AnyoneCanDoIt

aps someone who actually knows math could do a similar article, but for nontrivial math?

ing how to do it yourself is for the curious who Google it after finding out what it is. Further contributions welcome, especially in the domains I haven't covered (Graphs, automata, and lambda calculus would be great of there's anything to add that matches the level and tone I'm going for). I'd love to have more CSy stuff, right now it's all from an embedded, wedbdev, and 3d printing perspective. https://github.com/EternityForest/AnyoneCanDoIt/blob/master/...

lots of work to develop. It's like trying to learn to dance, and someone says "It's easy, just copy me", like as if the ability to copy a pose is just something everyone can do without training.

uld want to go and do that study, rather than actually trying to transmit the deep understanding(which I sure don't have!) directly. I've also got a blog(eternityforest.com) mostly full of more creative work and essays on random historical stuff, plus some unpopular opinions about how software is (mostly) not in fact going down down the toilet.

s trying to get me to do something dangerous, and starts talking fast, I assume it's basically suppressive fire for thought. If I were to explain why it's a bad idea in their pitch and tone I'd sound like a maniac, but they can talk as fast as they want because they are relying on tradition and intuition, not complicated reasoning. "Come on, it will be fun" is easier to say fast then "I literally know a guy who was very experienced, who tried this, and died". The only defense I know of is to not care what they think or how you look, and have nothing to prove, especially not to yourself. 4. Never assume any task is too simple and easy to need a plan. If you give me a bucket of balls and ask me to count them, I'm going to pull out a counter app. That 10% of the time I lose count before getting to 10 is embarrassing enough to be worth the trouble to avoid.

y historical math related stuff that I find interesting. I can't tell you how to derive or prove Euler's equation , but you don't need to know math to understand the emotional impact from a humanities perspective, and be amazed that all those constants fit together like that, and that someone could discover it. Ultimately, I think traditional math education has it totally right. My life would be so much better if I knew it, because there's jobs that seem to require exactly what they tech in math class. It's not directly useful for non STEM types, but the idea seems to be give everyone a head start since so many do want STEM jobs. I think you really do have to get to the being able to do proofs level to make use of it in the real innovative applications. The common everyday applications math people like to cite can usually have a dedicated software package. It's not like we still need to add two numbers on paper. If you want to build something, we have RealThunder's FreeCAD. Excel's Goal Seek and CAS systems do the stuff people say we will use algebra for. But if your in tech eventually you run into the wall and need to do something like a Kalman filter or calculate stresses in a bridge and you're screwed.

d focus on showing how it's relevant at all to those of us who don't want to go back and study for two years.

ou just need to memorize some rules. They will also tell you that they like math because it teaches you "a whole new way of thinking". It's a "Draw the rest of the owl" problem. Their idea of a "small simple step" is completely incomprehensible to those without the "new way of thinking". Which you apparently learn by starting at the bottom, but you can't make any direct practical use of it till you really understand it. Basic algebra doesn't unlock any new abilities you didn't have before, by using a CAS solver. It lets you learn slightly less basic algebra, and THEN you can do something that isn't already a solved problem. But since there's the legendary "new way of thinking", an outsider can't actually imagine how it's going to help them, just like I can't imagine what it's like to juggle three balls or drive a car, they're just... impossibilities I know nothing of. I think people give up on math partly because only the next few steps are visible, the whole road to being able to do a Kalman filter is not. There's absolutely no instant gratification for a beginner not polluted by a sense of "A calculator could do that", so only the talented, or the disciplined usually learn it. I've always had extreme trouble with things that are spatial, have multiple interacting parts, have abstractions beyond what we can describe in words easily, etc, so I can't help you actually learn the math itself, because... I'm still working on learning the very basic stuff. But I think I have a fairly accurate record of what math is from a black box perspective, and how it works from a sociological perspective, and why people hate it and quit before they actually learn.