Veritasium – Newton reinvents how to calculate pi
An evening pause: Much of the math goes over my head, but the story is still fascinating in showing how you can discover what later seems obvious, merely by keeping an open mind while endlessly and repetitively asking the next question.
Hat tip Mike Nelson.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
“The World of Isaac Newton”
Robin Wilson & Raymond Flood
Gresham College Public Lecture October 2020
https://youtu.be/JSzdN7tYVYw
51:45
“The Clockwork God: Isaac Newton and the Mechanical Universe”-
Professor Alister McGrath
Gresham College Public Lecture January 2019
https://youtu.be/Ecg037cBOhU
54:35
These two guys are the types to teach math and make it fun. Very visual. Mathematics is a language and if it is taught by bad teacher, you will get bad math. I had to throw away ideas and shortcuts I learned in high school, and relearn concepts in college. Bad habits discourage students.
And I ask again why can this not be taught to any student who wants to learn it when ever they want to learn it?
There is no reason a grade school student can not learn at least algebra and geometry if they show the desire and ability.
I also think all American schools should be switched to a 12 month system with two 1 month breaks. A winter break and a summer break.
I also think any student should be able to test out of any class at any time of the year and move on to the next class.
I learned the old Archimedes way back in 9th grade after I found a second hand book by Asimov on Mathematics.
If I remember correctly about how ridiculous Pi is….
If you inscribed a circle the diameter of Plutos orbit and used Pi to 15 places you would only be off the size of an atom.
Ramanujan had his own way…Newton would be called a nut. The Channeled Scablands is an example where catastrophists were right.
pzatchok,
You have my vote when it comes to schools. Public schools are no longer about education, just indoctrination. I can tell you about the huge fight over charter schools here in Washington State. The people voted to have to have them, but the state government and the NEA/WEA have fought it tooth and nail.
As of last year, the state’s department of education has a complete K-12 sex education plan, but does not have a K-12 plan for science and math. Sorry to rant, the priorities of this state are messed up.