A math problem generator
github.com
github.com
I think it would also be fun to look at contributing to this, and see about maybe adding some generators for additional probl... er, exercises. In particular, adding more stuff in the Calculus section might be an interesting challenge, and could make this even more useful.
How come that high school math is full of this stuff, like doing manual matrix multiplications over and over, but not a single mathematical proof?
Society would really benefit from people training logical reasoning, which is what a mathematical proof is. Rather that than a manual matrix multiplication.
Heck, even most of my SWE colleagues can't even write down a real proof.
I love Math and this is sort of casual gaming.
I think these short outburst of calculations are helpful and fun. I for example host a private website for sub/add/mult/div tasks and consider them as same sort of casual gaming, solving these "math problems" in the shortest time possible.
Author's great repo inspired me to add more stuff. I like it.
And that's my criticism. If more people in society cared why something is true, we wouldn't have falsehoods abound all around us that are obviously wrong and logically screamingly incorrect.
Matrix multiplication is an uninportant detail. Modus ponens is what holds everything together. But rarely anybody can handle the latter, nor even has heard of it.
Yes, proofs are a powerful part of mathematics, but they aren't at all the only goal. For someone like a machinist, proofs seem entirely impractical and like a waste of effort. My high school geometry class was heavily proof based, and most of the people in my class couldn't understand why we were doing these exercises. As a result, they didn't actually learn many of the helpful tricks from intro geometry that can help with things like machining or carpentry. In fact, I'd talked to someone who was in that class that now runs a cabinetmaking shop and they mentioned feeling cheated in high school due to our geometry class. I thought it was very well taught, but I ended up doing a BS in math. I was surprised that we ended up with very different views of the same class >10 years later.
Plus, even after MS level math courses, I can appreciate the need to do exercises. I look at them the same way as practicing playing an instrument. Sure, you can intellectually understand everything about a performance, but the only way to learn is through practice. I haven't had to touch 3d calc in a hot minute, but an upcoming side project will need that. First thing I am doing is (legally acquiring) some undergrad textbooks and solution guides and working through problems before comparing results. Yes, I can do proofs, but going through a worked example and comparing results is an excellent way of learning.
Ultimately, they are.
Mathematicians and people who are/were good at math are always quick to disregard the "boring" math.
First I'd like so make it clear that I agree with you.
However, in reality, all this stuff is seen as a prerequisite to get to "the good stuff". Real world education systems have this gatekeeper in place for everyone who isn't exceptional.
So while I absolutely share your sentiment, I find it very misplaced (and a bit distasteful) here for a tool that can actually just help real world self learners overcome those barriers. Self learners that just want to learn the basics from ground up are already often ignored by the whole math community.
Math is exercising, that is something high school math and university math very much have in common.
Had OP posted a generator for proof based exercises and problems, I guarantee you some mathematician would've showed up to rant just as much about how trivial undergraduate level proofs are ;)
Edit: The reason I ask is that providing a tex generator would possibly help K12 teachers generate exercise sheets, since obviously the terminal output wouldn't do for providing to students. I see that basic Tex is availiable, but from what I see it doesn't support templates.
I'd love to get some input on this.
I might poke around with this and Anki sometime though and see if I was onto something!
[1] https://bookstore.ams.org/content?PageName=prb
[2] https://www.maa.org/press/ebooks/problem-books
If you are referring to the recent ChatGPT developments, it can't even solve these very basic exercises.
Of course you'd need to find a math corpus of a similar size to github's repositories first. Overleaf has a bit of a similar position to github in STEM research, so that would be an interesting place to start looking (if it's legally possible). It's probably still too small, but would be interesting to see what a GPT version trained on the Overleaf corpus could do.
[1] https://alternativeto.net/software/codewars/
https://www.reddit.com/r/learnprogramming/comments/43upct/31...
A lot of work went into this, to generate trivial exercises to train rote memorization, like flashcards.
While mathematicians hate this kind of stuff, it is the bread and butter of physicists. While it is true most of them will not compute the cross product of two concrete vectors by hand, most will compute them symbolically, and the skills to do both are the same.
these are "exercises", not "problems" they don't involve creative thinking. look up the difference on any text about "problem solving"
https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/341202/how-to-prove...
For any integer base B greater than 2, the multiples of the number B-1, when represented in base B will always have the sum of the digits be a multiple of B-1. If B-1 is a square number (4,9,16,...) then the square root of B-1 will also have this property.
(the following node has a proof)
In fact, if d is any divisor of B-1 (including a trivial divisor), then d will have this property. (The author of the proof on the page you linked to is aware of this, but the author of the original conjecture isn't. For example, the reply notes that the digital root test for divisibility in hexadecimal works for 3 or 5, which are divisors of 16-1=15, regardless of the fact that 15 isn't a square. It also works for 1 or 15, which are also divisors of 15.)
a + 10b + 100c + 1000d + ....
But 10 leaves a remainder of 1 on division by 3 so this number divided by 3 is the same as
a + b + c + d + ...
So if your calculator is a huge neural net, maybe the problems aren't trivial!