Re: [Maxima-discuss] A question about parsing: ":lisp #$expr$" is not low-level enough

[Richard F. <fa...@gm...>]

If a person dislikes math class, adding a computer requirement to it will
probably not change that attitude.
If a person is ok with an arithmetic calculator or even a numeric
spreadsheet, the step to algebra, and
computer notation for algebra may be difficult.  Personally, I supported
research that provided input
from a stylus,  and also from speech.  Speaking mathematics is surprisingly
robust compared to
handwriting.   But if you do not like math, it will not change your mind.

What percentage of the population has any use for cosine?


On Fri, Jan 14, 2022 at 3:49 PM przemek klosowski via Maxima-discuss <
max...@li...> wrote:

>
> On 1/14/22 17:08, Barton Willis via Maxima-discuss wrote:
>
> > If (as is the case with many schools) there is a student survey after
> the class is over, how will students react to questions about the
> additional material?
>
> *Additional wandering:* For eight years, I served as a department chair
> for a faculty of about fifteen at a hyphenated public university. As chair,
> I saw 1000s of student evaluations and comments. Asking students to do
> anything "unusual" (use TeX,  explain something using two  sentences, or
> use a programming language in a course on statistics) is a fairly clear
> path to lower teaching evaluations.  I know this might seem cynical and I
> know that humans are subject to huge amounts of confirmation bias, but I
> informally collected this data.
>
> This is very interesting! I always wondered why does computer-assisted
> math (whether it's TeX or programming or CAS) end up being so difficult.
> After all, we're universally doing numerics by computers/calculators rather
> than with pen and paper and long division; why is it different for symbolic
> math? After all, in both cases the computer is just supposed to do the
> grunt work. Is it that the tools are awkward to use, or is there some
> psychological barrier resulting from the quirkness of the standard math
> notation (as Richard said, "what does the 'd' mean in  integral(f dx) ? And
> what does the space between f and d mean"). I mean, it's easy to multiply 7
> by 6 by typing  "7 * 6 =" and it even works for typesetting with LaTeX, but
> most thing beyond that require additional knowledge,  both of the quirks of
> mathematical notation, and the peculiarities of the whatever program is
> used to handle it.
>
>
> Getting the world to change the math notation (RPN anyone?) is probably
> off the table, just like replacing English with Esperanto. At least for
> languages we have Google Translate, which doesn't really understand natural
> languages but is good at matching patterns; maybe the long term solution
> for math will also be some sort of machine learning algorithm that doesn't
> really understand math but can translate natural language into whatever
> CASes can handle.
>
>
>
> PS, I just realized that both Esperanto and PN/RPN had their roots right
> where I grew up, in Warsaw. Funny that.
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