We need to pivot math towards intuition and accessibility.
Math has built a gated, inaccessible institution which - by design or not - served as a moat.
I believe math has little to do with mathematical notation - intuition is much more important. One can have intuition but not be able to “read math” - much as many musicians don’t “read music”.
Reading math however does not guarantee ideas or intuition. And those are what math needs.
I think LLMs are the single best things that were invented to make mathematics accessible.
I loved mathematics when I was young and wanted to be good at it, but I got burnt so many times by teachers who could not explain even if their life depended on it.
Asking an LLM and discovering how different theories belong together and what are genuinely open questions, along with different philosophical interpretations has been a wonderful gift.
I have long accepted that Mathematics is a language where you must go "all in" because for the most parts institutions are fundamentally unable to explain it in an intuitive way. There are people who "just get it" and are blind to the struggle of people who need a different approach in learning it. There's something about the field where a generational survivorship bias has created an environment where math is mostly taught to likeminded people, who then don't see why anybody could not see the difficulties learning it.
I know this is not true everywhere, but the only reason I could finish my studies was because there are some genuinely excellent online lectures on youtube, along with massive support from friends who have already been through the ordeal.
If I had had access to an LLM, I could have actually taught myself from scratch and be more playful in learning it. And no, I am not willing to learn lots of math "for fun", I can think of better "for fun" things that actually help my profession and cater to my actual interests and not just some academic ideal.
LLMs are decent at explaining up to undergrad mathematics but that is because they are parroting / plagiarizing the hundreds of human-written books that have been written for the express purpose of teaching undergrads. LLMs are actually fairly terrible at explaining higher mathematics; humans are much better.
Sure. But it was a bitch to get access to a good maths textbook- either you forked out a lot of money, got a library loan (we had to renew ours every 7 days), etc. With an LLM there's good breadth of knowledge so if can quickly hop across topics rather than follow the progression proscribed by the author. There's also no element of judgement/ego etc etc.
strideashort · · focus · HN ↗
Math has built a gated, inaccessible institution which - by design or not - served as a moat.
I believe math has little to do with mathematical notation - intuition is much more important. One can have intuition but not be able to “read math” - much as many musicians don’t “read music”.
Reading math however does not guarantee ideas or intuition. And those are what math needs.
DarkNova6 · · focus · HN ↗
I loved mathematics when I was young and wanted to be good at it, but I got burnt so many times by teachers who could not explain even if their life depended on it.
Asking an LLM and discovering how different theories belong together and what are genuinely open questions, along with different philosophical interpretations has been a wonderful gift.
I have long accepted that Mathematics is a language where you must go "all in" because for the most parts institutions are fundamentally unable to explain it in an intuitive way. There are people who "just get it" and are blind to the struggle of people who need a different approach in learning it. There's something about the field where a generational survivorship bias has created an environment where math is mostly taught to likeminded people, who then don't see why anybody could not see the difficulties learning it.
I know this is not true everywhere, but the only reason I could finish my studies was because there are some genuinely excellent online lectures on youtube, along with massive support from friends who have already been through the ordeal.
If I had had access to an LLM, I could have actually taught myself from scratch and be more playful in learning it. And no, I am not willing to learn lots of math "for fun", I can think of better "for fun" things that actually help my profession and cater to my actual interests and not just some academic ideal.
tylerhou · · focus · HN ↗
alansaber · · focus · HN ↗