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Posted 3 October 2007

DIAGNOSTIC EXAMPLES   (Incomplete)

This page provides examples of the kinds of problems students have with abstract math with links to where to read about them.

I don’t know how to think about …

This may mean:

¨  You don’t have a useful mental representation of the concept  metaphors or images that allow you to think about it.

¨  You don’t have a lot of experience with the concept, so you don’t have any intuition about it.

Your statement “I know the fourth dimension is time” shows a misunderstanding.  n-dimensional space, roughly speaking, is a space in which you can locate every point by giving n coordinates.  The model of space-time given by general relativity (MW, Wi) does indeed have four coordinates, one of which models time.  But 4-dimensional space as an abstract math object doesn’t have to model space-time.  It could be a phase space, for example, or something completely abstract.  A five-dimensional space is also an abstract idea  each point has five coordinates  which can model many things.

You don’t have useful metaphors or images for five-dimensional space or any intuition about it either, so you don’t have “any way to think about it”.   However, each type of five-dimensional space has a precise mathematical definition.  By working example and proving theorems based on that definition you can gain an intuition about how things behave in that space. 

Need article about being intimidated by others’ mystifying knowledge.

But you didn’t say what it is!     

Beginners tend to be stuck with one representation of a type of math object, and tend to think that the math object is that representation.  See Representations and models.

You defined  to be “the positive real number whose square is 2” but you didn’t say WHAT IT IS.

That may be because you think that a real number is the same thing as its decimal expansion and you want to be told that .  In fact to say it is “the positive real number whose square is 2” is a more exact description of  than giving its first few decimal places.  The decimal expansion is a representation of .   This example is covered in more detail here.  See also exact , Representations and models and Concept and computation.

That doesn’t make any sense

The feeling of something not making sense may coming from having mental representations of a type of object that don’t fit well the way they actually are (which means: don’t fit what can be proved about them)  Mental representation are described in more detail in the chapter on Images and Metaphors.  In the topic articles about particular parts of math, the images and metaphors that mathematicians commonly have about each topic are discussed  with specific attention to aspects that mislead.

You may be thinking of a straight line segment as like a straight mark on a page or like a stick.  The line segment is like a stick in some respects, but it is not a physical object and does not have to have thickness.  Indeed, you can’t see the line in the sense of physical seeing; what you see on the paper or on the screen is only a representation of the line segment.

You are thinking of the real line as a row of points, but it does not have that particular property that a row has, namely that the points are arranged one after another.  Your image doesn’t fit the facts.

I can’t make sense out of the wording

“This infinite series converges to  ”.    This sentence is incomprehensible! 

It means “This infinite series converges to , which is , which is approximately 1.65.”   This is an example of a parenthetic assertion.

The name confuses me

This is an example of cognitive dissonance caused by a technical term (“imaginary”) that is also a word in ordinary English.  Imaginary numbers have the same cognitive status as real numbers:  they are mathematical objects.

How did you know that so fast?

How did you know that  is never negative? 

This is an example of pattern recognition.  It is discussed in more detail under ratchet effect.

They say the same thing!

You have reworded the definitions that your teacher or book gave.  The word unique is ambiguous!  The definition of function requires that if a = b, then f(a) = f(b).  The definition of injective requires that if f(a) = f(b), then a = b.  More about that here.

NEED MORE EXAMPLES

contrapositive proof given without explanation