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hp41cx · 11-05-2015, 11:39 PM

Dwight Sturrock · 11-06-2015, 06:03 PM

Needless to say, calculators/ collecting probably does not interest this guy...

Han · (This post was last modified: 11-07-2015 12:15 AM by Han.)

I watched the both parts in their entirety (a few days ago). What a coincidence to see it mentioned here. I think he makes for a great speaker. However, part of me thinks that while he is a great "ambassador" to mathematics (his mathematical observations are indeed neat, and I am sure that many young minds would find them equally fascinating), he does a disservice to his own cause by not going beyond being curious and making observations (i.e. by also exploring why the observations are the way they are.) In particular, his comment about how "everything relates back to 9" and how "no one knows why this works" is a bit misleading. The proof for it would require very little mathematical background, and -- ironically enough -- is most easily explained by the very method he considered to be "the worst" (the notion of adding all the units column, then tens columns, etc. and the notion of a "carry"). Don't get me wrong, I think there are more intuitive ways to do basic arithmetic, but his argument should have been that they should teach many more methods rather than "this other better way" -- not all minds think alike.