
What do you get when you cross a Mosquito with a Mountaineer? (explained) - ColinWright
http://www.solipsys.co.uk/images/Mosquito.png
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ColinWright
Advice requested ...

This is _one_ ordering of the information, but I'm not sure it serves the
intended purpose, which is to help people understand the joke (well,
technically the riddle).

I'm interested to know how the HN community would suggest the information be
re-ordered. Any suggestions?

~~~
DoreenMichele
There is a box on the outside talking about scalars that is part of the line
of reasoning for vectors. It probably should be moved. It looks logically out
of place.

I had substantial math in high school. I am usually the mathiest person in the
room in meat space. I don't bother to identify as mathy on HN because I'm not
impressive for this crowd.

I have never before seen the terms vector and scalar for math. The explanation
for what they are is insufficient for my needs and there is no explanation as
to why you can't cross the two.

The layout places the word play part awkwardly. It would make more sense and
be easier to follow if you grouped the vector (wordplay) and vector (math)
explanations together instead of having them each on the far outside of the
piece. They should possibly go under a single heading that splits or separate
headings that are properly labeled to indicate (vector: math) and (vector:
wordplay).

Your explanations have a history of assuming a high level of base knowledge
while apparently being aimed at a lay audience. As noted above, I have a
relatively strong math background. If I don't get it, you are shooting way
above the heads of your (presumed) target audience. You need to provide more
math background while keeping it succinct and conceptually accessible.

I know that's a challenge. I've done plenty of that while homeschooling my
twice exceptional sons who had multiple years difference in ability in
different subjects. And, hey, this seems to be your hobby (or whatever) for
whatever reason. So if you really want to speak to a lay audience and not just
other math majors, you need to up your game in that department, a thing I
think I have more or less said to you previously.

I realize you can be sincerely working at it and not making much progress if
you aren't getting meaty feedback. So there's some feedback for you.

(Okay, I have admittedly seen vector and scalar in GIS. That knowledge is
rusty and I never felt I really adequately understood it for my needs, which
may be why I am claiming I don't know these terms. They have always been
essentially empty words to me.)

The title also needs work. It's a lousy title, especially for something you
are submitting to HN.

~~~
ColinWright
Thanks for the substantial reply - there's a lot to unpick here, but there are
some bits I don't understand, so I'll ask here, although I might follow up by
email to cover some things in greater depth. However ...

> _There is a box on the outside talking about scalars that is part of the
> line of reasoning for vectors. It probably should be moved. It looks
> logically out of place._

I'm not sure which box you mean - they appear to be in a logical order to me,
so I'm wondering if you see something I'm not seeing, or have somehow been
misled by something into making a connection that's not actually there.

> _I had substantial math in high school. I am usually the mathiest person in
> the room in meat space ... I have never before seen the terms vector and
> scalar for math._

Now that surprises me, and I wonder if it's a difference between the
Australian, English (UK), and American curricula. Certainly when I was doing
math in Australia vectors were covered in years 10 through 12 (ages 14/15 to
16/17), and now in the UK they're covered at a similar age. I'll have to get
in touch with some of my American colleagues to see when vectors are covered
in their schools.

> _The explanation for what they are is insufficient for my needs ..._

A diagram like this is not really the right place to give tutorials on the
basics of vectors, although your comment makes me wonder if there is a place
for a tutorial targeted at an audience other than those already catered for by
the existing on-line material.

> _... and there is no explanation as to why you can 't cross the two._

The "cross product" is defined between vectors. That's it, really. I'm not
sure what more can be added about that, so I'd welcome suggestions. Maybe I
can add that comment in a box somewhere.

Hmm.

> _The layout places the word play part awkwardly. It would make more sense
> and be easier to follow if you grouped the vector (wordplay) and vector
> (math) explanations together instead of having them each on the far outside
> of the piece. They should possibly go under a single heading that splits or
> separate headings that are properly labeled to indicate (vector: math) and
> (vector: wordplay)._

That's useful. It's not quite was I was thinking, but it reinforces the
thoughts I had about the groupings and the flow. Thank you.

> _Your explanations have a history of assuming a high level of base knowledge
> while apparently being aimed at a lay audience._

The strong evidence here in the UK is that my explanations are well-targeted
and at an appropriate level for the audiences here, so this really might be a
difference in the knowledge one can assume from the different school systems.

> _And, hey, this seems to be your hobby (or whatever) for whatever reason._

Actually, I make my living doing this, that's why I can say I have strong
evidence that the material I produce here in the UK is appropriate for my
audiences here in the UK. I have feedback forms, repeat engagements, letters
of recommendation, _etc._

But having said all that, the fact that you didn't follow it tells me that
perhaps I'm _not_ hitting the right level for an American audience, and that's
_really_ valuable information.

> _So there 's some feedback for you._

Again, thank you.

~~~
DoreenMichele
_I 'm not sure which box you mean - they appear to be in a logical order to
me, so I'm wondering if you see something I'm not seeing, or have somehow been
misled by something into making a connection that's not actually there._

With looking again, I think I misunderstood the box. It says _The so-called
'scalar product' or 'dot product' gives a scalar as a result._ And I think now
it is in the right place, but I just didn't understand it. It wasn't obvious
to me that it was still talking about vectors. Not sure if it can be improved.

 _The "cross product" is defined between vectors. That's it, really. I'm not
sure what more can be added about that, so I'd welcome suggestions. Maybe I
can add that comment in a box somewhere._

You may not need an explanation. That just may be me. Lots of other people
seem happy to hear "You can't do x." It seems to be a personal quirk that I
always want to know "But, _why_ can't you do x??"

 _That 's useful._

Glad something I said was useful.

 _But having said all that, the fact that you didn 't follow it tells me that
perhaps I'm not hitting the right level for an American audience, and that's
really valuable information._

Maybe. Maybe not.

I mean it is a clue that perhaps there is a difference and you can ask around
and all that. But I don't appear to be some kind of _typical American_ by any
stretch of the imagination, so I would be very hesitant to make broad
inferences based on me as a single data point. Though, certainly, it's a line
of thinking worth investigating.

FWIW, I attended K-12 in Columbus, GA. The Deep South has a long history as
being a bastion of poverty and not great education. So you might find regional
differences within the US.

(The Deep South is variably defined. It sometimes includes Texas and sometimes
not. It sometimes includes Florida and sometimes not. It sometimes includes
some of the more northerly edge states. It always includes Georgia and Alabama
and a few other states of the American Southeast. These were slave states and
they tried to secede, leading to the Civil War. The end of slavery absolutely
gutted the local economy and destroyed the government system as the states
only taxed slaveholders. The entire system had to be rebuilt and has,
arguably, not fully recovered from all that. So this is an area significantly
impacted by a long and burdensome history.)

I was one of the top students in my school and, based on my merit scholarship
(that I turned down) and placing as "alternate" (third place for the entire
state for the subject in question) for the Governor's Honors Program (a
residential summer enrichment program for gifted students), there is evidence
that I was a strong student, even at the state or national level (the
scholarship was a National Merit Scholarship). But the school system I
attended likely wasn't a great school system.

Also, I basically memorized my way through a lot of math in high school. I was
in my 30s when I began getting explanations that were meaningful and useful to
me for some of what I had memorized. For that and other reasons, it is
possible that it was covered, I didn't really understand it and I simply don't
remember.

Those last few paragraphs are intended to give you some context and inform
your follow-up research (should there be any) concerning the American
education system.

