Learning is any change in a system that produces a more or less permanent change in its capacity for adapting to its environment.
Herbert SimonRead
Mathematics is a language. We want scientists to be able to read it, speak it, and write it. But we are are not training them to be grammarians.
Interpretation
Mathematics is essential for scientists, but the focus should be on understanding and application rather than just rules.
In this quote, Herbert Simon emphasizes that mathematics serves as a fundamental language for scientists, enabling them to read, articulate, and document their ideas effectively. However, he warns against overly fixating on the formal rules of mathematics, akin to a grammarian's focus on linguistics, advocating instead for a broader understanding that prioritizes practical usage and comprehension over rigid adherence to technicalities.
In practice
In a mathematics seminar discussing the importance of math in scientific research.
Learning is any change in a system that produces a more or less permanent change in its capacity for adapting to its environment.
Human knowledge has been changing from the word go and people in certain respects behave more rationally than they did when they didn't have it. They spend less time doing rain dances and more time seeding clouds.
The proper study of mankind is the science of design.
What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention, and a need to allocate that attention efficiently among the overabundance of information sources that might consume it.
Read the kinds of things you want to write; read the kinds of things you would never write. Learn something from every writer you read.
Every single minute matters, every single child matters, every single childhood matters.
Everything we know, we learned from someone else!
My message was 'Think African. Make schools read African history.'
I think it's so important that, if I'm writing about the real world, I stay true to it. I think that kids do compartmentalize, and they're hopefully able to see it from a safe place of their own lives and, through that, learn something about empathy.
Every literate woman is a victory over poverty
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