As a writer from the humanities camp as ignorant of as I am fascinated by mathematics, this Substack has been a fantastic find for me. You writing is gripping even when I only partially understand it, and I am without doubt going to be obsessed with Polya urns for the next week at least.
Speaking as a humanities person trying to write about physics, statistics, and computation without the requisite knowledge, I love that you deliver this devastating truth with such sympathy and self-awareness: "there is probably nothing more cringe than humanities people or writers invoking scientific concepts they do not understand as inappropriate metaphors for emotional, spiritual, interpersonal and artistic ideas."
it's so real! it's real and it's such an ever-present threat. i think most people are too timid to write or speak which is a problem, but for those of us NOT too timid to write or speak, by some great work or miracle, THIS is a problem we have to contend with.
I remember being one of those humanities writers, opining on physics (cringe) and quantum computing (cringer), as if I had the first clue about any of it.
My only source of (petty) personal satisfaction as a writing student is an absurdist paper I wrote for a literary theory class in which my "theory of meaning"—presented earnestly, to conceal its parody—drew direct parallels between the indeterminacy of meaning-making and quantum mechanics. To my dismay, I discovered a pre-existing literature on this topic ...
Once I switched to the sciences, I began to notice the inverse deficits. (Not that I have successfully addressed my own in either realm.)
Anyhow, I love the thoughts on teaching. You've also convinced me I should have more than the vaguest of sketches of the urn problems in my head.
I tripped over your blog on a typical day of chasing one shiny object after another on the internet. Anyway, I am now a subscriber and looking forward to reading more. I am 1 and a fraction semesters new as a physics instructor after 40 years of engineering and finance in Fortune 100 corporate life. The return to the core science and teaching it to first year students is a refreshing change for me.
For what it’s worth. The sentence that resounded the most for me was “ First of all good fucking luck teaching personal finance to someone without the underlying structure to understand compounding.” Love it.
> it’s perhaps a bit depressing that it should remain so wonderfully fresh, which does not speak well of us or the system as a whole.
At university, we read Comenius's "Analytical didactic" (published 1649) and it is frustrating how fresh even this one still is.... A quick random quote:
1. We learn more easily from examples than from precepts.
2. We learn even more easily when the two are combined.
3. But examples should come first.
...
An example can be presented to a student as some-thing already done or something still to be done. The former method is simpler for the teacher; the latter more useful for the student.
this reinforces my belief that all talks and lectures and conversations about new ideas are considered sales pitches, I hope that's what you were aiming for. I love the urn now!!
As a writer from the humanities camp as ignorant of as I am fascinated by mathematics, this Substack has been a fantastic find for me. You writing is gripping even when I only partially understand it, and I am without doubt going to be obsessed with Polya urns for the next week at least.
Thank u so much, Jacob! :)
Speaking as a humanities person trying to write about physics, statistics, and computation without the requisite knowledge, I love that you deliver this devastating truth with such sympathy and self-awareness: "there is probably nothing more cringe than humanities people or writers invoking scientific concepts they do not understand as inappropriate metaphors for emotional, spiritual, interpersonal and artistic ideas."
it's so real! it's real and it's such an ever-present threat. i think most people are too timid to write or speak which is a problem, but for those of us NOT too timid to write or speak, by some great work or miracle, THIS is a problem we have to contend with.
I remember being one of those humanities writers, opining on physics (cringe) and quantum computing (cringer), as if I had the first clue about any of it.
My only source of (petty) personal satisfaction as a writing student is an absurdist paper I wrote for a literary theory class in which my "theory of meaning"—presented earnestly, to conceal its parody—drew direct parallels between the indeterminacy of meaning-making and quantum mechanics. To my dismay, I discovered a pre-existing literature on this topic ...
Once I switched to the sciences, I began to notice the inverse deficits. (Not that I have successfully addressed my own in either realm.)
Anyhow, I love the thoughts on teaching. You've also convinced me I should have more than the vaguest of sketches of the urn problems in my head.
I tripped over your blog on a typical day of chasing one shiny object after another on the internet. Anyway, I am now a subscriber and looking forward to reading more. I am 1 and a fraction semesters new as a physics instructor after 40 years of engineering and finance in Fortune 100 corporate life. The return to the core science and teaching it to first year students is a refreshing change for me.
For what it’s worth. The sentence that resounded the most for me was “ First of all good fucking luck teaching personal finance to someone without the underlying structure to understand compounding.” Love it.
Cheers for the comment John and for picking out your fave sentence :) Always makes me smile to know which part people connected to the most!
Love this, my new pet theory is that these dynamics explain why Spotify's smart playlist is so terrible.
Oooo, it could well be! if it eats its own recommendation to you as "information", then yes, it would.
I think the link to the Venkatesh youtube series is incorrect. It goes to Dominic Yeo's weebpage
Thank you for saying -- it shoud be fixed now! (I hope).
"sampling with super-replacement" — What a good description.
Thank you Dean!! :)
> it’s perhaps a bit depressing that it should remain so wonderfully fresh, which does not speak well of us or the system as a whole.
At university, we read Comenius's "Analytical didactic" (published 1649) and it is frustrating how fresh even this one still is.... A quick random quote:
1. We learn more easily from examples than from precepts.
2. We learn even more easily when the two are combined.
3. But examples should come first.
...
An example can be presented to a student as some-thing already done or something still to be done. The former method is simpler for the teacher; the latter more useful for the student.
(via the Internet Archive's English translation: https://archive.org/details/analyticaldidact0000joha/page/n9/mode/2up)
WOW ... it's freaky to me that that is almost verbatim what Polya says in his paper on teaching also. And yet we many of us don't do it even now.
Beautiful stuff! I'll be revisiting this one -- thanks for writing it
Thanks Daniel :)
this reinforces my belief that all talks and lectures and conversations about new ideas are considered sales pitches, I hope that's what you were aiming for. I love the urn now!!
YES that is exactly what i hoped for very good