The Advantage is that mathematics is a field in which one's blunders tend to show very clearly and can be corrected or erased with a stroke of the pencil. It is a field which has often been compared with chess, but differs from the latter in that it is only one's best moments that count and not one's worst. A single inattention may lose a chess game, whereas a single successful approach to a problem, among many which have been relegated to the wastebasket, will make a mathematician's reputation.
Interpretation
Mathematics allows for clear identification and correction of mistakes, unlike chess where a single error can lead to defeat.
In this quote, Norbert Wiener highlights the unique nature of mathematics as a discipline where errors can be easily corrected, signifying an important aspect of learning and improvement. Unlike chess, where one misstep can determine the outcome of a game, mathematics encourages a focus on successful solutions over failures, emphasizing the value of persistence and the clarity with which mistakes can be rectified in problem-solving.
In practice
During a mathematics class, the teacher emphasizes the importance of learning from mistakes.
In a very real sense, we are shipwrecked passengers on a doomed planet. Yet, even in a shipwreck, human decencies and human values do not necessarily vanish, and we must make the most of them. We shall go down, but let it be in a manner to which we may look forward as worthy of our dignity.
I have said that the modern man, and especially the modern American, however much 'know-how' he may have, has very little 'know-what'
Any labor which competes with slave labor must accept the economic conditions of slave labor.
We have modified our environment so radically that we must now modify ourselves to exist in this new environment.
We are but whirlpools in a river of ever-flowing water. We are not stuff that abides, but patterns that perpetuate themselves. _x000D_ A pattern is a message, and may be transmitted as a message.
Let us remember that the automatic machine is the precise economic equivalent of slave labor. Any labor which competes with slave labor must accept the economic consequences of slave labor.
This crippling of individuals I consider the worst evil of capitalism. Our whole educational system suffers from this evil. An exaggerated competitive attitude is inculcated into the student, who is trained to worship acquisitive success as a preparation for his future.
It's a failure of national vision when you regard children as weapons, and talents as materials you can mine, assay, and fabricate for profit and defense.
The man that I named the Giver passed along to the boy knowledge, history, memories, color, pain, laughter, love, and truth. Every time you place a book in the hands of a child, you do the same thing. It is very risky. But each time a child opens a book, he pushes open the gate that separates him from Elsewhere. It gives him choices. It gives him freedom. Those are magnificent, wonderfully unsafe things. [from her Newberry Award acceptance speech]
You can't really be scientifically literate if you don't understand evolution. And you can't be an educated member of society if you don't understand science.
I've learned that you learn best by modeling. If you want people to learn, do it!
Books and all forms of writing are terror to those who wish to suppress the truth.
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