Last week I gave a "generalist" talk on math at our place. I included Marilyn
on my list of "mathematicians you should know", this so I could talk about her
correct treatment of the Monty Hall Problem and also for her (boneheaded)
criticism when Wiles proved the Fermat Theorem.
To older students, when I discuss a rationale for studying math I include "not
cutting off future options." Of course, there are much better humanistic
reasons which expand on Marilyn's.
geo d
harper college
Phil Mahler wrote:
>
> >From today's Newspaper in the Ask Marilyn, Marilyn vos Savant column. Nice
> to see this in the popular press - that's more important than the actual
> question.
>
> Of course maybe someone has a better answer to Sandy's original question.
>
> Phil Mahler
> Middlesex CC
> Springs Road
> Bedford, MA
>
> Here's a question from my 83 fifth-grade math students, who keep asking me
> what your answer is: "in real life, when would you ever multiply (or
> divide, for that matter) two negative numbers?" The closest I've come up
> with is, "if you didn't get what you didn't want, that's positive."
>
> -Sandy Hindy, Westlake Village, Calif.
>
> Forget this kind of justification for studying math. It's as irrelevant as
> asking a question like, "In real life, when would you ever do a sit-up?"
> Unless you work as a trainer, you wouldn't. That doesn't mean you should
> complain about doing sit-ups as part of physical conditioning.
>
> People need to be in good intellectual condition too. Even if you're not
> going to make heavy use of math in your profession, you still need to know
> how to think logically. Tell the kids I said that studying math
> accomplishes two goals: It prepares some kids to think like scientists,
> and it prepares all the rest of them to think, period.
>
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