Comments on: New math that isn’t new

By: Vito Prosciutto

Vito Prosciutto — Fri, 20 Feb 2004 08:56:37 +0000

Yeesh, I find it frightening the level of innumeracy among those critiquing the article (see my blog for specifics).

The technique that Lizzie came up with is not one that has never been seen before, but it’s also one that for whatever reason has languished in obscurity. I’ve taught factoring many times to many different levels of students, and having read the article, I’m getting better results with my students than I’ve ever seen before.

I’d be curious to know why this algorithim has fallen into obscurity, but I doubt any of the jackdaws here would be likely to do that sort of research (or even be capable of it, given that many seem to think that factoring is only useful for solving contrived quadratic equations).

By: Andrew Allers

Andrew Allers — Fri, 09 Jan 2004 12:04:39 +0000

When I saw this, I wondered how she (Lizzie) came up with it. The story says:

“I just started playing around with the numbers,” Lizzie remembers, “and trying to see what I could do with them until I ended up getting the answers that were [on the answer key].” When she found a way that worked, Lizzie figured the lesson had been learned.

Trial-and-error is a very non-mathematical way to solve problems. The fact that she seems to have just started playing around with numbers in the equation until something worked against the answer key is not a very good reason to reward her (and refer to her as a ‘math whiz’).

It seems that all she did was stumble across another recipe to use instead of the traditional recipe. If she’d derived this new recipe at least that would be a little interesting.

By: j.c.

j.c. — Sun, 07 Dec 2003 21:05:03 +0000

Rob - you are wrong. The Simpsons did a parody with Malibu Stacy saying something similar.

“But it’s clearly written by someone who thinks solving quadratic equations is a job for Albert Einstein.” Have to disagree, JJ, I think this was clearly written by someone who thinks she knows all she needs to know about math. Why would she not, I don’t know, call a local math proff and ask for some background and an expert quotes? One phone call and the story is dead. Why wasn’t that phone call made?

By: Rod Wiltshire

Rod Wiltshire — Fri, 05 Dec 2003 06:45:53 +0000

A few years ago there was a Dilbert cartoon that made fun of women (specifically women) who don’t realize that if you decrease a number by 25% and then increase the result by 25% you don’t end up where you started. (I forget the specifics, but this was the arithmetic the joke turned on.) I cringed, awaiting an uproar, but there was no uproar. Apparently no one who is much upset by such things, man or woman, followed the joke.

By: Rob

Rob — Thu, 04 Dec 2003 23:39:35 +0000

I dont even that was a real Barbie. It was Malibue Stacy, the “Barbie” clone of the Simpsons. And as far as I can remember Lisa Simpson was the only one to be outraged

By: Seamole's Log

Seamole's Log — Thu, 04 Dec 2003 02:06:59 +0000

Wayne Madsen Tells the Time

Wayne Madsen, a senior fellow at the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) and a twenty-year veteran intelligence analyst at the NSA, wrote a 762-word article for CounterPunch entitled “Wag the Turkey: Surprise Thanksgiving Dinner at 6 AM?”, all…

By: Laura

Laura — Tue, 02 Dec 2003 22:38:30 +0000

Richard, the doll was actually yanked from the market.

I think there are a lot of things out there that everybody “knows”, contrary to evidence, and one of them is that girls are bad at math. Hence the to-do in the press about poor Barbie.

Thinking journalists? I think I’ve run across some …

By: Richard Cook

Richard Cook — Tue, 02 Dec 2003 16:08:12 +0000

Laura

I remember that one but also remember it got a spasm of play then sank from sight. I think the articles involved were rather breathless about relatively non-unique occurances. To be frank the articles stunk and tried to puff something up that shouldn’t have been. As far as making a big of it because they are girls…any thinking journalist would realize that girls have been outpacing boys for awhile now (its lead to several books being written on the subject) for whatever reason. If the reason for the puffery was because they are girls that’s a pretty damn poor reason.

By: Kevin Brancato

Kevin Brancato — Tue, 02 Dec 2003 15:27:59 +0000

markm has it right. Most of my fellow math majors in college could summon the “Lizzie” method in their heads–when it provided a simpler or quicker way–but I doubt we’d bother to name the method.

It’s something you just know.

By: Fred Jacobsen

Fred Jacobsen — Tue, 02 Dec 2003 01:55:24 +0000

Journalists’ ‘innumeracy’ (love that word)was particularly pernicious when the SF Chronicle breathlessly announced in an above-the-fold front page headline that ‘Teen AIDS Cases Rise 50%’ (I paraphrase). The headline writer and reporter had ignored the baseline. Reading the CDC report, upon which the article was based, it turned out that teen cases had increased from something like six to nine (in a nation of 240 million).

By the way, Ms. Jacobs, I was wondering when someone would come up with a Samarra/O’Hara pun. Kudos.