• @[email protected]
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    215 months ago

    Multiplying with q negative does genuinely correspond to a 180° rotation around the origin in the complex plane (plus a scalar multiplication of course)

      • @[email protected]
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        5 months ago

        I take your point, but honestly I’d bet many would be ready to learn about complex numbers a lot earlier if they were taught in this way.

        Having such a memorable physical analogy “because I said so” is already miles better than the purely abstract “multiplying negatives makes a positive because I said so”, even if it still doesn’t mean you could teach extremely high level maths to six year olds.

        • @[email protected]
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          25 months ago

          Agreed. I’m trying to keep the reigns on an 11 year old, and we frequently talk both in what I would say is abstract. Also have to keep it somewhat grounded, because skipping multiple grades in math does not mean you will understand some things. Absolute value was an interesting conversation, and to be fair so was multiplying negatives.

    • @[email protected]
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      35 months ago

      I was already trying to visualize multiplying as a circle in my head and something clicks but cant grasp it.

      Now reading that apparently There is a real mathematical link i am dying to learn more. Do you know of an online visualizer/simulation that helps showing what you just said?

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        95 months ago

        Honestly, the best online resource I know of are the 3blue1brown videos on complex numbers

        Any tool risks confusing you more, since multiplying in the complex plane can act quite unexpectedly when you move outside the real line for both parameters

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          5 months ago

          I just had a look on their channel. I think my old classmates would cringe if they knew how excited i got seeing these thumbnails and titles.

          All my initial scientific inspiration have gotten sucked dry in the meat mill that is the education system, but living in the age of educational internet videos is big healer.

          I got vertasium and steve mould. Kurtzegesagt is mandatory for everyone by now i hope, i still follow Vsauce but i miss Michael. Got any other recommendations?

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            5 months ago

            Mathloger, numberphile, computerphile, Sixty symbols: more good math/computer science theory channels

            applied science, breaking taps: truly amazing “garage” engineering. They take on projects that you would normally expect to take a specialized lab.

            alpha phoenix: his expertise is in materials science but he does delve a bit into electromagnetic questions

            Mr P Solver: solving interesting problems computationally in pthyon

            Eevblog: good electrical engineering insights with a nice Australian accent

            Practical engineering: all the civil engineering questions you never knew you had

            Stuff made here: what happens if a robotics expert has a generous fun projects budget and never sleeps

            Tropical tidbits: discussion of the meteorology of tropical storms and hurricanes as they happen with none of the weather reporting sensationalism

            I’m sure I’m missing some, but that should be a big enough list to add many hours to your watch list.

            I have a physics degree, and 3 blue 1 brown’s latest videos on light are amazingly presented in comparison to the vast majority of lectures I’ve sat through. It makes me hopeful that online video sharing can help improve pedagogy and not just be clickbait nonsense.