I think it's important to maintain a distinction between the syntax needed to actively do math, and that needed to passively visualize it. Of course these types of visualizations are great, but people aren't going to be solving differential equations on their iPads anytime soon...
It's a tall drink of water to say you're going to 'kill math' if really, all that is happening is a divergence from the so-called 'interface'. I think that interface is vastly more relevant than visualizations when it comes to understanding how to think an equation through, and just as importantly understand why arriving at a certain answer matters.
I'm not sure I'm too thrilled about this idea, but perhaps I'm misunderstanding it.
analyzing a differential equation without exploring it in phase space was like analyzing a piece of sheet music without actually hearing it.
Terrible analogy, since most musicians do this all the time. It's called sight reading, and it's a very valuable skill to have. (citation: former concert trombone player)
The vision behind this (I think) is to make math accessible to common man by taking away the abstract nature of teaching and understanding math theorems.
Human brain responds to associations that explain things using something you can relate to or easily visualize. The archaic nature of math doesn't lend itself to do that unfortunately. The variable 'x' is just a made up concept with no grounding in realism. Data visualization on the other hand triggers human brain to make association, therefore making it easier to understand math.
This reminds me a bit of some of the "visual mathematics" ideas from the 70s, associated with mathematicans like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Abraham and with some computer artists
I think it's more like scaffolding. After a while you find the symbols are just fine but why have such a steep barrier to entry? Fell-man wasnt too happy with Feynman diagrams - he hated them for ,bringing computation to the masses,.
I think learning maths visually would greatly increase the pool of future math-literates in the world. Not all of us want to be professors at a university
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[ 2.0 ms ] story [ 23.1 ms ] threadI think it's important to maintain a distinction between the syntax needed to actively do math, and that needed to passively visualize it. Of course these types of visualizations are great, but people aren't going to be solving differential equations on their iPads anytime soon...
It's a tall drink of water to say you're going to 'kill math' if really, all that is happening is a divergence from the so-called 'interface'. I think that interface is vastly more relevant than visualizations when it comes to understanding how to think an equation through, and just as importantly understand why arriving at a certain answer matters.
I'm not sure I'm too thrilled about this idea, but perhaps I'm misunderstanding it.
Also: From the ideator's own blog (http://worrydream.com/KillMath/):
analyzing a differential equation without exploring it in phase space was like analyzing a piece of sheet music without actually hearing it.
Terrible analogy, since most musicians do this all the time. It's called sight reading, and it's a very valuable skill to have. (citation: former concert trombone player)
Human brain responds to associations that explain things using something you can relate to or easily visualize. The archaic nature of math doesn't lend itself to do that unfortunately. The variable 'x' is just a made up concept with no grounding in realism. Data visualization on the other hand triggers human brain to make association, therefore making it easier to understand math.
Math is of no use unless put in practice...