the new math: old battle of the lovees was: PDP1 3563

Yes! And finishing something.

Yup. You've "made" something.

No, the gear isn't key. It has to do with making something useful. I can't describe this; most of my discussions is trying to describe this.

Right. The former has a clear method to do analytic thinking. The later has a lot of crap to sort out before a person can figure out how to think about analytically.

Very definitely. It's a short form of the Scientific Method.

I met a female at the dump who was shocked when I said I couldn't resist math books. She was a math teacher and meeting with another female who liked math was extreme rarity.

We talked about what you just said. I told the math teacher that writing down all those proofs, and doing every proof (which apparently isn't done anymore and that explains why Johnny can't read nor do math), help people learn how to write things down logically.

If you read some of the sci.math entries, the trouble most serious people have is figuring out how to write it down. To do anything profitable and useful in the computing is to be able to write it down. One cannot teach every individual in this complex society so new and old knowledge has to be written down in human-readable form for the knowledge to persist overall. This knowledge has to also include what doesn't work.

Doing these small math exerices, helps kids learn how to find out what doesn't work. There is a danger in this; kids may make the hidden buttumption that a problem with an equals sign is a general solution. It is not. It is a unique solution and, thus, very rare.

And now I have no idea where I was going with this; I've lost my train of track.

BAH