So, it is party time again, folks!

[wiseheart]

Each year this time, we launch my virtual birthday party, which starts on October 1 and ends on October 9 at midnight, sharp. The goals of the party are to post as many comments and collapse as many threads as possible, on as many new pages as we can. It is always great fun, as you can see if you check out the similar entries of the last few years.

This year, I'll also throw the real party at mid-time - and post the recipes of all the food that will be there for you, so that you can all participate if you want to. Virtual food has no calories.

Fandom-related discussions are as welcome as the ones about coffee or chocolate (just to name a few favourites from previous years), and, of course, pictures and recipes of birthday cakes. ;)

So, drop by, tell your story, post your pics or silly poems, ask questions you always wanted to ask and have a good time!

Soledad, in excited expectation




Oh, and by the way, to provide birthday gifts hobbit-style, I've got a revived story and a Kansas 2 update for you.

Enjoy!

Comments

[solanpolarn.livejournal.com]

Long comments are good!

I do think it is still true that most people who do an A-level science subject such as physics or chemistry will also take maths, but since it isn't a requirement, the science subject will be taught as if the students aren't taking maths. At least in physics, this leaves it at mostly a show-and-tell sort of level, rather than giving the students proper understanding of how and why things work. I also think it gives them a very incorrect impression of what university level science is going to be like; the first year, one-third of the courses our physics students do are maths, and another third are (sort of) disguised-maths in the form of computational physics, with only a third being straight up physics. There was a similar level of maths for the first year students in Materials when I was at Imperial, and they too were often surprised by it...

I do recognize that there are niches of science where you can get by without maths, but I usually think they would actually do better if they had a deeper mathematical understanding. While you can use a spectrometer, to take your example, and just take the data it spits out, you will be better able to understand what it means if you understand the working principles and the data analysis that goes on in the 'black box', and that generally means understanding some maths. It isn't necessarily the 'hard core' algebra and calculus, but being able to understand statistics is extremely useful for any discipline that deals in large data sets...

Improving the mathematical literacy of the populous in general, is a topic close to my heart, and it upsets me that we fail people so badly in this. A lot of maths is just a compact way of expressing complex ideas, and being able to understand it allows you to see the underlying principles more clearly.

Sorry, I get quite worked up about this topic, as you may have noticed!

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

It's something I feel strongly about too, as you may have noticed.

I hadn't thought about the effect on the syllabus of not requiring maths. Certainly the subject I took was off-puttingly noddy: by far the easiest of the four A'levels I took. Is 16-18 year level physics more interesting in Sweden?

I'd agree that almost everyone would do better with more mathematical understanding.

A lot of maths is just a compact way of expressing complex ideas, and being able to understand it allows you to see the underlying principles more clearly.

Hmm. I'm not sure I agree 100% with this. I think there are several ways of understanding systems, and reducing complex behaviour to equations is, I think, sometimes a substitute for, rather than an aid to, understanding the actual mechanism(s) involved.