Michigan State University students had an unconventional math class this week after professor John McCarthy, 57, reportedly stripped naked in Calculus 1 class and began screaming that “there is no f—ing God” and “It’s all an act and none of it’s real.” In the age of laptop computers, the most surprising thing is that the students noticed and looked up from their computers. Presumably one student asked the standard question of “will this be on the test?”
Witnesses said that McCarthy was going through a routine derivative equation when he started to talk about his colleagues and how “they’re all actors.” He added that “It’s all an act and none of it’s real.”
McCarthy was arrested but not actually charged with a crime. He can certainly be charged with indecent exposure but I hope that he is not and that the police show a modicum of discretion. He obviously had a psychological meltdown. Brilliance sometimes comes with such mental issues as vividly shown in movies like “A Beautiful Mind.”
I would also hope that the faculty treats this matter as a mental illness and allows McCarthy to seek treatment rather than simply fire him. I realize it will be difficult for him to return to the classroom, but we need to treat mental illness like other forms of illness. Thus far the school has merely reassigned his classes. I expect that he is unlikely to return to teaching but in my view the school should treat this matter as an illness rather than misconduct. What do you think?
Source: NY Daily News
@Slart: I think the point is moot, I am sure that both you and I and a thousand other researchers are all doing things that only we are uniquely qualified to do because of our knowledge and skills by our years of immersion in a particular class of problems.
Good luck with the business. Are you going to leave teaching, or try contracting on a partial appointment?
Tony,
In saying that you didn’t have the “ability to implement it”, I merely meant that you lacked the knowledge and skills necessary for the kind of modeling of which I was speaking. Neither the maths involved nor the programming required would be in any way beyond you if you cared to learn them, but, at present, you clearly do not possess the requisite ability. I’m sorry that you took my statement as a slight casting you as inferior, but such was not my intent. I have never said anything meant to disparage your ability or knowledge in the areas you have claimed expertise, just that you are jumping to conclusions which I believe are incorrect in an area where I claim to have expertise—and, in my opinion, you do not.
@Slart: I’m guessing that you never needed to come up with an ad hoc solution which could …
Yes, Slart, I have 38 years worth of coding war stories too. If I added enough qualifying specifics, everything I have ever done in code is something you have never needed to do in code, but I shall refrain.
As far as bottom-up models, of course I haven’t programmed your specific application, but I have programmed fracture mechanics and simulations (mathematical, not graphical) of turbine parts to predict failures.
But you said, “nor the ability to implement it,” your charge was NOT that I haven’t done what you did, your charge was that you did not think I was even CAPABLE of doing what you have done. You were asserting a superiority of intellect and programming expertise that you do not have; that you have implemented something I could not ever hope to successfully do.
That is egotistical bullschit, pure and simple. I will add that I do not claim such superiority for myself, what I claim is equality. I am capable of programming anything that you are capable of programming.
Tony,
In the interests of maintaining whatever shred of readability our fight has left (I’m no less to blame for this than you, but it doesn’t change the fact), I’m going to answer piecemeal…
Tony said:
I haven’t disagreed with you about the sort of math that has been used for the last 25 years in business, but if you think that I have some naive idea that the same actions will produce different results you are sadly mistaken. I’ve clearly indicated that I am speculating, but I have a much better understanding of the applicability and capability of the methodology that I’m talking about than you do and I am currently in the process of putting my speculations to an empirical test (i.e. can I make money doing this?). Please don’t tell that my claims are wrong because of what you know about some math that I’m not even talking about.
Slarti,
None of that does not comport with what I said, but as to the “only” I phrased what I said the way I did because you two seemed to be having some crosstalk and that distinction I thought was the best way to point that out. As for “the best choice of class to learn critical thinking in is your first opportunity”? I’m going to have to file that under, “Well yeah.” with a reference note in the “duh” folder. 😉
Gene,
I’m going to turn your point on critical thinking around on calculus—much as it is axiomatic (nice math pun, by the way…) that there is more than one path to a true answer, I would say there is more than one way to teach a dog to do tricks. Some people do well in leaning calculus using examples and intuitions drawn from physics, while others may do better with problems drawn from biology or business. I’ve never said that calculus is the only or even the best vehicle for teaching critical thinking, only that learning critical thinking (which is the easiest way to pass calculus) is a part of the rationale for making it a requirement for majors that will never have to use explicitly in their careers. Ultimately, I think that the best choice of class to learn critical thinking in is your first opportunity.
I agree with Gene above. For me personally, the courses that helped me the most with critical thinking were statistics and philosophy. I would never have taken a philosophy course voluntarily, but my advisor insisted. He knew something I didn’t. I tend to be an analytic thinker by nature, but the philosophy coursework helped sharpen some already sharp knives even more. As for statistics, I use those skills on a daily basis in decision making.
My wife loved to go to the casinos on the Gulf coast. For me, I did not care for it, because when I went in and watched, all I saw as far as the eye could see, was B. F. Skinner’s rats pulling levers, hoping for a reward. A study in behavioral psychology. I once spent five days in Las Vegas at a convention and spent a grand total of five dollars in the casino. I just figured I was paying my stupid tax.
sonofthunderboanerges 1, October 7, 2012 at 6:26 pm
@Matt Johnson – No I don’t think you are displaying ODD characteristics. Tony C, you, and me seem to share a healthy opposition to authority (or reasonable facsimiles of same). It’s the key reason why I could never be in the military or any other related community. I presently work for people in the private sector (ex-everything) who display characteristics of psychopathy (See Hare Psychopathy Checklist). Even though they display apparent improper emotions for the corporate workplace does not mean they in fact are clinical psychopaths. This probably why I am so sensitive to the cat & mouse maneuver mentioned above (I’ve uncomfortably have been the mouse all too often).
========================
You would never be in the military. Somebody has to do it. Wait until you can’t buy a loaf of bread.
I was EM5 Navy, but I wasn’t a mouse. Everything has it’s consequences, including being a wimp.
@Slart: In all seriousness, here are a few business books from my shelf that I found useful over the years (as an analytical geek in a technical business):
1) SPIN selling, by Neil Rackham. “SPIN” is an acronym for “Situation, Probem, Implication, Need-payoff”. The cover says (and the book backs it up) “The Best Validated Sales Method Available Today. Developed from research studies of 35,000 sales calls and used by the top sales forces across the world.”
2) Selling Your Services, by Robert W. Bly. (“Proven strategies for getting clients to hire you (or your firm).”) Bly is also the author of “The Copywriter’s Handbook,” which I also found useful.
3) If you intend to sell by presentation, I found “Presenting to Win” by Jerry Weissman to be practical and helpful.
These may be dated, there are a plethora of such books, I have over forty of them myself and I have read them all. I am a big believer in brute force approaches! So I wouldn’t recommend anybody read just one of anything, but these are the ones that rose to the top for me.
Slarti/Tony,
I’m going to say “mutual paddling” versus “ass kicking” at this point as you have both made good points.
However, I am left the the comments regarding using calculus as a way to teach critical thinking skills. I think what both of you are saying is correct but only situationally so. Logic is critical to teaching critical thinking. It is paramount to teaching someone to understand rational relationships in data, how to rationally interpret data and synthesize it into knowledge and (specifically in scientific endeavors) how to rationally build an experiment that will yield useful relevant data. Much as it is axiomatic that there is more than one path to a true answer, I would say there is more than one way to teach a dog to do tricks. Some people do well in learning logic from the abstractions of mathematics while others may not and vice versa. Whether or not calculus is a good tool for teaching critical thinking, therefore, has a lot to do with the personal disposition of the student in question. Calculus (and mathematics in general) are a way to teach critical thinking, but they are not the only way. The linguistically inclined might to better with courses in the traditional verbal based philosophically oriented method of teaching logic. The mathematically inclined might do better with higher maths. Those fairly comfortable with both ways of thinking might benefit from taking something like symbolic logic and/or game theory.
So I’m giving you each two points for being correct and subtracting a point for being wrong.
But please feel free to carry on. This has been most entertaining.
Moderator: Please delete my first two attempts to post the last posting. No need to await moderation…
I [redacted] all URL’s to avoid Turley moderation:
“mosaic designs patterns” username hyperlink:
Ip address: 77.234.201.244
Saint-Petersburg State University of Information Technologies, Mechanics and Optics
Alexey A Baranov (IS Security Mgr) – not the poster but the ISP manager
Vuztelecomcentre (supercomputer center)
49 Kronverkskiy Ave
197101, Saint-Petersburg, Russia
phone: +7-812-233-7832
The poster’s URL-decode was: ?title=%D0%A3%D1%87%D0%B0%D1%81%D1%82%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%BA:FrancisKia
Translate to Cryllic (Russian) to Участник (Uchastnik) – or “Party”
So it probably means Participant named Francis Kia. It’s the Russian version of Wikipedia.
The link brings you to this:
“Участник:FrancisKia
Hello there i’m called Francis [Kia]. A buddy introduced me to [redacted] and thus far, I’m genuinely glad she did.
Hopefully at some point I’m able to contribute to a similar level as a lot of the senior users here.
Feel free to visit my weblog mosaic patterns ([redacted])”
Comes back to GoDaddy in Arizona. You can check out her HTML code w/o actually visiting the site by using this in Google Chrome (view-source:url). It looks innocent enough but who knows?
As Malisha MIGHT say “I’m like friends with benefits sans coitus” I guess… – (LOL)
SotB,
Never mind 😉
SotB,
I believe OS was referring to @mosaic design patterns—a handful of these comments regularly get through the professor’s spam filter…
@Otteray Scribe – Oops!!! You meant “mosaic designs patterns” didn’t you? Boy I did miss that one didn’t I? Wow he seemed convincing at first. So I a can assume he won’t reply?
@Otteray Scribe – Oh you mean the light blue Google Ad embedded at the 00:10 tickmark in the timeline? I thought that usually gets filtered out when you embed it into a WordPress blog like this. But for some reason it got through. Sorry about that. Thought the overall humor aimed at Slarti and Tony would outweigh any downsides of this dino-battle-video. I never click on Google Ads anyway – I always X them out so I can watch the video.
SoTB, that is spam. Looks like a bad Google translation. We get a lot of that kind of stuff here. Don’t click on the blue username link–no telling what you might accidentally download.
CLASH OF THE CALCULUS TITANS?
But which one is which?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Img88X1CQQ&feature=related
Cyber Humor…
@mosaic designs patterns – This is a topic that’s close to my heart… Many thanks! Exactly where are your contact details though?
1. Who were you addressing?
2. Which “topic” are you referring to. There are many here.
3. What is meant by your phrase “contact details” and why do you need them?
@Slart: The purpose of these classes are not to teach people to solve applied math problems in the various fields […] but to use familiar subject matter to aid in the teaching of calculus and critical thinking. [emphasis mine]
My original point was that, as a businessman (that knows calculus) I did not see any use for it in business. Your statement supports that, you are using business problems as a metaphor to teach calculus, and the calculus is not even intended to solve real-world business problems.
Slart: While there is nothing wrong with robust statistics and it is certainly applied to the type of modeling used in business for the last 25 years—it’s just not at all what I was talking about.
Well, that was MY point, that if there were ANY math appropriate to business beyond the standard statistics courses they already have, in my opinion it would be an introduction to Robust statistics, for good reasons.
Slart: The statistical models you are familiar with […] Also, these tend to use linear techniques—as one of my professors once said, “separating functions into linear and non-linear is like separating food into bananas and non-bananas”.
To begin with, all functions can be approximated with segmented linear functions with as little error as one may desire. Second, that is all business requires, as I asserted early on. So your professor’s point is both moot and misleading, because not all food can be approximated by “bananas.”
Slart: Now, the reason people use linear methods is because they are easier
And for a business problem that has imperfect information linear methods are “good enough.” With segmentation they can approximate higher order functions. The necessary segmentation is accomplished in business by timely repetition; repeating the simulation with new data as often as it comes in. Of course I am talking about real business, not your vision of how it may be. For example, if I am looking at sales projections for the quarter, I am also looking at new ones every week and keeping track of their trend.
I don’t expect them to be generated on day one and met on day 90, because by day 45 I have to start adapting the business to the most probable result, both in terms of correcting any problems indicated in sales (a people problem) and projecting the cash flow and dealing with funding or cutting future expenses (an arithmetic problem).
That is how business works and has worked in my experience, and although arithmetic and algebra and simple geometry are aids, no business manager needs calculus I to solve them.
Slart: In bottom-up modeling, […]
I am familiar with it, but as you describe it, I do not think it works for business, because ultimately business rests upon activities that can only be roughly quantified with a hefty dose of error; like how many cars Jeff will sell in a month, or whether the Labor Day sale we planned is going to get depressed by heavy rain.
Slart: The advantage (or one of them) of this type of model is that they are capable of emergent behavior—they end up being able to do things that they weren’t specifically designed to do.
As romantic as that sounds, it isn’t necessarily a good thing in business, unless the model can explain its reasoning. As a division manager, VP or Chief Operating Officer, I do not trust the livelihood of dozens or hundreds of people, and capital of investors, to magical formulae asserting something it cannot explain.
For the laymen: many models can “explain” what they have done and the relationships they have found in the data; they can show a map on the screen of relationships between things they discovered. So I am not suggesting the impossible or looking for a speech synthesizer. On the other hand, many other models, such as some genetic algorithms and neural networks, cannot explain why their answer is what it is in any way the typical business manager can comprehend.
Slart: If you make a model of, say, how you think that a bunch of proteins interact, you can then do simulated experiments and see if the behavior that results from the model matches experimental results.
Yes, of course, and I have no comment, other than this is how all models work, basically.
Slart: Now, you might think this is just speculation on my part,
Not at all, it sounds like a good project. (seriously).
Slart: 100 times faster…
Again I do not doubt it, some of my own work has improved speed and accuracy comparably, albeit in a different discipline. Such is the point of science.
Slart: This is the type of modeling that I believe could revolutionize cellular biology and, in my opinion, the next big area that will be pioneered by this kind of math will be economics.
Except economics is not business, a stipulation to which you at least partially agreed.
Slart: My guess is that you don’t have any experience with this type of methodology nor the ability to implement it… [emphasis mine]
You have no idea what my abilities are; Slart. I fear no math and I fear no code, and lives literally depend upon me getting both of them right. Do you think yours is the only discipline that requires extensive amounts of model programming?
I can program game theory, genetic algorithms, neural networks, many forms of gradient descent. I have programmed the math behind a magnetic resonance substance analysis device, and the robot that feeds it samples. I have been programming a five dimensional numerical integration as we write. I have been programming physical models and digital signal processing algorithms and feedback response systems for military weapons, sensors and commercial devices for over twenty five years, and MY code would not make Rube shudder because MY code is designed to be clearly understood by the programmers that will have to maintain it.
Let me quote you: So next time you read something I wrote and you think I’m saying something stupid and obviously wrong, I suggest you take a minute to consider that you might not be understanding what I’m talking about and that I may not be the idiot you so blithely assume.
Slart: I’m currently in the process of constructing a model of my company which will be in the business of creating modeling methodologies, engineering modeling tools, and producing custom modeling services for clients. That good enough?
It is a service, that is a business if you can convince people to buy it. Of course convincing people to buy it is a “people problem” in business, not something you will solve with Calculus I. Sales rely upon emotion and confidence, no matter how rational the decision sounds. For your business, were I the COO you were pitching to, I would want to see your track record of success in other companies. That is not the chicken and egg problem it sounds like; you might convince some companies to participate in a study for free, but MY point is that your very first “business problem,” getting a paying customer, or even a non-paying pilot participant, is not going to be solved by an equation or model.
Slart: I have reason to believe this sort of disconnect is endemic in business and has at least contributed to things like the mortgage-backed security debacle.
Sure, we can agree on that.
Slart: An understanding of critical thinking which can come from calculus is useful in combating this serious problem.
I do not think Calculus teaches critical thinking at all. To laymen with no intent of taking Calculus II, they can use a “memorize the cook book” approach to pass the course and then promptly forget it.
Slart: This allows the student to use the intuition which they have (hopefully) developed or are developing regarding business to inform their understanding of mathematics—and vice versa.
For those students destined to business, then, any metaphor will do, and Calculus I (which they will not be using) is a poor choice. They would be better off replacing that course with a different cross-discipline course, like psychology, sociology, or a political course on polling science. If we want a truly metaphor-rich discipline, perhaps a history of war strategies. Another good cross-discipline course would be in cellular biology, also metaphor rich (in terms of understanding non-linear growth rates and how constraints bend the curves, how resource starvation retards growth, etc.)
I believe my original point stands: The vast majority of business problems are simple people problems, logistic problems, and /or solved with arithmetic and spreadsheet functions. Business people do not need to know Calculus. They understand marginal tax rates and optimal pricing theory without relating them to Calculus I, and truly, what would be the point of relating them to Calculus I? What is the next step after that insight of “a marginal tax rate is something like a derivative, therefore, … [what?]”. How is that a useful tool?
“Business calculus” just sounds like an empty exercise to me; whatever intuition they gain about calculus is useless and forgotten by the atrophy of non-use, and I do not see what an introductory Calculus course can offer that gives undergrads any new insight about real business problems.