It's sort of weird that a mathematician would confuse 'notation' for 'math'.
This is like giving an algorithms class to a mixed group of perl and Haskell programmers, using Haskell for all the examples and wondering why perl programmers don't learn computer science.
If you don't speak the language, It indicates that you never learned the stuff that is spoken in that language. At least well enough to be fluent in it.
> If you don't speak the language, It indicates that you never learned the stuff that is spoken in that language. At least well enough to be fluent in it.
Not true. I learned all the maths necessary to understand that formula and, in fact, have previously seen all the symbols used before. Once I looked up the syntax I had no trouble understanding what was being said.
The problem is that the language is simply bad. I haven't written PHP for years (in fact, the last time I wrote PHP was around the last time I took a math class), but if you give me a snippet of PHP I'll have no trouble understanding it.
Do you think that the people in his room didn't understand the concept of a function mapping over x coordinates whereby the height of each y component equals that of it's position on the x axis?
Or more simply put, do you think these people have never taken a math class in high school that went over
If you study math enough, you learn to read this math notation fluently. From his toy example you can infer that they have not studied much math very deeply. Like topology or advanced algebra.
I think this is exactly correct. When someone explains what that notation is, I understand it, but when it's drawn like that, it's meaningless to me.
As another analogy, it's like an English speaking person taking a french basic-math class. You know like addition, subtraction, etc.. but taught in french.
This is like giving an algorithms class to a mixed group of perl and Haskell programmers, using Haskell for all the examples and wondering why perl programmers don't learn computer science.