jtimdwyer's comments

On: Claude Shannon: Mathematician, engineer, genius an...

[jtimdwyer]

In my experience many mathematicians enjoy things like juggling, change ringing etc. make of it what you will I guess.

On: How the square root of 2 became a number

[jtimdwyer]

I may be falling into a trap here by answering this, but you might enjoy The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas Kuhn.

On: Stack Overflow CEO announces 10% reduction in forc...

[jtimdwyer]

I think it's a reference to this scene.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fN-VAdAnoZ4

[cableshaft → jtimdwyer]

Yep, that's the one.

On: How can some infinities be bigger than others?

[jtimdwyer]

very carefully

On: 2000 Years of Matrix Multiplication

[jtimdwyer]

If you have not, you may be interested in reading Thomas Kuhn's book -- The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.

On: Intermediate Algebra

[jtimdwyer]

Now define distance :)

[Aicy → jtimdwyer]

You can make this argument on literally any definition - you have to start with something.

So dictionary.com says the defintion of distance is:

> the extent or amount of space between two things, points, lines, etc.

That works for me.

I think it makes sense to start with something physical, in the real world that people - and especially kids, can intuatively understand. Our brains by default understand what distance is. Maybe that's true for numbers as well- and that's ok too.

[zsmi → jtimdwyer]

Don't forget "continuous" and "line". :)

[jtimdwyer → zsmi]

Two historically trick ones!