We mathematicians are used to the fact that our subject is widely misunderstood, perhaps more than any other subject (except perhaps linguistics). Keith Devlin More Quotes by Keith Devlin More Quotes From Keith Devlin Like a Shakespearean sonnet that captures the very essence of love, or a painting that brings out the beauty of the human form that is far more than just skin deep, Euler's Equation reaches down into the very depths of existence. Keith Devlin depthskinsessence Just as music comes alive in the performance of it, the same is true of mathematics. The symbols on the page have no more to do with mathematics than the notes on a page of music. They simply represent the experience. Keith Devlin pagesalivemath Mathematical thinking is not the same as doing mathematics - at least not as mathematics is typically presented in our school system. School math typically focuses on learning procedures to solve highly stereotyped problems. Professional mathematicians think a certain way to solve real problems, problems that can arise from the everyday world, or from science, or from within mathematics itself. The key to success in school math is to learn to think inside-the-box. In contrast, a key feature of mathematical thinking is thinking outside-the-box - a valuable ability in today's world. Keith Devlin realeducationschool I certainly do care about measuring educational results. But what is an 'educational result?' The twinkling eyes of my students, together with their heartfelt and beautifully expressed mathematical arguments are all the results I need. Keith Devlin educationaleyemath In fact, the answer to the question "What is mathematics?" has changed several times during the course of history... It was only in the last twenty years or so that a definition of mathematics emerged on which most mathematicians agree: mathematics is the science of patterns. Keith Devlin twentieshistoryyears A PhD in Mathematics is three years of guessing it wrong, plus one week of getting it right and writing a dissertation. Keith Devlin threewritingyears Though the structures and patterns of mathematics reflect the structure of, and resonate in, the human mind every bit as much as do the structures and patterns of music, human beings have developed no mathematical equivalent to a pair of ears. Mathematics can only be "seen" with the "eyes of the mind". It is as if we had no sense of hearing, so that only someone able to sight read music would be able to appreciate its patterns and harmonies. Keith Devlin eyeteachingmath I firmly believe that mathematics does not exist outside of humans. It is something we, as a species, invent. Keith Devlin mathematicsdoebelieve Calculus works by making visible the infinitesimally small. Keith Devlin ontologylogiccertainty The human brain finds it extremely hard to cope with a new level of abstraction. This is why it was well into the eighteenth century before mathematicians felt comfortable dealing with zero and with negative numbers, and why even today many people cannot accept the square root of minus-one as a genuine number. Keith Devlin zerorootsnumbers For all the time schools devote to the teaching of mathematics, very little (if any) is spent trying to convey just what the subject is about. Instead, the focus is on learning and applying various procedures to solve math problems. That's a bit like explaining soccer by saying it is executing a series of maneuvers to get the ball into the goal. Both accurately describe various key features, but they miss the what and the why of the big picture. Keith Devlin teachingsoccerschool In addition to its use in arithmetic and science, the Hindu-Arabic number system is the only genuinely universal language on Earth, apart perhaps for the Windows operating system, which has achieved the near universal adoption of a conceptually and technologically poor product by the sheer force of market dominance. Keith Devlin adoptionusenumbers The whole apparatus of the calculus takes on an entirely different form when developed for the complex numbers. Keith Devlin statisticseducationnumbers What makes it possible to learn advanced math fairly quickly is that the human brain is capable of learning to follow a given set of rules without understanding them, and apply them in an intelligent and useful fashion. Given sufficient practice, the brain eventually discovers (or creates) meaning in what began as a meaningless game. Keith Devlin fashioneducationmath Some of the justifiable critiques has been by - been so successful in telling this story, you know, there's a danger of saying, oh, well, you know, we don't need to worry about this because that's absolutely not the case. What [Hans] Rosling is doing is showing us an overall global trend, which in a sense tells us how bad things were - doesn't mean to say the problems are gone, doesn't mean to say they're any less. Keith Devlin successfulworrymean I saw the first one [video with Hans Rosling ] when he did - I think it was his first one - in 2006, a TED Talk. And for the first time in my life, I thought here's someone who can take statistics that most people regard as dull and boring and bring it alive. Keith Devlin peoplefirststhinking In fact, we tend to think things have been getting much worse. In fact, over the last 50 years, almost everything in the world on a global scale has got better. And the way that Hans [ Rosling] did this - it was very good. Keith Devlin factsyearsthinking Hans Rosling typically would go into the room, and he would ask the audience questions. Often they had to answer them with clickers or raising their hands or something. We get [data] wrong because 50 years ago that wasn't the case and because we haven't had these graphics we don't realize that over the last 30, 40, 50 years things have changed dramatically. And you see how the world has been getting a better, safer, more homogeneous place. It just has. Keith Devlin datahandsyears In fact, when you try to use [Hans Rosling] data to predict the future, all sorts of problems arise. But what it does do is say, hey, just catch your breath a minute and see what's really been going on. We do have reason to feel good about the fact we've made progress. Keith Devlin datafeel-goodtrying I've never met Hans Rosling, but I just knew him through his many YouTube videos, and they were absolute dynamite. 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