ted.com — Someone always asks the math teacher, "Am I going to use calculus in real life?" And for most of us, says Arthur Benjamin, the answer is no. He offers a bold proposal on how to make math education relevant in the digital age.
Jun 29, 2009 View in Crawl 4
tedchrisJun 29, 2009
Yup, he did something like that at TED two a couple years earlier. Big standing O. It's here:<a class="user" href="http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/arthur_benjamin_does_mathemagic.html">http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/arthur_benjamin ...</a>
sponeilJun 29, 2009
Everyone who likes math hates statistics. That's because people who enjoy learning math hate being told "just memorize these formulas". We want to know why the formulas work and we want everything to logically fit together.LaughingMan89 - A lot of science/engineering majors are required to take both, so it's not always a matter of choosing one vs. the other.
danukasanJun 30, 2009
Property value fluctuation in real estate. Abstractly the models are no different from the same models we use to modelling liquid flow. Except here instead of the topology of the river bed and the properties of the fluid, we are looking at a flow of capital and its effect on population flow. People move around. You won't necessarily stay in the same house for the rest of your life. We can plot the most likely general course a system will follow.Just because some elements are discrete doesn't mean we can't extrapolate their evolution to a point over a certain amount of time. And that level of abstraction requires calculus.
subductionJun 30, 2009
Thanks Chris, that's great.And I definitely watch the ones in which I have a direct interest, but there are a few more tangential lectures that I otherwise wouldn't have time for that it will be great to be able to skim.Thanks again.
donotclickjimJun 30, 2009
I think Benjamin Disraeli said that. Mark Twain said "Figures don't lie, liars figure."
donotclickjimJun 30, 2009
2 standard deviations from the mean means 95.4% of your data falls to the left and right of your mean (assuming a normal distribution) Let the critics begin...
whyteefordJun 30, 2009
Did you watch the video? Benjamin specifically said that of course calculus is relevant to certain fields and absolutely students should learn it, but if you aren't going into those fields he feels (and a point of which I agree) that you would be better served learning and understanding Statistics as it has far more practical life applications.
burgerkinghornJul 2, 2009
That's 97.7%. You were using a Z-score of 1.685 < 2 std.dev's above the mean.
lindamoore11Dec 23, 2009
Great insights - there definitely is an urgent need to look at our existing curriculum.