thompson says to just chuck infinitesimals and moves on but Gardener explains why this is said, some history, and how the view of infinitesimals has changed since.
Sometimes I feel like people don't understand that they ARE good at something. Even math. EVERYONE is good at some type of math. They may not call it math, they call it budgeting, or perspective drawing, manipulating objects. This is the hill I am willing to die on. I like to make the students I tutor understand their strengths and weaknesses. It just gives you places to work on. My students are always shocked when they see me count on my fingers for simple arithmetic just because I have a bachelor's degree and I'm finishing my master's with a dissertation on Fuchsian groups and rendering them into 3 dimensions. I have to sit down and tell them that I am no smarter than they are. I don't like it when people think I'm super smart. My husband used to tell me I was super smart, until I explained to him that I cannot understand laws and procedures the way he does. He's super good at arithmetic and even geometry, even though he doesn't call it that. Heck, even physics students sometimes like to say they are bad at math, but they can tell me which direction electrons are flowing in a wire if you reverse the charge. Chem students are the same way. I've seen philosophy students just throw their hands up at basic algebra, but if I present them with something out of my modern algebra book, they can form a cogent argument. It all comes down to how math is really approached when students are in their formative years. It isn't always just memorization, it's logic and puzzle solving, it is so many things just under an umbrella called mathematics. Teaching students that math is everywhere gives it less of a daunting/elitest vibe.
@@allenofatlanta It's a running joke in the department.. we always ask if you can really be a math major if you don't have to use a calculator or count on our fingers for simple arithmetic.
Always hated getting stuck on maths and getting my ego crushed. Until one day I realized getting crushed is a blessing in disguise. The brick wall is waiting for you if you are lacking, its just a matter of time. At which point it is for you to decide if you want to become the unstoppable force, that cognitive monster that slams the wall and conquers.
I think this is my favorite video of yours, so far, though many are very close. One of my great life mentors told me this some 40 years ago, using almost exactly the same words. We held many conversations on the subject. He once told me that you might be the greatest at a particular talent that day, and 2 days later, but the day in between, your peer may have been. He also said, FRIENDLY competition made that a positive experience.
I think the idea that math is universally humbling is actually false to the point of being dangerous. It's very much a hidden self-aggrandizement, like when a person says, "I'm no genius, but people like that are pretty stupid!" You hide behind fake humility to still say that you think you're smarter than other people. Mathematicians, in general, don't even realize when they are looking down on other fields. The simplest and most damning example of this is the universal abuse of the word "obvious", or whatever member of the equivalence class of useless phrases that ultimately mean, "I understand it, so you should, too" or "Why don't you get this already?" Mathematicians, in general, don't seem to be aware of one simple fact - if anything mathematics discusses were obvious, mathematics would not even exist. There's be no use for mathematics, because it would all be obvious. Another fantastic example of a virtually universal statement is "Math is the foundation of science!" while ignoring that, throughout the 20th century, the physical sciences were ahead of mathematics and propelled mathematics forward. Current mathematicians ignore that biology and computer science are doing in the 21st century what physics and chemistry did in the 20th, providing entire classes of problems that mathematics fails to define, let alone offer insight into how to solve. Don't even get me started on the social sciences - the mathematics of Social Choice continue to confound the greatest mathematic minds we have! Equivalents include things like "If you learn math, you can be an engineer/data scientist/accountant/etc.," or "theory always comes before application." Another one that's pretty common among mathematicians is insisting that the problems in mathematics are simply more difficult than other fields. I don't think there's any mathematics problem as remotely difficult as deciding something as completely common in the humanities as deciding an appropriate punishment for a criminal, or the best way to deal with radicalism/extremism, or how to address the need for welfare without inevitably overburdening the young and working class, or how to avoid war, or how to deal with the negative aspects of the human condition, or any of the completely mundane topics humanities students regularly cover. You know - the problems whose answers have eluded us for virtually all of human history, despite most of intellectual history being dedicated to attempts to solve them. All of these things are said totally straight face, with no irony or sarcasm, not even meant as a jab or banter - these are simply facts to the vast majority of mathematicians. These things are said as though they were observing the color of the sky. They are "obvious". So, no, I don't think that mathematics is so difficult it is universally humbling. I think I have met very few mathematicians of any particular experience with the field that have managed to escape this form of hidden self-aggrandizement. Fewer still have realized that mathematics is just another thing you can study, not any better or any worse than any other field of study.
But no one is comparing math with other sciences here. Why can't all sciences be very difficult? Why can't all sciences be universally humbling? It seems you are just going from one extreme, which doesn't exist in this channel afaik, to another.
Also, "math is the foundation of science" means you can't do other sciences without mathematics. I don't deny that sometimes other sciences helped to grow math. But sooner or later, eventually you can do math without other sciences.
@@NarynbekGilman You can do other sciences without mathematics, unless you're going to claim that the scientific method and logic itself are owned by mathematics (another thing I have heard mathematicians claim), something that is provably false. The "everything is really just applied math!" argument is another example of what I'm talking about. If I tell a mathematician that mathematics is just applied philosophy, they (justly) take offense at writing off their entire field. And none of that addresses your convenient use of "sometimes". Contemporary mathematics owes its existence, almost entirely, to those lowly applied mathematicians, physicists, and engineers, especially during the Cold War. It is not "sometimes", it is "literally constantly, as the principle force driving mathematics forward".
Great video. !! I also own the book you showed, it helped me a lot with partial fractions and it was a very interesting read overall. Contrary to what other people in the comments have said, I do thing that math is very humbling assuming you have the necessary self-reflection to understand that everyone in math has to work hard not just oneself and that it is difficult for anyone even to those who seem to have an easy time. I see this type of elitism a lot in my country where many people and even professors in math departments have this fixed mindset that you have to have some innate talent to study math other natural sciences when its just a way of boosting their own ego.
It will kick your backside, but it is super rewarding. Are you specializing in theoretical, applied, or financial? One of my B.S's is in applied mathematics. I'm getting my master's in applied mathematics, but my dissertation is on something theoretical because it was a topic that I absolutely have been fascinated by.
@@louise1700 Applied math can be just as competitive and finance can be worse. It all depends on the environment the school and the professors foster. Most of my professors are pretty laid back, and even when there is competition, they don't let us forget that we are all in the class together. The med fields at my school are a lot more cut throat among the students just because of the limited spaces.
I think hard work is enough to propel you into being reasonably good at math provided you don't have any learning deficiencies. No matter the hobby, there will always be someone better than you. One of the points of learning something IMO is to expand your knowledge, it should never be to try to best everyone. Managing your ego can be hard, I've personally been there.
Even though I'm not passionate about maths, but I am good at maths and always felt at ease while doing maths... Make it make sense.... Probably cause it is purely logic and deductive.... Unlike the subject of chemistry which I hate to the bone. I'm more into applied maths... Coz theoretical maths is boring for me.
I think a big elitist thing is that... Math people gatekeeps the title "mathematician". They wouldn't consider working with math to qualify you to be a mathematician, but rather, you need to publish novel research that is significant enough for people to take notice. I think that's very elitist. Imo, like with ANY education, if you work with it you obtain the title. People who study mathematics aren't elitist though, I'd say, but quite nice people.
Quick question, when you said that you hit a wall in math because the difficulty increased, when did that happen for you? Was it in grad school or as an undergrad? I know that the beginning of proof based mathematics is difficult for a lot of people, but I’m guessing the material in grad school is where you’d hit that point of “I don’t know what is going on”. I’d also be curious about other people’s experience with this.
Ironically, whilst math people are very elitist sometimes, mathematics itself is one of the most humbling things out there. Even the cocky John Nash would have to keep his 'ego' aside for math problems haha.
We will control the horizontal. We will control the vertical. We can roll the image, make it flutter. We can change the focus to a soft blur, or sharpen it to crystal clarity. For the next hour, sit quietly and we will control all that you see and hear.
It seems that elitism takes place when complacency replaces effort and improvement. Everyone reaches a certain level of a given skill and eventually plateaus. Some people have certain configurations and tendencies that give them a greater advantage than others with a given skill. (Read More) The difference is, people who aren't elitist, or at least have a lesser tendency of being elitist, are those who seek new challenges and experiences, and thereby make themselves novices again of a new subject. When you're a novice, you're (generally) made humble again, and can better empathize or sympathize with those in a similar position. People who are elitist often adopt a mentality that they've reached a pinnacle and don't want to share with anyone else and/or consider themselves more valuable than others. There are different factors that contribute to it, but I think one of the biggest is complacency. When you stop learning, stop growing, stop improving or refining yourself in some way, you become complacent, and your thoughts tend to become more selfish and less contributory. To be fair, sometimes people undergo trauma, and that can lead to protective narcissism and hostile behavior because their minds want to protect themselves. But in the general sense, complacency appears to be a root of elitism. So to help avoid it, always find ways to challenge yourself, and make yourself a better person.
WHOA, I'll need to collect myself and take a deep breath before I'm able to reply to this properly. Wow. Double effin' wow. I'm honored. Double effin' honored.
I strongly disagree with the statement from the commentator. Take for example the president of the US. The Secret Service would not spend millions of dollars to protect the President from threats, if the importance of his position was the same as that of an ordinary worker. Nevertheless, you can make an argument, that each life has a value and should be treated with respect, but it is wrong to say, that every role is equally important.
Even people who are naturally gifted would never come close to reaching their full potential without the education, the culture, the technology, and the opportunities that all come from the work of others. We're enmeshed in a whole web of interdependence. Each person's growth is to some extent a function of everyone else's. 🙏
The fact that math is so humbling, is what makes me love it so much.
YES! Math kicks my butt and I love it. But I also love the fact that I am never a master of anything. It's one of the few subjects that I know I will never master 100%. Usually, once I learn how to do something, I'm bored with it. However, math is constantly challenging me with new and different ways of doing things.
I know this book is free on project Gutenberg but Gardener adds a lot of helpful commentary plus a few good preliminary chapters. For example Thompson says to just chuck infinitesimals and moves on but Gardener explains why this is said, some history, and how the view of infinitesimals has changed since.
Sometimes I feel like people don't understand that they ARE good at something. Even math. EVERYONE is good at some type of math. They may not call it math, they call it budgeting, or perspective drawing, manipulating objects. This is the hill I am willing to die on. I like to make the students I tutor understand their strengths and weaknesses. It just gives you places to work on. My students are always shocked when they see me count on my fingers for simple arithmetic just because I have a bachelor's degree and I'm finishing my master's with a dissertation on Fuchsian groups and rendering them into 3 dimensions. I have to sit down and tell them that I am no smarter than they are. I don't like it when people think I'm super smart. My husband used to tell me I was super smart, until I explained to him that I cannot understand laws and procedures the way he does. He's super good at arithmetic and even geometry, even though he doesn't call it that. Heck, even physics students sometimes like to say they are bad at math, but they can tell me which direction electrons are flowing in a wire if you reverse the charge. Chem students are the same way. I've seen philosophy students just throw their hands up at basic algebra, but if I present them with something out of my modern algebra book, they can form a cogent argument. It all comes down to how math is really approached when students are in their formative years. It isn't always just memorization, it's logic and puzzle solving, it is so many things just under an umbrella called mathematics. Teaching students that math is everywhere gives it less of a daunting/elitest vibe.
@Coffee Confessor, your affliction seems to be common. I am able to do the algebra. However, I have difficulty adding and subtracting figures.
great comment!
@@allenofatlanta It's a running joke in the department.. we always ask if you can really be a math major if you don't have to use a calculator or count on our fingers for simple arithmetic.
Always hated getting stuck on maths and getting my ego crushed.
Until one day I realized getting crushed is a blessing in disguise.
The brick wall is waiting for you if you are lacking, its just a matter of time.
At which point it is for you to decide if you want to become the unstoppable force, that cognitive monster that slams the wall and conquers.
I think this is my favorite video of yours, so far, though many are very close.
One of my great life mentors told me this some 40 years ago, using almost exactly the same words. We held many conversations on the subject.
He once told me that you might be the greatest at a particular talent that day, and 2 days later, but the day in between, your peer may have been. He also said, FRIENDLY competition made that a positive experience.
I think the idea that math is universally humbling is actually false to the point of being dangerous. It's very much a hidden self-aggrandizement, like when a person says, "I'm no genius, but people like that are pretty stupid!" You hide behind fake humility to still say that you think you're smarter than other people. Mathematicians, in general, don't even realize when they are looking down on other fields. The simplest and most damning example of this is the universal abuse of the word "obvious", or whatever member of the equivalence class of useless phrases that ultimately mean, "I understand it, so you should, too" or "Why don't you get this already?" Mathematicians, in general, don't seem to be aware of one simple fact - if anything mathematics discusses were obvious, mathematics would not even exist. There's be no use for mathematics, because it would all be obvious.
Another fantastic example of a virtually universal statement is "Math is the foundation of science!" while ignoring that, throughout the 20th century, the physical sciences were ahead of mathematics and propelled mathematics forward. Current mathematicians ignore that biology and computer science are doing in the 21st century what physics and chemistry did in the 20th, providing entire classes of problems that mathematics fails to define, let alone offer insight into how to solve. Don't even get me started on the social sciences - the mathematics of Social Choice continue to confound the greatest mathematic minds we have! Equivalents include things like "If you learn math, you can be an engineer/data scientist/accountant/etc.," or "theory always comes before application."
Another one that's pretty common among mathematicians is insisting that the problems in mathematics are simply more difficult than other fields. I don't think there's any mathematics problem as remotely difficult as deciding something as completely common in the humanities as deciding an appropriate punishment for a criminal, or the best way to deal with radicalism/extremism, or how to address the need for welfare without inevitably overburdening the young and working class, or how to avoid war, or how to deal with the negative aspects of the human condition, or any of the completely mundane topics humanities students regularly cover. You know - the problems whose answers have eluded us for virtually all of human history, despite most of intellectual history being dedicated to attempts to solve them.
All of these things are said totally straight face, with no irony or sarcasm, not even meant as a jab or banter - these are simply facts to the vast majority of mathematicians. These things are said as though they were observing the color of the sky. They are "obvious".
So, no, I don't think that mathematics is so difficult it is universally humbling. I think I have met very few mathematicians of any particular experience with the field that have managed to escape this form of hidden self-aggrandizement. Fewer still have realized that mathematics is just another thing you can study, not any better or any worse than any other field of study.
I love this comment. This is a very humbling comment for mathematicians.
But no one is comparing math with other sciences here. Why can't all sciences be very difficult? Why can't all sciences be universally humbling? It seems you are just going from one extreme, which doesn't exist in this channel afaik, to another.
Also, "math is the foundation of science" means you can't do other sciences without mathematics. I don't deny that sometimes other sciences helped to grow math. But sooner or later, eventually you can do math without other sciences.
I think it seems that way because a lot of people say they are bad at math. So it seems more difficult.
@@NarynbekGilman You can do other sciences without mathematics, unless you're going to claim that the scientific method and logic itself are owned by mathematics (another thing I have heard mathematicians claim), something that is provably false. The "everything is really just applied math!" argument is another example of what I'm talking about. If I tell a mathematician that mathematics is just applied philosophy, they (justly) take offense at writing off their entire field.
And none of that addresses your convenient use of "sometimes". Contemporary mathematics owes its existence, almost entirely, to those lowly applied mathematicians, physicists, and engineers, especially during the Cold War. It is not "sometimes", it is "literally constantly, as the principle force driving mathematics forward".
We find your videos helpful and informative. Keep up the good work. God bless you and your channel.
I keep coming back to this video. It reminds me of what I do not want to become.
Great video. !! I also own the book you showed, it helped me a lot with partial fractions and it was a very interesting read overall. Contrary to what other people in the comments have said, I do thing that math is very humbling assuming you have the necessary self-reflection to understand that everyone in math has to work hard not just oneself and that it is difficult for anyone even to those who seem to have an easy time.
I see this type of elitism a lot in my country where many people and even professors in math departments have this fixed mindset that you have to have some innate talent to study math other natural sciences when its just a way of boosting their own ego.
I think that a monocle should be approximating a perfect cylinder more than mass production is content with.
This is so true😭 I am a math major and this is so painful to realize.
It will kick your backside, but it is super rewarding. Are you specializing in theoretical, applied, or financial? One of my B.S's is in applied mathematics. I'm getting my master's in applied mathematics, but my dissertation is on something theoretical because it was a topic that I absolutely have been fascinated by.
@@louise1700 Applied math can be just as competitive and finance can be worse. It all depends on the environment the school and the professors foster. Most of my professors are pretty laid back, and even when there is competition, they don't let us forget that we are all in the class together. The med fields at my school are a lot more cut throat among the students just because of the limited spaces.
I think hard work is enough to propel you into being reasonably good at math provided you don't have any learning deficiencies.
No matter the hobby, there will always be someone better than you.
One of the points of learning something IMO is to expand your knowledge, it should never be to try to best everyone.
Managing your ego can be hard, I've personally been there.
Even though I'm not passionate about maths, but I am good at maths and always felt at ease while doing maths... Make it make sense....
Probably cause it is purely logic and deductive.... Unlike the subject of chemistry which I hate to the bone.
I'm more into applied maths... Coz theoretical maths is boring for me.
Math Sorcerer goes all Film noir!
I think a big elitist thing is that... Math people gatekeeps the title "mathematician". They wouldn't consider working with math to qualify you to be a mathematician, but rather, you need to publish novel research that is significant enough for people to take notice.
I think that's very elitist. Imo, like with ANY education, if you work with it you obtain the title.
People who study mathematics aren't elitist though, I'd say, but quite nice people.
Quick question, when you said that you hit a wall in math because the difficulty increased, when did that happen for you? Was it in grad school or as an undergrad? I know that the beginning of proof based mathematics is difficult for a lot of people, but I’m guessing the material in grad school is where you’d hit that point of “I don’t know what is going on”. I’d also be curious about other people’s experience with this.
I often use my phone in Black in white mode, so not so much new stuff to me😅
Wow, I have the same book on the same bookstand...
do I need a marker board to learn math myself? or paper is better? what about blackboard?
Ironically, whilst math people are very elitist sometimes, mathematics itself is one of the most humbling things out there. Even the cocky John Nash would have to keep his 'ego' aside for math problems haha.
But not every elites are Math people
This video is black and white, but not Manichean. That's all I got....
Math People are Elitist Part 3: The author assumes you know nothing at all and makes it a point to write the biggest math book in history.
Lol
Just this title statement is worth every Math lover to subscribe this channel!😄👍
We will control the horizontal. We will control the vertical. We can roll the image, make it flutter. We can change the focus to a soft blur, or sharpen it to crystal clarity. For the next hour, sit quietly and we will control all that you see and hear.
It seems that elitism takes place when complacency replaces effort and improvement. Everyone reaches a certain level of a given skill and eventually plateaus. Some people have certain configurations and tendencies that give them a greater advantage than others with a given skill. (Read More)
The difference is, people who aren't elitist, or at least have a lesser tendency of being elitist, are those who seek new challenges and experiences, and thereby make themselves novices again of a new subject. When you're a novice, you're (generally) made humble again, and can better empathize or sympathize with those in a similar position.
People who are elitist often adopt a mentality that they've reached a pinnacle and don't want to share with anyone else and/or consider themselves more valuable than others. There are different factors that contribute to it, but I think one of the biggest is complacency. When you stop learning, stop growing, stop improving or refining yourself in some way, you become complacent, and your thoughts tend to become more selfish and less contributory.
To be fair, sometimes people undergo trauma, and that can lead to protective narcissism and hostile behavior because their minds want to protect themselves.
But in the general sense, complacency appears to be a root of elitism.
So to help avoid it, always find ways to challenge yourself, and make yourself a better person.
Good comment
Nice
WHOA, I'll need to collect myself and take a deep breath before I'm able to reply to this properly. Wow. Double effin' wow. I'm honored. Double effin' honored.
LOL wow it's you!! I didn't think you would notice or anything haha. That's so cool:)
@@TheMathSorcerer I wouldn't if another commenter (Jaya Prakash) hadn't ratted you out. ;-P
Smart bear 87
Disagree...Einstein, Hilbert, scientists making breakthroughs to cure diseases, etc...are pretty important!
I strongly disagree with the statement from the commentator. Take for example the president of the US. The Secret Service would not spend millions of dollars to protect the President from threats, if the importance of his position was the same as that of an ordinary worker. Nevertheless, you can make an argument, that each life has a value and should be treated with respect, but it is wrong to say, that every role is equally important.
I know a lot of people good with their hands. I like to think I’m analytical
Math is very humbling
First :)
:)
Los videos en blanco y negro son elitistas.
Jajaja! Estilo Nouvelle Vague! Pero en este caso no fue elitista porque fue accidental.
Wtf Ur racist!!!
jajajajajaja
math people have standards in a world were everyone wants validation