Comment by bkolobara | Hacker News Reader

Comment by bkolobara | Hacker News Reader

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> Can you give some specific examples of the math and physics that you think are beyond the capabilities of a bright high school graduate (that seems like a reasonable minimum bar to expect for someone picking up a book targeted at freshmen at MIT)?

Just look at some of the examples right at the start of the book, in the first chapter:

> This section describes two methods for checking the primality of an integer n, one with order of growth Theta(sqrt(n)), and a 'probabilistic' algorithm with order of growth Theta(log n).

> ...

> Fermat's Little Theorem: If n is a prime number and a is any positive integer less than n, then a raised to the nth power is congruent to a modulo n.

> ...

> When we first introduced the square-root procedure, in section 1.1.7, we mentioned that this was a special case of Newton's method. If x -> g(x) is a differentiable function, then a solution of the equation g(x) = 0 is a fixed point of the function x -> f(x) where [complex formula] and Dg(x) is the derivative of g evaluated at x.

As someone who has a masters degree in CS, I agree with OP. People mostly recommend SICP to beginners because they want to sound smart, not because it's a good intro to programming.

> This section describes two methods for checking the primality of an integer n, one with order of growth Theta(sqrt(n)), and a 'probabilistic' algorithm with order of growth Theta(log n).

The book explains order of growth a few pages before this example, so the only assumed knowledge here is what a prime number is, which seems very reasonable.

> Fermat's Little Theorem: If n is a prime number and a is any positive integer less than n, then a raised to the nth power is congruent to a modulo n.

That's the concise definition of Fermat's Little theorem, that he then proceeds to explain in detail. Again, not presupposed knowledge, but something new to learn. He explains congruent modulo, so you are expected to know what prime numbers are, and what positive integers are. Again, CS books from MIT are not for you if you don't know those two things.

> When we first introduced the square-root procedure, in section 1.1.7, we mentioned that this was a special case of Newton's method. If x -> g(x) is a differentiable function, then a solution of the equation g(x) = 0 is a fixed point of the function x -> f(x) where [complex formula] and Dg(x) is the derivative of g evaluated at x.

This one assumes that you understand the material from section 1.1.7. I think you've succeeded in making a case for reading the book and completing the exercises in order, but not that it places unreasonable expectations on its reader.

You really don’t need to understand the math or how to prove anything about Fermat’s theorem, fixed points, or primality. It’s just the “business context” surrounding the requirements, which are specified well enough. I agree it might cause some unnecessary confusion if the reader is not able to put it “in a box” and just look at the algorithm, but really, putting it in a box works.

Later on there is a bunch of differential equations. I’ve been taught about differential equations for a week or two in calculus but I couldn’t solve one to save my life. It doesn’t matter. Solving the exercises doesn’t require it.

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