A Mathematician's Lament

End music: Gymnopedie - Satie

[LookingGlassUniverse]

Thank you for this beautiful and important video. I used to think of myself as "not a maths person", and more of a creative person- assuming these things were opposites. I struggled through school maths, having been told I was not good at math by placement tests that I believed had accurately judged me. In university though I stumbled into an abstract algebra class and I remember having to prove that 0+0=0, and falling in love. Maths, it turns out, isn't an about memorising algorithms, it's about getting to the heart of why things are true. There's no recipe for that, and there's no comparison to the feeling of discovering a mathematical truth. It's such a pity most students never get to have that experience.

[nicholashollis]

That kid's proof of the second problem was brilliant.

[elmaquiavelico]

Not gonna lie, these videos are much better that most documentaries.

[CptMark]

"Good, he did not have enough imagination to become a mathematician".

— Hilbert's response upon hearing that one of his students had dropped out to study poetry

[unkownuser]

This video is heart-touching - from a Asian high school student who is obsessively interested in Maths but be totured by the maths class in school.

[kttt]

As a young artist, I had the impression that Math was the opposite of art. Now that I've gotten a bit older, I wish that people didn't see a separation between the two. I've been taking small steps of teaching myself what I missed out on.

[MortenErCrazy]

You have no reason to feel called out. You're one of only two people, in my three decades of life, who's managed to get me interested in these things. Back in school it was cold dead memorization. I remember none of that, but I'll be thinking about that pyramid in a box for a while.

[generallissimo]

20 years after my high school observation "It is not math nor science at this class, It's just following the pattern" I found you. Thank you for this

[albertbatfinder]

The biggest thing I noticed about maths teaching was that the kids who had no trouble with maths were assigned the best teachers. The other kids were actively encouraged to do as little maths as possible. They had the worst teachers; teachers for whom maths was second or third fiddle at best. It suddenly struck me that this was the exact OPPOSITE of education: to NOT teach those who need teaching.

[yatsumleung]

I can relate to this. Here in the Far East with the culture of respect and obedience, education is more along memorization. Schedules are really tight and teachers need to cram into the student's brains. Meanwhile, students don't really care as long as they can get the correct answer and pass their exams. They memorized the formulas and theories and just practise, practise, practise.

Back in high school I felt like an outlier as I liked to ask questions like this video. If I get stuck on a certain question, or get something wrong all the time, I'd try to draw it out, sketch it out, and try to understand it deeper. I often get reprimanded by it, saying don't be weird, or, you're wasting your time.

But for some reason this inquisitive nature hasn't really left me. I brought it along with me when I teach other things like maths, history and engineering. The students are still affected by the culture and they most often don't care, as usual. A few do have the initiative to ask questions. I just want the youngsters to learn something about the world that could be useful to them, and in a fun way.

[billybagins]

I’m studying math at MIT, and I’ve just now thought about what math truly is to me. It actually makes me a bit sad to think that I’ve looked at math as the “opposite” of arts for my life, when that isn’t true at all.

[Giogro]

I'm an engineering student, when i study i always treat the demonstration as the most important thing-unless i'm REALLY late on an exam- and it is in fact the most fascinating part, making even a simple demonstration is so satisfying.

[BarbarianGod]

I really started getting excited about maths when I started looking into the assumptions that we just made (for no apparent reason) before university maths, like "why is distance defined as c²=a²+b²", and then playing around with the idea of distance, seeing different weird shapes of voronoi cells that emerge if you don't use an L2 norm distance or whatever it's called, and then getting invested into this sort of idea of "I've been assuming thing X is always like that, what else can I find to try and break an assumption or play around with", that was one of those moments where my interest in maths really skyrocketed

[patrickmcdonald]

“Fantasy remains a human right: we make in our measure and in our derivative mode, because we are made: and not only made, but made in the image and likeness of a Maker.”-J.R.R. Tolkien

[sriyamadarapu]

Seriously, youtube needs more videos like this one.

[NarfleTheGarthok]

I grew up loving math, and i was good at it, and i got a big rush from solving math problems. by 6th grade i was being accused of cheating on tests all the time, my folks would have to come in and defend me. I did a lot of mental math, and had very sparse notes. in highschool they created a class called 'worldly math' and i think it was meant to teach balancing check books and stuff. but this teacher decided to teach the class the "correct" way to do mental math. He even showed us the "correct" way to SHOW YOUR MENTAL MATH WORK. After i failed this test, they held their ground. I then had to unlearn my natural math skills, and learn this teacher's "mental" math and put it on paper. at 16 years old this basically broke my brain, and I've never been good at math again.

[alexandreramos]

That translates much of the feelings I had in highschool, and still have as a physics undergrad. In my case, a have to be very much self aware that "physics is not that" to keep the passion alive. Always hated mindless decorating rules and formulas.

[rysa.tarts]

I've been fascinated by math since grade school when we started learning algebra. But I have been put down by the idea that math is only for certain people or only for those who truly "smart". However, I am slowly getting myself back into the love of it. I have taken Calculus 1-3 in the last year and it has given me so much happiness! I may not be great at math per se, but I do love learning it! I hope all future generations will come to love math and not discriminate for who can and cannot do math. Math is for everyone!!!

[atomizedbassist]

This video hit me to my core... thank you

[skinnykevin]

As a teenager who is extremely passionate about mathematics, this video really hit home for me, and almost exactly describes my feelings towards math education. Incredible job!