Anyone Can Be a Math Person Once They Know the Best Learning Techniques | Po-Shen Loh | Big Think
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Published 2017-03-19
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Po-Shen Loh is a Hertz Foundation Fellow and Carnegie Mellon mathematics professor who thinks that history is a much harder subject than math. Do you agree? Well, your position on that might change before and after this video. Loh illuminates the invisible ladders within the world of math, and shows that it isn't about memorizing formulas—it's about processing reason and logic. With the support of the Fannie and John Hertz Foundation, Po-Shen Loh pursued a PhD in combinatorics at the Pure Math Department at Princeton University.
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PO-SHEN LOH:
Po-Shen Loh, PhD, is associate professor of mathematics at Carnegie Mellon University, which he joined, in 2010, as an assistant professor in the Department of Mathematical Sciences. As a Hertz Fellow, Professor Loh received his PhD in combinatorics of the Pure Math Department at Princeton University. His thesis discussed several original results that he discovered during his graduate study in joint projects with his advisor and other collaborators. Professor Loh studies questions that lie at the intersection of two branches of mathematics: combinatorics (the study of discrete systems) and probability theory.
Prior to his work at Princeton, Loh received the equivalent of a master's degree in mathematics from the University of Cambridge (United Kingdom) in 2005, where he was supported by a Winston Churchill Foundation Scholarship. He received his undergraduate degree in mathematics from Caltech in 2004, graduating first in his class, and his undergraduate thesis later received the Honorable Mention for the 2004 AMS-MAA-SIAM Morgan Prize.
In his spare time, Loh has maintained his involvement with the United States Mathematical Olympiad program. He is now the head coach of the national delegation, as well as a lead fundraiser for the organization. As a high school student, he won a silver medal at the 1999 International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO), and following his win continued to be active in the training of high school students at the U.S. national Math Olympiad Summer Program. In 2004, he served as the deputy leader for the U.S. team at the IMO in Athens, Greece, where our national team placed second. After completing his PhD, Loh again, served as deputy team leader for the United States at the International Mathematical Olympiad from 2010 to 2013. Afterwards Professor Loh was promoted to national head coach of the U.S.A. IMO team, and on his second attempt, Team U.S.A. won first place, in a competition with teams from over 100 countries represented.
Earlier this year, Loh received an NSF CAREER award, the most prestigious NSF award for junior faculty, which honors outstanding research combined with a commitment to teaching. Professor Loh is the founder of the educational technology startup expii.com, a crowd-sourced platform for the world to share interactive lessons in math and science.
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TRANSCRIPT:
Po-Shen Lo: I think that everyone in the world could be a math person if they wanted to. The keyword though, I want to say, is if they wanted to. That said, I do think that everyone in America could benefit from having that mathematical background in reasoning just to help everyone make very good decisions. And here I'm distinguishing already between math as people usually conceive of it, and decision making and analysis, which is actually what I think math is.
So, for example, I don't think that being a math person means that you can recite the formulas between the sines, cosines, tangents and to use logarithms and exponentials interchangeably. That's not necessarily what I think everyone should try to concentrate to understand. The main things to concentrate to understand are the mathematical principles of reasoning.
But let me go back to these sines, cosines and logarithms. Well actually they do have value. What they are is that they are ways to show you how these basic building blocks of reasoning can be used to deduce surprising things or difficult things. In some sense they're like the historical coverages of the triumphs of mathematics, so one cannot just talk abstractly about “yes let's talk about mathematical logic”, it's actually quite useful to have case studies or stories, which are these famous theorems.
Now, I actually think that these are accessible to everyone. I think that actually one reason mathematics is difficult to understand is actua...
For the full transcript, check out bigthink.com/videos/po-shen-loh-says-anyone-can-be…
All Comments (21)
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This is so true. When I was younger, I was so bad at maths until I got a teacher who sat down with me and started from scratch and fully explained and taught me what I didn't know. She saved my life because if I moved forward without a basic understanding of mathematical concepts, I would have continued to fail for the rest of my life
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I like this argument. I was never good at math until I started taking my math classes online. I'm a slow note taker and it takes me a while to understand concepts, so in a traditional classroom setting I fall behind the curve really easy. But with online classes, I can rewind the lectures, pause them to catch up, and use multiple sources of learning to figure out a concept rather than just depending on the professors way of learning which may or may not work for me. There are some downsides to learning purely online, but in regards to math online for me, the benefits outweigh the costs.
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There is a professor in Oxford who once said that Maths is just another language we can understand the world through. It really changed my perspective about maths. It's not just about numbers and statistics and geometry and trigonometry, but rather it's a language. A language through which we can communicate with the universe itself.
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This is so true. My dad is basically a math genius and he explained to me that 'all smart mathematicians are not aware of the maths itself, but rather the principles of the maths'. Since then I have never failed a test.
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I absolutely love how he's hyped about maths. You can literally see it in his eyes.
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I completely agree, I was getting under 50% in every maths test. I then was introduced to physics (maths with an apparent purpose). I approached maths with an I love it attitude for the next two years because I loved physics. I also ignored people saying "don't worry you did poorly, maths is hard." I stopped messing around in my free time and decided to learn maths to a point where I was average. my view of average increased as I got better. Now there is the dreaded b+ . This was simply due to a change in mind set, hard work and replacing peoples opinions with difficult goals. " if you don't sacrifice for what you want, what you want will be the sacrifice."
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This dude is insane. He was educated in Caltech, Cambridge Part III and later Princeton, those are best schools for theoretical physics and maths in the world.
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I felt in love in Mathematics because i have practiced it excessively. Per day 4-5 hrs of question solving made me so confident that my approach to solve questions is completely changed and became efficient
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What a wonderful breakdown! Thanks professor Loh
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math requires lots of practice and everyone gets better at various pace. At universities there isn't time for practice, topic are taught for a week and moved on to the next
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I was the worst in math but I needed to learn computer science. So I went on and started learning online from youtube khan academy etc and now I feel like a pro. From simple addition to integrals, probability and logic and It really opened my mind. My thinking process changed. I really recommend learning math. Its not just for school
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I am a full-time math tutor for an accelerated high school and this is 100% correct. More specifically, I noticed that there are about three locations in math knowledge that generally destroy a student's comprehension. The first is the memorization of times tables. Now, usually, I am against memorization in math, but I think basic times tables are an absolute must for higher level mathematics. Too often I see students pull out a calculator for things like "8 x 7". I think times tables should be memorized through comprehension, but this memorization plays a bigger part later. The second area, which I think is also the most beneficial to our rational thinking, is order of operations. In America, students usually learn this right before high school, so even if they don't grasp the concept, the teachers will still simply pass them. Now, the pattern I noticed while working with students is that these two areas compound once they get to factoring in Algebra 2. I've also noticed that this is where students start to give up on math. I think it's because factoring, in my opinion, is easiest to solve using mental math. But, because a lot of students don't remember their basic times tables and have a loose grasp on orders of operations, they're forced to use idiotic workarounds that only complicate matters.(diamond method, box method, etc.) It's at this point that the shaky foundation of mathematics finally falls apart as further curriculum is dependent on the ability to factor. But, that's just what I've noticed. :p
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Absolutely spot on. Math is pure reasoning and analysis, it always makes me laugh when people think that being good at math means being able to multiply insane numbers in your head in just seconds. People who can do things like that are certainly talented but there's a lot more to mathematics than ridiculous computations lol
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I badly needed this since I'm bad at Mathematics that is why I'm starting to study the basics again. It's one of my dreams to be good at Math. Thank you for this inspiring video.
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"if you miss one link in the chain, you will end up lost" Yep. I know it first hand.
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One problem of the way that schools teach mathematics is that they focus too much on calculations and memorization of formulas and algorithms. Computers can do the calculations billions of times faster and they can store every single textbook you'll ever need. Schools should focus more on translating important, everyday problems into mathematics, the construction of mathematical proofs, and the ability to spot errors in arguments. They also should test students' abilities to intuitively explain their results. A simple 1 hr test doesn't allow enough time for thinking in order to show understanding.
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YES, exactly I have been telling students that if they miss one concept they will miss part of the chain. If you miss the class on the quadratic equation there goes your whole understanding of what to do when the teacher ask simplify using the quadratic formula. Good to know professors are teaching that it is important not to miss math class. :)
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His enthusiasm and energy for math is contagious.
