Re:Wolfram Alpha Is Making It Extremely Easy for Students to...
by scarmig on Friday July 07, 2017 @12:05PM
(#14719490)
Reminds me of the story of Feynman vs the Abacus. [1]
Though, as a story, the conclusion he draws is pretty self-congratulatory and bothers me a bit. The substrate on which you implement an algorithm like arithmetic doesn't really speak to whether you "know numbers." It's like the high schooler thinking being very good at computing integrals makes you good at math.
Re:Wolfram Alpha Is Making It Extremely Easy for Students to...
by posterboy on Friday July 07, 2017 @01:53PM
(#14720475)
Being powerful, ie good in something, is a function of Work over Time, so if you are good without much effort, that implies some sort of talent I think.
Though, as a story, the conclusion he draws is pretty self-congratulatory and bothers me a bit. The substrate on which you implement an algorithm like arithmetic doesn't really speak to whether you "know numbers." It's like the high schooler thinking being very good at computing integrals makes you good at math.
[1] http://www.ee.ryerson.ca/~elf/abacus/feynman.html