Comments on: Maths Insurance

By: OddThinking » The Sum of… One Million Frickin’ Laser Beams

OddThinking » The Sum of… One Million Frickin’ Laser Beams — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 23:27:25 +0000

[...] One is to find the integral of the function. That only requires two items that I don’t have: a description of the function, and any recollection of how to integrate. [...]

By: Julian

Julian — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 08:29:08 +0000

John,

Shh! Don’t mention the archives plugin. I still haven’t fixed it for Firefox (in the default font size), and I am feeling guilty!

Well-spotted though – he seems to have taken a very similar approach to me.

By: Julian

Julian — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 08:25:02 +0000

Alastair,

Umm, if you were doing exams at the time (as per the final paragraph in the post) wouldn’t you already be enrolled in the course?

Yeah, you got me, but on a technicality. Let me correct my position to “I only wish this idea was around back when I was about to enrol in maths courses.” or perhaps “I only wish this idea was around back when the committees were determining the minimum requirements for my degree; perhaps they would accept a pledge to pay maths insurance for the rest of my life.”

As for the envelope paradox, let me start by saying it is one of my favouritest paradox puzzles! I couldn’t solve it for myself when I first heard it, and had to search rec.puzzles for the solution.

Do you really need training in integrals to understand it though? I have explained the envelope paradox to intelligent people who never went to uni… I think they understood it.

I’d make some flippant comment about never learning how to find the area under the curve of f(x)=rand(x), but you’d pin me down on a technicality again!

By: John Y.

John Y. — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 01:30:40 +0000

Hey, did anyone else notice that Mark Dominus’s archive widget is almost exactly like Julian’s? Well, almost exactly like earlier, more space-efficient but less user-friendly versions of Julian’s?

By: Alastair

Alastair — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 23:01:08 +0000

despite it being an ostensibly discrete maths problem

Can I strike that bit? Dunno what I was thinking there.

By: Alastair

Alastair — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 22:40:21 +0000

Umm, if you were doing exams at the time (as per the final paragraph in the post) wouldn’t you already be enrolled in the course?

On integrals. Like you I have forgotten most of the details about them. At the time I seem to remember quite enjoying them, but then again I studied applied maths so I Would Say That, Wouldn’t I?

However I certainly value the concepts behind them and have found them helpful on many occasions. For example, integrals are (IMHO) key to understanding Mark Dominus’ solution to the envelope paradox, despite it being an ostensibly discrete maths problem. In fact, I’m not sure how you would understand a probability curve withough having some idea about integrals. That’s worth the price of admission surely?

By: Julian

Julian — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 13:17:42 +0000

Alastair, I agree, but the basis behind this idea is that, because I had maths insurance, I wouldn’t need to undertake a maths course in the first place.

By: Alastair

Alastair — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 12:58:46 +0000

Good idea, but like all insurance companies they would soon work out ways of screening out the high-risk from the low-risk applicants. For instance, if you were actually doing a maths course there is a greater-than-usual chance that you would actually need to perform maths problems in later life. This would naturally raise the premium, or perhaps even make you uninsurable.

Which may even be some kind of consolation, depending on your point of view.

By: The USS Quad Damage : politics in the land of reason?

The USS Quad Damage : politics in the land of reason? — Sun, 26 Aug 2007 13:14:45 +0000

[...] your stance on Euthanasia? What about Abortion? Gay Marriage? Climate Change? What about Calculus? Some people are clearly against calculus. There’s a reason why I didn’t understand general studies [...]