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Comment by nikki93 | Hacker News Reader

Being mad at people like this is what makes them shy away from math. This works in any discipline. Let's be helpful and loving, I promise it feels nice, even though high horses are nice too.

"Mindstorms" by Seymour Papert is a good book regarding such issues.

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I'm still in university and I can say firsthand that the most difficult thing about being incorrect in regard to a math problem isn't so much about the problem itself—you can always fix it—it's in the shame associated with your peers seeing you do it incorrectly. It's terrible when a student goes up to do a practice problem from a class exercise and the rest of the students make an audible noise if they're off by the end of it. I had a professor who refused to refer to anyone by their name when they worked out a problem on the board, only the pronoun "they", because he felt like it decoupled the personal feelings the volunteer and the class had of the student and the work itself. The point, he said, was analyzing the work and why it was wrong or right, but not the student.

This, I believe, stretches out to pretty much any field. At least in the natural sciences. So I wouldn't say it is something naturally math-related.

West Wing captured that beautifully: https://youtu.be/pLHiK0ANSUQ

There's something different about maths.

In the UK, many people will happily say, "I can't do maths" or, "I'm no good with numbers". They're almost proud of it.

I've occasionally had shopkeepers be surprised when I've handed over coins so I get a round £5 back in change, yet it's expected that seven year old children can do this. What goes wrong?

Consider a clothes shop, with a sign: "20% off all marked prices!". I wonder how many people could say what the £50 jacket costs, or the £30 jeans.

You might be interested to hear another point of view. I am one of the people who tells others I'm bad at math, but it is because I struggle with mental arithmetic due to working memory deficits. For example, I struggle to keep two two-digit numbers in my head while I compute their sum. It's embarrassing, so the natural reaction is to try to make it funny.

I use the old joke that there are three types of mathematicians: those who can count and those who cannot.

Doing arithmetics in memory has little to do with being apt at mathematics.

This bigger issue is that this article has nothing to do with math. It is offensive to see people make such large claims about some understanding. OP has conquered nothing at all, just come to an understanding of trigonometry.

It is offensive to people who have spent a large amount of their time studying the field. This would be like me saying "I conquered design" after learning about CSS floats.

Nobody who has truly studied mathematics would ever say they "conquered" it. The more you study math, you realize truly how little you know.

Using such words as "conquering X" can happen in euphoric moments where you make small progress. It can be taken as how you take things not literally in poetry.

I would guess that if you were to ask the author, they wouldn't trivialize what one does in math grad school. The blogpost is probs best read as a personal story than a statement about math as a "discipline" at large.

I'm sorry that you were offended, math as a discipline is definitely misunderstood and the people working in it maybe moreso. They make contributions that allow truly cognition-breaking changes in other fields, and of course looked at independently the pure elegance and fun of it is beautiful...

If you have seen this beauty, why would you be mad at someone that dares to come check out your space? They are in awe at the art in your hallway (trigonometry) and exclaim "your home is beautiful." (discipline) Sure they haven't seen your pool and kitchen and everything else, but their compliment can still be met with gratitude.

In the space of eventually consistent communication among asynchronously thought-processing agents (aka. "Humans"), allowing for error induces less anger in general.

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