New Math: An Analysis of its Validity

[lisab]

My father is an Engineer and I had a conservation with him regarding new math many years ago during my high school time. From what I gathered, he felt completely discouraged in his mathematical abilities for a good part of his education, because he never understood the purpose behind of stating axioms while solving algebraic equations or looking at problems in terms of sets. If it wasn't for the fact that a family friend, who worked at NASA explicitly told him that 'while there is a use for this kind of thought, at the end of the day, as an engineer, it's your ability to use math to solve real problems, not made up ones, that matter.' that got him to stay and eventually obtain an engineering degree instead of working the family avocado farm.

Looking back at my own educational experience, I can say with a high degree of confidence I would've felt the same. I disliked most of abstract algebra, I disliked most of my theory based probability, and I wrote my thesis with the sole intent of taking an abstract idea and making it concrete for myself. In the end, the mathematics has always just been a tool for me to analysis real world data. I think education needs to accept that for a lot of people, mathematics is just that, if not less.

Avocado farm, are you kidding me?! That would have been freakin' AWESOME :!) :!) :!)!

 

[MarneMath]

Avocado farm, are you kidding me?! That would have been freakin' AWESOME :!) :!) :!)!

It's a nice little place down in south Texas. We also do bell pepper. To this day, the world Abuelo y Abuela is synonymous with pepper with me, and I can smell the morning fields with dew.

 

[jim hardy]

but not so long as to remember I began feeling exactly the same somewhere around differential equations.

I LOVED Diffy-Q because it explained how so many things work.
The next course, vector calculus, was simply too much for me. One finds his limits...
I do admire and envy those who can handle abstract math. My earlier remarks were not a put-down, just it's not for everybody including me.

There are doubtless people who understand the Laplace Transform.
To me it's only a useful tool that I don't understand.

Fourier transforms we worked out by hand as exercises in AC circuits class. Prof gave us an arbitrarily shaped wave and we developed the first five or six transform pairs by ruler, pencil and sliderule.
That enabled me to believe it was indeed true that a periodic wave can be represented by a polynomial in sines. A most useful concept.
But my plodding brain had to see at it from that direction before I could accept the derivation.
I thank goodness for that practical classroom exercise !