Timeline for How to present mathematics to non-mathematicians?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
53 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| May 4 at 19:02 | history | edited | YCor | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
removed capitals from title
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| May 4 at 18:47 | comment | added | Michael Hardy | NEVER assume people know any prerequisite material that the Establishment says they ought to know. That's not just because they don't but because they shouldn't. The Establishment is wrong. | |
| Dec 18, 2021 at 18:27 | review | Close votes | |||
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| Oct 22, 2018 at 19:14 | answer | added | ThorbenK | timeline score: 3 | |
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| Nov 11, 2015 at 22:09 | history | edited | Gerry Myerson |
edited tags
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| Nov 11, 2015 at 19:38 | answer | added | Liviu Nicolaescu | timeline score: 8 | |
| Nov 13, 2013 at 10:44 | comment | added | Patrick I-Z | "Non mathematicians" is a too large category to expect a unique behavior, it's hopeless. | |
| Apr 6, 2012 at 21:02 | answer | added | Ronnie Brown | timeline score: 3 | |
| Apr 6, 2012 at 8:48 | answer | added | Miek Messerschmidt | timeline score: 10 | |
| Feb 1, 2011 at 0:26 | comment | added | Michael Hardy | Mark Twain did a fairly decent job of explaining at least some important rules of German grammar to English-speaking people without using any German words. From a newspaper article about a tavern that burned down: "When the flames the onthedownburninghouseresting stork's nest reached, flew the parent birds away." Running that phrase together into a single word is exaggerated, but otherwise it's how German syntax actually works. (Some other parts of his account were humorous exaggerations and distortions, but certainly based on actual phenomena.) | |
| Jan 31, 2011 at 15:21 | answer | added | Allen White | timeline score: 9 | |
| Jan 8, 2011 at 19:27 | answer | added | Sebastian Scholtes | timeline score: 6 | |
| Jan 7, 2011 at 12:55 | answer | added | Marc Alcobé García | timeline score: 0 | |
| Jan 6, 2011 at 14:29 | answer | added | Cat | timeline score: 1 | |
| Dec 1, 2010 at 15:15 | answer | added | Amit Kumar Gupta | timeline score: 11 | |
| Nov 30, 2010 at 19:43 | answer | added | Pete L. Clark | timeline score: 41 | |
| Nov 30, 2010 at 18:34 | history | edited | Asaf Karagila♦ | CC BY-SA 2.5 |
Added the epilogue of the story.
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| Nov 25, 2010 at 3:17 | comment | added | Jérôme JEAN-CHARLES | Also if you know several languages someone might tell you by comparison the main traits and specifics of some unknown language's grammar. | |
| Nov 25, 2010 at 3:12 | answer | added | Jérôme JEAN-CHARLES | timeline score: 6 | |
| Nov 25, 2010 at 1:53 | comment | added | JBL | I speak no German at all, but still find tidbits about unusual features of German grammar to be interesting. And it's my understanding that linguists typically don't speak the languages that they study. | |
| Nov 25, 2010 at 1:25 | answer | added | Ben Braun | timeline score: 22 | |
| Nov 25, 2010 at 0:12 | answer | added | Sean Tilson | timeline score: 3 | |
| Nov 24, 2010 at 22:00 | comment | added | The Mathemagician | Sadly,I think trying to explain real mathematics to nonmathematical people is a little like trying to explain German grammar rules to people that don't speak a word of German. I think the best you can do in either case is motivating what you do,not really explaining it. | |
| Nov 24, 2010 at 20:51 | comment | added | Gunnar Þór Magnússon | Hardy does take an understandable example in "A mathematician's apology": he talks about Euclid's proof of the infinity of the primes. It's something accessible to most people, and it communicates the idea that math is about something more than calculating things. | |
| Nov 24, 2010 at 20:41 | answer | added | David Hill | timeline score: 0 | |
| Nov 24, 2010 at 20:33 | answer | added | Bob Pego | timeline score: 18 | |
| Nov 24, 2010 at 19:21 | answer | added | roy smith | timeline score: 15 | |
| Nov 24, 2010 at 19:15 | answer | added | Deane Yang | timeline score: 2 | |
| Nov 24, 2010 at 19:04 | answer | added | Mark Bennet | timeline score: 2 | |
| Nov 24, 2010 at 16:28 | comment | added | Someone | If you talk about infinity, you might get the audience thinking by mentioning mathoverflow.net/questions/38856/… | |
| Nov 24, 2010 at 15:43 | answer | added | Dick Palais | timeline score: 6 | |
| Nov 24, 2010 at 14:54 | answer | added | mmm | timeline score: 8 | |
| Nov 24, 2010 at 14:44 | answer | added | Qiaochu Yuan | timeline score: 32 | |
| Nov 24, 2010 at 13:49 | answer | added | fedja | timeline score: 88 | |
| Nov 24, 2010 at 13:42 | comment | added | Tony Huynh | Check out this related question of Kevin Buzzard's for some inspiration and ideas. | |
| Nov 24, 2010 at 13:39 | comment | added | JBL | In your case, I would probably say something about how there are many orders of infinity and, while our intuitions about finite sets guarantee certain things about infinite sets, they aren't enough to settle all reasonable questions about infinite sets; in particular, it turns out that infinite sets come in different sizes, but we can choose (for some very large sizes of infinity) whether to include them, and study what the implications of such large sizes are. I would probably expect to not get past the fact that there are infinite sets of different sizes most of the time. | |
| Nov 24, 2010 at 13:36 | comment | added | JBL | When people ask my specialty, I say "combinatorics." When they ask what combinatorics is, I say "it's a broad subfield, but for example one important area is graph theory" and go on to say a bit about that (despite the fact that I'm not a graph theorist) because I technically am telling the truth, I think it conveys the correct spirit, and I haven't had any luck coming up with a one-sentence definition of enumerative combinatorics. [cot'd] | |
| Nov 24, 2010 at 13:03 | answer | added | Steven Gubkin | timeline score: 38 | |
| Nov 24, 2010 at 11:49 | answer | added | Andrej Bauer | timeline score: 159 | |
| Nov 24, 2010 at 11:35 | answer | added | Neel Krishnaswami | timeline score: 12 | |
| Nov 24, 2010 at 11:31 | answer | added | Boris Bukh | timeline score: 8 | |
| Nov 24, 2010 at 11:05 | answer | added | Willie Wong | timeline score: 10 | |
| Nov 24, 2010 at 10:03 | answer | added | Sonia Balagopalan | timeline score: 20 | |
| Nov 24, 2010 at 9:29 | history | asked | Asaf Karagila♦ | CC BY-SA 2.5 |