Timeline for Why's math way more puzzling, abstruse than law and medicine?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
18 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Dec 23, 2021 at 9:24 | comment | added | Vilx- | @evolva - In contrast, in medicine your answers to your problems tend to be laid out as straightforward as possible, because nobody wants you to spend a lot of time figuring them out and then risking having made a mistake. Lives could be at stake. Also nobody goes out of their way to come up with new hypothetical problems that have never before been observed in real life, because that would be a waste of time. | |
| Dec 23, 2021 at 8:55 | comment | added | Vilx- | @evolva - TL;DR - when working on a math problem, 1) you need to memorize a lot of methods with often complicated patterns that specify where they can be used; 2) At any step there will be a wide choice of methods you can use, often with no obvious indications which one is the right one, often with several being valid choices; 3) Every step of your logic must be valid; even one mistake will fail the entire effort. | |
| Dec 23, 2021 at 8:45 | comment | added | Vilx- | @evolva - Sometimes you even need to jump between objects and realize that "this shape can be treated as a set so we can use set methods here" or "we can combine these here equations with these here logic rules". And to get the really deep insights you also need to not only memorize the methods, but also understand why and how they work. | |
| Dec 23, 2021 at 8:40 | comment | added | Vilx- | @evolva - In addition, when you get into higher maths, equations become just one kind of objects you operate with. You also get logic statements, geometric shapes, sets, matrices, and god and math professors only know what else. Each of these have a myriad of methods available for transforming them in various ways. And if you want to advance academically (masters degree or PhD) you'll need not only get good at using existing methods, but also come up with new ones that would allow some useful transformations. | |
| Dec 23, 2021 at 8:35 | comment | added | Vilx- | @evolva - In maths on the other hand you get multiple levels of this. At first you need to memorize "if an equation follows pattern A, then you can use method B to transform it into a different equation C". Then, when presented with an equation to solve, you need to repeatedly apply different methods until it becomes solved. And at every step there are multiple choices of methods you could apply. You need to figure out the right chain of methods that will get you the desired result. | |
| Dec 23, 2021 at 8:29 | comment | added | Vilx- | @evolva - Well, I don't know anything about medicine either, so it'd be nice if someone with the appropriate background could comment, but I guess is it goes mostly like this: "The symptoms for X are A, B and C. The cures are D, E and F." Now you need to memorize this and when you come across A, B or C then you know that you can use D, E or F. | |
| Dec 23, 2021 at 5:05 | comment | added | user155 | 2. You very rarely get to memorize the solution to a specific equation; rather you memorize formulas that are broadly useful, but which you still need to combine for any particular equation." Can you please flesh this out? I don't grok this distinction. | |
| Dec 23, 2021 at 5:04 | comment | added | user155 | @Vilx- Please do not apologise for "describing my own gut feeling and baselessly speculating"! Your comments assist so much! I was not challenging you. I was just trying to dig deeper. 1. Can you please expatiate more why "medical students memorize the final answers - in case of X do Y"? How do medical students differ from "maths students memorize tools that they need to combine in myriad of ways to get the actual answers"? I can't relate, because I am not a physician or math professor. | |
| Dec 21, 2021 at 10:21 | comment | added | Dendrobium | I can relate to this answer. I’m from Biology and we have no absolute answers. :) | |
| Dec 20, 2021 at 19:36 | comment | added | Vilx- | @evolva - All that said I just realized that I'm just describing my own gut feeling and baselessly speculating. I'm not a teacher, just a guy who did well at maths at school. I'm sorry. I still do think it's something to do with the thinking required to get the necessary results, but... maybe look for some more credible sources than me. :) There has to be some research on the subject. | |
| Dec 20, 2021 at 18:41 | comment | added | Vilx- | Another aspect might be that law and medicine deal with real things in the real world. They're familiar and easy to conceptualize and visualize. Maths on the other hand are completely abstract. There's no quadratic equation lying on the side of the road. Your mind needs to come up with completely new ways of visualizing and understanding the concepts in math, often from scratch, without anything familiar in the real world to build upon. | |
| Dec 20, 2021 at 18:35 | comment | added | Vilx- | @evolva - Yes, maths students need lots of repetition too. The difference is that medical students memorize the final answers - in case of X do Y. Sometimes a patient has multiple issues and then you have to do a bit of thinking or basic maths to choose the best option, but no more than that. In contrast, maths students memorize tools that they need to combine in myriad of ways to get the actual answers. You very rarely get to memorize the solution to a specific equation; rather you memorize formulas that are broadly useful, but which you still need to combine for any particular equation. | |
| Dec 20, 2021 at 18:26 | comment | added | Vilx- | @evolva - Similarly for law. You have to memorize plenty of details and principles, but after that it's down to "who's the most eloquent talker" and "what bits of the things I've memorized can I use to get as close as possible to my desired result?" But there's very little hard logic where you have to come up with 30 precise consecutive steps that will give you an EXACT result which you need. | |
| Dec 20, 2021 at 18:21 | comment | added | user155 | @Vlix Thanks. our comments crossed! You replied before I finished editing. Pls edit your answer to clarify? "That's why medical students study so long - they need lots of repetition." Don't math students "need lots of repetition" too? | |
| Dec 20, 2021 at 18:20 | comment | added | user155 | I am afraid I am unconvinced. "the bar in math is set much higher." "When you're doing law or medicine or languages or whatever, there's a fairly broad spectrum of "OK". You don't need to know stuff perfectly, you can also arrive at acceptable solutions which are not ideal." "In contrast, maths is very strict." Pls expatiate and elaborate? Competent lawyers and medicines CANNOT simply be OK. An unfit lawyer can lose your case, or get you innocently convicted or held liable. An unfit physician can harm or kill you. | |
| Dec 20, 2021 at 18:19 | comment | added | Vilx- | @evolva - No, no, not unfit. This isn't about how well you've mastered something, but rather what kind of thinking you need to master it. Unfortunately I have little experience with medicine or law, but from what I understand medicine is mostly about memorizing things. There's not much that you can logically deduce in medicine, 90% is empirical knowledge or results of long and complicated scientific studies. And of course the practical side which relies on muscle memory. That's why medical students study so long - they need lots of repetition. | |
| S Dec 20, 2021 at 7:54 | review | First answers | |||
| Dec 20, 2021 at 14:30 | |||||
| S Dec 20, 2021 at 7:54 | history | answered | Vilx- | CC BY-SA 4.0 |