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Comment by coffeemug | Hacker News Reader

I found that the best way for me to internalize a particular subject in hard science is to follow its history by reading the original papers. It's a hard way to do it, but it helps you understand the motivation, the progression of ideas, and the rigor that went into it. Anything else doesn't quite work for me - I feel like I "sort of" understand, but five minutes after I close the textbook (or the YouTube video) the understanding goes away with it.

I watched some of these lectures - they're excellent, but a bit too hand-wavy. Without getting through the rigor there's no hope to gain a complete understanding of the subject matter that stays with you forever.

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"I found that the best way for me to internalize a particular subject in hard science is to follow its history by reading the original papers."

I've often wondered why math programs (and books) aren't structured this way, explaining the historical context, reproducing the original papers (or explaining the arguments or proofs in the paper if the original happened to be in Latin or whatever), with a section on how the paper helped move the field forward and so on. It doesn't necessarily have to sacrifice rigor to do this, and a s amatter of fact I suspect a "walk the path (taken by the innovators)" approach coupled with strict rigor would make for some awesome books (and get more people interested).

Frequently the historically motivated path is too long or creates too much baggage. It's not always the case, granted, and sometimes the historical development does give you the motivation, but you're still asking for a gifted teacher, and that's rare.

A gifted teacher can teach with or without the historical perspective, and in my experience a clean, direct presentation with appropriate motivation and context is usually better.

Again, not everything works for everyone.

"but you're still asking for a gifted teacher, and that's rare."

Fair enough. Maybe a gifted teacher can write a book :-)

"Again, not everything works for everyone."

I agree. There are a lot of texts which ignore the history. It would be great to have a few which retraced the paths.

Agreed. I'd have appreciated physics more if it had been taught with a more historical approach. When I asked the profs why, the general answer was 'takes too much time'.

(I 'spect part of it is that history is a 'humanity' ... but also that it's because they didn't get the history either, and didn't have time to learn it well enough to teach it.)

The physics department (major US university) actually hired a history of science scholar, and I heard grumbling that he should be paid for by another department.

I suspect there is a compromise between an extreme use of history and ignoring it.

In my physics class in high school, we discussed the progression of models of the atom. Each time, we learned what experiment led to the new thoughts, and how surprising it was. I thought this was a great way to learn the topic. We didn't, however, spend too much time on the history and never read any of the original papers.

Note: We did have a great teacher.

On the other hand, one difficulty with teaching topics historically is that it is hard to group things by topics. For example, in mathematics, the function is a relatively recent idea. Newton died before the function was thought up, but calculus is usually taught as "take the derivative of a function." This is not to say that history would be useless in this case, but it may require even more talent from the teacher.

You would like Mathematics and its History by John Stillwell

http://www.amazon.com/Mathematics-its-History-John-Stillwell...

Knowing the price of 1Kg of Potatoes, the street-side vegetable seller in my home town in India only needs to know how much to charge me for 3/4 Kg. He doesn't really care how innovations in mathematics resulted in fractional multiplication. This can be extended to the teaching of basic maths. Students who show an interest or an aptitude for grasping the finer and more insightful details can go on to read up on it, or ask their professors.

What we really need is professors knowledgeable enough to answer these questions or point the student to the right texts.

" He doesn't really care how innovations in mathematics resulted in fractional multiplication."

But I care.

In your world do only potato sellers need text books?

I wasn't talking about textbooks for potato sellers, so I fail to see how this is relevant. The implicit audience in my post is a reader of HN. Does your potato vendor post on HN? ;-)

I wasn't talking about elementary mathematics in case that wasn't clear from the context. So now you know.

As you no doubt know already, I was responding to a very specific comment that said "I found that the best way for me to internalize a particular subject in hard science is to follow its history by reading the original papers." and I just made an observation noting my surprise why (some) textbooks aren't structured to help people like the commenter , not your potato vendor whom I haven't had the honor of meeting.

"What we really need is professors knowledgeable enough to answer these questions or point the student to the right texts."

Another strawman?

(a)I was asking for some textbooks to be structured this way for people who like learning that way.

(b) there is no reason not to wish for good professors and textbooks of all kinds (NOT professors ExclusiveOr textbooks - where did you get that idea?) .

Since I wasn't advocating that potato sellers should be taught the history of additions and fractions, or that textbooks should be substitutes for good professors, I'll leave you be to hack at your favorite strawmen in peace ;-).

i think these videos are targeted mainly towards a much less technically-savvy audience than the folks here on HN.

I watched some of these lectures - they're excellent, but a bit too hand-wavy.

sure, but what more can you expect from 10 minutes? i don't care how great a 10-minute youtube video is, it can never provide the depth that sophisticated primary sources can. but then again, we shouldn't expect it to go nearly that deep :)

I tend to like the historical approach, too. So did Bohr? "Just as many sports players go through warming-up exercises before entering the arena, so Bohr would relive the struggles which had taken place before the content of quantum mechanics was understood and accepted. I can say that in Bohr's mind this struggle started afresh every single day." -some book on 20th century physicists I don't recall

..but reading the original papers? I can't imagine ever deciphering Newton or Maxwell (before Heaviside fixed up the equations, it was some horrific mess of like, 20 equations with 20 unknowns). There are great benefits in a clean, logical development.

On the other hand, I hear Dirac's papers were remarkably clear. Maybe reading the originals is easier for math?

"..if one wishes to make progress in mathematics, one should study the masters and not the pupils" -Abel

Hi, I have a question for you, lets say I want to study linear algebra, or finance, so if i want to do it your way, where do i start??

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