Mathematics Skills More in Demand Than Ever 590
knownsense writes "Business week has a nice article (feel good, low on detail, vague numbers) on the rise of maths and mathematicians in a world that is increasingly obsessed with statistics, advertising, search engines, and algorithms. The article also deals with issues of privacy. How has mathematics, statistics and other number driven aspects of life impacted you in the last decade?"
The Pure Profession (Score:2, Insightful)
I've always liked math. And, in the past decade, there has been much evidence pointing toward math being a primary component in a better lifestyle. It didn't fully hit me until I was a freshman in college and my computer science courses started crossing paths with my linear algebra courses.
But even in grade school, there was evidence that those in control of mathematics sat a bit higher on the food chain. For instance, I got into an argument with my dad (an independent concrete pourer) when I was in eighth grade. He wanted to build a base for a grain silo and needed to know how many cubic yards of cement was needed. So he was having a hard time computing this. I told him it was (as we all know) pi*radius^2. After much debate, I gave him a piece of graph paper and a compass and told him to draw it and estimate the number of squares. I don't look down on my dad, he just never had an education like I was privileged to have.
And so I slowly started to realize that mathematics were the underlying principle to everything. Maybe you've seen the motion picture Pi and remember the part where the main character has a revelation that everything can be described by math. In my opinion, he was dead right.
The key to math is that the application of it is far more useful than the raw theory of it. That's why the actual profession of mathematician is rarely sought after, instead, the ideal situation is one who has a firm background in math due to classes or a minor.
After taking a statistics course, I realized that math helps us predict the future based on prior events. What is more useful to a human being than to be able to predict what is going to happen? As H.G. Wells might tell you, not much.
This article was well written as it pointed out the good and bad aspects of the power of mathematics. The funny thing about math is that it's neither good nor evil until it's applied.
Statistics are essential (Score:5, Insightful)
It's just unfortunate that so few people do have an understanding of statistics. I've lost count of the newspaper stories, even years-long media-fuelled "controversies"-, which are based entirely on misunderstood, misrepresented, or malformed statistics. "How to Lie with Statistics" should be required reading in high school.
Is this news? (Score:2, Insightful)
This is news only in the retarded world of business. I think we in the natural sciences have capished this quite a while ago.
From TFA:
Re:Ancient Greek Technology Costs Jobs. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Math vs Maths? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Ancient Greek Technology Costs Jobs. (Score:5, Insightful)
So, a 2,500 year old technological advance cost some poor guy his job.
That's one way to look at it. There's no denying that technology replaces some low level jobs. But on the other end the boss guy now has more money to spend on something else. He might pocket the money, or he might fire another guy and use the combined money to hire a more skilled helper. Then take on jobs that require more skill than simply staking out building sites.
If technology simply eliminated jobs without creating new ones, we'd all have been out of work a few thousand years ago.
Re:Ancient Greek Technology Costs Jobs. (Score:5, Insightful)
There's always going to be a bottom rung of people who really can't do much more than run a cash register. What happens to them?
Math is hurt in the USA by its negative image (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Ancient Greek Technology Costs Jobs. (Score:3, Insightful)
> you look at it.
A `win win` in which context? Are people happier, safer, richer etc when there is more technology around them? I though technology was neutral? People in the 1950's were told that washing machines, vaccuum cleaners etc would allow housewifes/etc to get the jobs done so quickly they'd have more time for leisure, but repeated surveys of housewife's/etc show no increase in happiness.
You don't have more fun playing an xbox360 game than you did playing on a spectrum/amiga/psx1, you don't have more fun driving a modern car, or watching a new film etc. Technology is having a negative impact on the environment, jobs (wages, hours worked) etc. These are not the only result of technology, just the way it's being used. We live in an abusive social system where the minority of the worlds population controls the majority of its resources - the rest of use who are lucky enough not to live somewhere where we're likely to die from easily treatable diseases/problems like malnutrition, cholera, diarreah, malaria have to work longer and harder to take home less money to pay more for less. Technology just makes that process faster.
Learning in general is taking a hit (Score:3, Insightful)
Education in this country needs a serious reform. The primary focus should be making our children the brightest and best in the world. If this means putting public schools into competition with private schools for taxpayer dollars then do it, its done in parts of Europe to this day! Instead we have a system which is run by people only concerned about their welfare and shoving their correctness down societies throat. The schools are not used to educate but to condition. When steps are taken to hold them accountable they run to the courts scream racism, fairness, and about religion. The people teaching our children should never have become second to the people who oversee them just as the children should never have become second to those who teach them.
First and formost disruptive students should not be allowed to force the system to adjust to them.
Next teachers who cannot meet the requirements should not have the "right" to stay simply because of tenure and union muscle
Schools should not have an absolute right to taxpayer money.
Public, private schools, and even home schooling should all be held to the same standards. (currently some areas pass laws that are more strict on anyone but the public school!)
Students who do excell need to be encouraged, not dragged down by anti-competitive practices
Religon should be the domain of private or home schooling. However its existance there should not be grounds for withholding funding. The standards for funding should not even hint about requiring or disallowing religon. (again, all schooling should have the same neutral standards)
Testing must be mandatory at all grades. This allows for quicker identification of students who need more help and systems than need changing.
Its been far to long that people just send their kids off to "public daycare". We do a disservice to our children and society as a whole by not pushing for the best we can have. Throwing money at the problem will not work and has proven so. We must also set levels of achievement that all sides can understand.
Re:Ancient Greek Technology Costs Jobs. (Score:5, Insightful)
There's always going to be a bottom rung of people who really can't do much more than run a cash register. What happens to them?
The society works hard to shrink them to a smaller and smaller percentage of the populace through education. Fify years ago I'll bet you the percentage of unskilled labor was much higher in the US than it is now.
Re:Ancient Greek Technology Costs Jobs. (Score:2, Insightful)
You can't just make a blanket statement that "in the long run better technology is a win-win" without offering some sort of support for the statement beyond "society will be better off in general".
Re:Ancient Greek Technology Costs Jobs. (Score:3, Insightful)
People are living longer largely due to decreased infant mortality.
> Still, if you really think things are getting worse, let's make you King with absolute
> authority. What would you do to change things?
More equality of access to healthcare. Discourage the trend towards obesity by ensuring people can afford and have access to fresh fruit and vegetables every day. Encourage people to excersize. Encourage better/cheaper public transport so you don't have 1 person per car all over the planet. Ensure cycling is safe anc convenient.
That's a start, for developed countries. The main problem is in developing problems. While Mr Bush is spending billions fighting `terrorism` many, many, many more people are dying from problems like those I mentioned before. Why not take a look at the number of people dying each year from them? How much money would it take to sort that out?
If you're obsessed with using technology then there's no reason why we couldn't spend less time exploring space - just for a few years, we'll get back to it - and more time working on desalination systems, solar power capture, wave energy capture, hybrid/alternatively powered transport - stuff like that.
Really, the problems are obvious, but because it's not in your face every single day we don't think about it. If there was a part of your town that people were dying of, say, diarreah or sleeping sickness and the cure cost a few pence you wouldn't say `oh, but they're across town, that's not my problem` - you'd probably go there this weekend and help out, like what happens when there's a hurricane or earthquake. That doesn't happen when it's happening across the world, even though thanks to jet technology (a consequence of the military angle that infects all research) you could be there this time tomorrow.
Re:Math is hurt in the USA by its negative image (Score:3, Insightful)
As a programmer, I found that I was using maths beyond my grade level and didn't even know it. But my teachers weren't supportive of my applied uses of math. They actually scorned me for using a computer to solve problems. It was only "learning" if I did all the work by hand. They missed whole the point of education.
Ho! Ho! Ho! That's what they said in the 90's (Score:3, Insightful)
Know math... Yes... But as a platform to an applied field where you will stand tall with a strong math background.
Otherwise, get ready for low pay unless you graduated from MIT, NYU , or Cal Tech in a program designed specifically for the "latest" applied math craze. I watched graduates from a top 10 Applied Math Program grovel for 1 year post-docs. Many went into Comp Sci AFTER receiving their PhD because they did not want to enjoy the bountiful $35K they would get as a post-doc.
By the time a place like Business Week has an article on this, the top math programs located nearby the trend (Read that Boston, NY or Silicon Valley) already have a specialized sub-degree for the trend.
Also, be aware that PhD's tend to prefer hiring students from their adviser or their academic friends. Also a limiting factor for getting a job offer as these high end applied research jobs.
Yep, stick with your applied field and a strong math background.
Not "win-win" *unless*... (Score:5, Insightful)
The economic theorem says that the monetary gain for the winners is great enough that it is *possible* for the winners to compensate the losers so to leave as well off as before. In this case everyone is at least as well off. But if you don't compensate the losers, you can't say a thing.
Re:Ancient Greek Technology Costs Jobs. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Ancient Greek Technology Costs Jobs. (Score:1, Insightful)
Hahahaha. You make it sound like fat people are so because they can't afford to eat "fresh fruit and vegetables every day".
Fat people are fat because:
Re:Too late (Score:3, Insightful)
This is absolutely accurate. Most people working in technology are a) not very smart and b) have incredibly fragile egos. Not so different from most people in general, in fact. This makes life hard for anyone with actual skills.
I know not a few "data analysts" with Ph.D.s who use Excel, and get all touchy if you suggest there are more appropriate tools for the job. Octave/Matlab is considered "advanced" and no one touches Mathematica, still less things like Perl (which is surprisingly fast--I once used an R-K solver in Perl that ran almost as fast as my first naive C++ implementation.)
The fact is that math is way too powerful to make much of a living at. Most technology problems require a tiny amount of math and a lot of engineering. Most people are either too stupid to see the value of the math or are threatened by the power of something they don't understand, so they adopt various heuristics that lower their productivity, as we've seen discussed in the thread on construction workers.
Re:Ancient Greek Technology Costs Jobs. (Score:5, Insightful)
why am I better of that I can buy this bag of apples 10% quicker then 5 years ago?
why?
perhaps I would be better of this bag of apples was grown in Ontario and shipped to me a few hundred mile, rather then the few thousand it probably was.
the ability to Consume more does not make the world a better place.
Re:Ancient Greek Technology Costs Jobs. (Score:2, Insightful)
Ramen and ground beef that's been marked down because it's about to expire is much more in line with what people are able to stretch their budgets to.
Re:Ancient Greek Technology Costs Jobs. (Score:3, Insightful)
unhealthy food is cheap
unhealthy food is fashionable
unhealthy food is heavily advertised (when did you last see an ad for carrots, rice etc)
unhealthy food is available in every city,town, highstreet,corner shop, school,office
Re:Ancient Greek Technology Costs Jobs. (Score:2, Insightful)
Education (so you can earn a good living)
Housing
Medical Care
As a percentage of income these have climbed through the roof. Education and Medical Care costs have exceeded inflation for as long as I can remember. Housing has been a bear the past few years (although everyone thinks that will subside). a small 40/50 year old two-bedroom ranch house in my good-but-not-great suburb is > $350,000.
So the poor can watch TV. Great. Let them eat cake. What happens when they get sick and can't afford to go to the doctor's office? They end up in the emergency room - and we all pay.
Re:Ancient Greek Technology Costs Jobs. (Score:3, Insightful)
Pasta, rice, potatoes, beans, lentils, cous cous, oatmeal, spinach, peppers, tomatoes, banannas, pita, eggs, chicken, and maybe 2 times a month I'll have a steak or something similar. If I run out of spices, I skip the steak for a month and spend that on restocking the seasonings. Most importantly, there's no ramen in my house.
I make a lot of soups or long-cooking dishes - crockpot cooking is wonderful, as I can get it started in the morning and, by the time I get home, I've got a nice dinner waiting, and I can use the leftovers for lunch the next day or as a stock for my next dish.
It's pretty easy to eat a healthy diet on a very low budget if you're willing to learn to cook a little. $5 a day is plenty. I consume about 1250-1500 calories a day, and I don't get bored with the menu - I've got plenty of recipes, to where I could probably go at least a month without having the same thing twice (except for oatmeal at breakfast - I 3 the oatmeal).
Anyway - I learned to eat like this when I was in college and had to live on a food budget of a bit less than $100 a month (the mid 90's). I could certainly afford a much larger budget for food, but honestly I just don't feel the need, and I'd rather sock that extra money away for when I retire.
Completely off-topic, I know, but it annoys me when I see people talking about how low food budget means you have to eat ramen.
Re:The reason (Score:3, Insightful)
Back when computers were first put into use, their primary function was highly math-intensive - in fact, that's about all they did. I'd argue that much of what computers do today have little to do with math- much of the effort is focused on "e"-izing procedures that were formerly manual, or that require restructuring to accommodate a changing bsuiness climate. To be sure, there are still specialized pockets that rely on heavy math (like weather forecasting, statistical analysis, graphics, etc), but a degree in math certianly isn't a requirement in order to write a halfway decent business-related web app.
Re:Ancient Greek Technology Costs Jobs. (Score:3, Insightful)
I have a hard time believing that
Re:Ancient Greek Technology Costs Jobs. (Score:3, Insightful)
> exist years ago.
That statement is true, but misleading. It's just that so many children didn't make it until their, say, 2nd birthday that the average was massively lowered.
> Exactly how are you going to compel people to do this stuff? Outlaw individual ownership of
> automobiles? Additionally, fruit and veggies aren't that expensive as far as the developed
> countries go.
Didn't you read the original question? I'm the king now - you've got to do what I say otherwise I'll cut your head off! Bicycles will be freely available a la the `white bike` scheme of Amsterdam (only I'll kill bike thieves).
> Why is it the responsibility of the developed world to square this away?
We can do it, so we have a moral responsibility to do it. The developed world spends billions of dollars on the military and entertainment, which would be far more usefully spent on preventing deaths. Why not read up on sleeping sickness in Africa, to pick just one problem.
> This sounds suspiciously like a hint at wealth redistribution.
You say it like it's a bad thing. Where does wealth come from? Natural resources, or services built using them, and largely from undeveloped countries. Why shouldn't this be spread around. You're so interested in people `earning` money/property that you're prepared to allow literally millions of people to die every year from problems which cause practically no deaths at all in developed countries just to maintain your belief in an immoral method of running countries? What percentage of the US GDP is given away each year? If you don't think it should be, why not petition for less. But if it IS the moral thing to do, then compare that with the amount spent on the military.
> Peaceful space exploration must go on for the advancement of the human race.
What's the speed of light? How long does it take at that speed to get to the nearest star? Do the maths - what's the point? Sure, it's interesting - I'm into all that, but at the moment it's not a priority. Each shuttle launch is `worth` millions of human lives. Still think it's worth it? Like I said, we'll get back to it. The universe isn't going anywhere - we're certainly not.
> The reality is that I share more cultural and economic bonds with my fellow citizens,
> therefore their well-being is more important to me.
A very weak argument. On that basis you personally wouldn't find anything immoral about the Nazi genocide of the Jews - unless they had legally binding contracts with you, at which point it would suddenly become immoral.
> You've stated some global problems with
> approximately zero feasible concrete solutions to any of them.
On the contrary, you've just come up with excuses for not making the effort to change anything.
Re:Ancient Greek Technology Costs Jobs. (Score:1, Insightful)
And a 2,300 square foot 30-year-old home in my rural town is $100,000. It's only in the metro areas that the housing market is severely inflated, and that's because urban sprawl has forced people to spend whatever they have to so they can drive to work and still have time to sleep at night.
If *I* were made king, first thing I'd do is start looking for a way to stop urban sprawl and put an end to two-hour commutes. Those two related things are probably the largest consumers of resources and time in America.
Re:Math is hurt in the USA by its negative image (Score:5, Insightful)
You know I would say that too many teachers don't teach pure mathematics, so the joy of exploration and discovery and logical thought is lost. Mathematics becomes rote mechanical rules that you unthinkingly chug through to produce some number which is supposed to be important. There is no questioning of why those rules are what they are, why the methods work, and what the structure actually is. The focus is on teaching kids the applications of math and they never get to understand how to think about math, how to think logically, how to explore the structure of our own mental creations. Mathematics is taught with absolutely no sense of wonder, or curiousity.
Teaching kids how to apply mathematics is important, but really not that hard. Teaching kids to see math as something other than a whole list of rules and methods and mechanical applications of formulas - now that takes some real effort. That, however, is what pure mathemathatics can get you.
Jedidiah.
some friendly advice (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm trying to do the same.
Re:Math is hurt in the USA by its negative image (Score:3, Insightful)
A deficiency in mathematics skills is "innumeracy [innumeracy.com]," a counterpart to "illiteracy." The scary part is that people nurture innumeracy [answers.com] as if it were a thing to be proud of. Imagine if people took innumeracy as seriously as they did illiteracy. The literacy rate is well trumpeted as a measure of a society's success. Imagine if the numeracy rate were as widely reported and remarked upon.
Re:Whoa, whoa, whoa, WHOA (Score:3, Insightful)
I call utter BS!
They're called libraries. You walk in, get a library card and walk out with a book *AT NO ADDITIONAL COST TO YOU*. After you've finished that book, return it and get another one - *still free*! Nowadays, there are almost always free internet connections available as well.
Don't give me that crap about "You just don't know what it's like." I used to have to take my showers, so I could look presentable at menial labor job interviews, at the local campground because I couldn't afford to pay the water bill - much less the cable TV bill.
Stop blaming society for not holding your hand through *every* point in your "oh, woe is me - I'm so pathetic" life.
Re:Excluded middle (Score:3, Insightful)
No, it really isn't. Engineering is fundamentally a pragmatic approach to producing things that are "fit for purpose" (or, more generally, an approach to solving problems). Now, part of that pragmatism is the realization that applying knowledge from the sciences and from mathematics during the design process makes it much more likely that the resulting product will actually function that way it is intended to. Hence the importance of mathematics in the eductaion of engineers. But math (and science) is only one tool in the engineer's toolkit. Some things simply aren't (yet) understood well enough in a scientific or mathematical context to provide useful predictions of behavior. So engineers also use a lot of other tools to get their job done. These tools include empirical (but not necessarily scientific) experience, intuition, reuse of existing designs, and plain old trial and error.
Please note that this comment isn't intended to denigrate the importance of mathematics to engineering. In fact, I personally believe that the application of mathematics is quite neglected in some areas of engineering (especially software engineering). But the successful application of mathematics in engineering is unlikely if we don't properly understand the place of mathematics within the larger practice of engineering.
Re:Ancient Greek Technology Costs Jobs. (Score:4, Insightful)
I wouldn't bet that. I'd bet that the so-called "unskilled laborer" of 50 years ago was better educated than the typical burger-flipper, low-level corporate or government bureaucrat, first-teir tech support or Congressman is today.
Have you ever heard of "College education today is like high school education of 50 years ago?" Well, people have been saying that for at least 50 years and there's a lot of truth to it.
Re:Learning in general is taking a hit (Score:3, Insightful)
Education in this country needs a serious reform. The primary focus should be making our children the brightest and best in the world.
Schools aren't the problem, it is society. Parents don't give a damn too often or think their kids are a gift from god and can never do wrong. There is little societal push for education, look at Asians and how much their whole society pushes for education.
Part of the problem is that we have it too good, no desire or perceived need for education in too much of the population.
Next teachers who cannot meet the requirements should not have the "right" to stay simply because of tenure and union muscle
Sadly some areas are lacking teachers period, throw out the bad ones and no one is left to teach the kids.
Testing must be mandatory at all grades. This allows for quicker identification of students who need more help and systems than need changing.
Ah, yes the reason half the schools don't teach anything useful anymore. Any sort of standardized test creates the following problem: the test is the only thing that matters, the test's structure is pre-known, teaching for the test and only the test is the most efficient use of time.
I'm sure in the long term it could lead to some fun systems: kid gets 99% on test in grade x but is bored, he is expected to get a 80% on the test in grade x+1, most efficient method: keep the kid in grade x so he pulls the average up.
Also, current standardized tests are a joke for anyone with any intelligence and they will always be so since lowering standards keeps the bottom 50% from being indefinitely held back. I mean, it took me a whole 2 weeks (of mostly not studying) to learn the physics that NY State regards as sufficient for a High School diploma.
Re:Ancient Greek Technology Costs Jobs. (Score:3, Insightful)
Parent's Fault, not Society (Score:2, Insightful)
First off, 6 KIDS !?!?!?! Stop having kids damn it. If you can barely feed yourselves then do not have kids. I can understand having a couple of "mistakes", but 6 kids? That is both irresponsible and reckless. Instead of trying help their children have better lives, they kept popping out more kids so that you all could have as few opportunities as possible. Maybe some of you turned out fine, but that would be nothing but luck and statistical anomolies.
And a total income of $14000? One parent working full time at $6.75 an hour makes $14k a year. I started working at the age of 15 at a fast food place making $5.75 in 1995. Any adult that cannot make more than $6.75 an hour is incompetent. I worked in fast food for about 5 years total in my life, and knew many adults still stuck in basically minimum wage jobs. Every last one of them were in such positions because they were incapable of actually being useful citizens and holding a decent job.
Any family making $14k a year total is lazy. You cannot blame society or technology because 2 people are irresponsible and lazy.
And before you start calling me some spoiled rich kid, my dad was a small farmer and we did not have much money until I was a teenager. My mother is intelligent, but my father isnt exactly a smart guy (he never got past arithmetic in high school). But my dad was a very hard worker and at least made more than enough to provide for us, even though he didnt own the land he worked on.
I am sure there were factors that would have made it very difficult for your parents to become middle class. But there was nothing keeping them that poor other than themselves.
Re:Whoa, whoa, whoa, WHOA (Score:5, Insightful)
So, let me get this straight. You are with a ploor family, desperate for money, below the poverty line and getting helped by the state BUT they blow 20% of their income on cable? Did they also eat out at McDo regularly and buy cigarettes? Because for entertainment value, it does not get any better either.
However, i have new for you: Entertainment does not further anything. It does not allow you to grow, get better and get out of a bad situation. It is just a legal drug that helps you forget your trouble. Troubles dont go away by themselves, you need to face them to solve them, so staying in front of a TV wont solve anything. Neither will bitching or posting on
I know people that started with nothing (kicked out of their family home at 16 after being beaten by their dad), but they are successful today. How? They made their choice, got loans and credits, got an education and worked it out. Worked to pay their tuitions and boards, worked in class to succeed and worked and innovated to pay their bills. They could do it, but of course, it was a LOT more difficult than sitting on their butts watching TV and saying how desperate they were.
Life does not always deal you a fair situation and some needs to make more efforts to reach a given point, but USA is a land of opportunities. You can get an education and a job, but it will need LOTS of efforts if you dont get any help (family mostly).
Hope is how you look at things, not what is passed down to you. Every problem has a solution. Some required ungodly efforts to reach it...
(now, let's start the karma bashing...)
Re:Ancient Greek Technology Costs Jobs. (Score:2, Insightful)
ermmm, every time I've been to a school?
Healthy food is cheap
healthy food is fashionable
healthy food is available in every city, town, etc,etc,
also, lets not forget the "got milk" commercials...
We've been told health food is where it is at to the point where McDONALDS carries friggin salads. Don't tell me health food is unavailable. People are fat because they are lazy, moment-oriented idiots. They don't want to excericize, they'd reather sit and watch television. Ooooh, Desperate Housewives or Survivor 12? Which one should I watch... oh I'll put on on TiVo and watch it later. Give me a friggin break people. Sure, watch DH or Survivor... but do it on a treadmill. Or a stairstepper. If you have bad knees, do sit-ups, crunches and pushups. Hell, STRETCH! Move! Don't be sedentary. That's a good start.
Don't blame your friggin problems on society. It makes me sick.
Re:Ancient Greek Technology Costs Jobs. (Score:1, Insightful)
Unhealthy food leaves one tired and listless... so that once one starts going down the road of an 'unhealthy' diet one becomes less and less energetic.
BTW there are a Few companies who try to market at least some healthy foods, the 'breakfast' cereal companies. although they long ago moved away from no sugar added products like corn flakes, kix, cheerios etc to 'build up' more popular and slightly less healthy sugar coated/filled cereals. they still market and sell certain popular brands, and try to formulate a few 'healthier choice' products according to what they determine demand for them is.
that being said, grains are 'energy' food, energy foods tend to cause weight gain in people already suffering from the negative effects of an unhealthy diet. still, they're not bad for you, and as long as you're getting enough of the rest of whatyour body needs they fill the vital role of providing energy for the body to start the morning right.
Re:Ancient Greek Technology Costs Jobs. (Score:3, Insightful)