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Comment by MichaelRo | Hacker News Reader

>> She can't understand how her classmates can have difficulties understanding

Because most people are completely illiterate with respect to mathematics. I wouldn't hold high hopes on their ... whatever the opposite of "functional illiteracy" is.

One idea in case you talk to that "17 yo" again. Ask her to ask her classmates to compute "{{2} over {3}} over {4} + {5} over {{6} over {7}} = ?", here's a visual view of this operation with fractions: https://imgur.com/IqhEsmX

I bet the discombobulated by "z = x + y" also get flabbergasted by fractions. If so, it's not they have trouble learning programming. They have trouble learning anything, q.e.d.

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> Because most people are completely illiterate with respect to mathematics.

Maybe, but...

>>The student then told me that some of the other students eventually understood that z takes the value of 11 but their question was "how a machine can do that"

... it's possible their block wasn't math, but they were hung up on the fact that they didn't think a *computer" could do math like that.

> They have trouble learning anything, q.e.d.

I doubt that. There are probably a dozen other more plausible reasons.

I would be very very surprised (and very very disappointed) if anyone is confused and/or surprised that a computer can do basic addition.

If those sorts of people exist then they’d be totally blown away at the capabilities of a pocket calculator.

I said:

"... they didn't think a *computer" could do math like that."

Emphasis on "like that" meaning laid out like that. Context can affect people's reasoning. Maybe they've never seen code.

I’m not really sure I get the distinction but I guess this is just one of those occasions that I’m just going to struggle to relate to.

Thanks for sharing the anecdote though. :)

That still leaves questions that ideally the class should explain:

- How does the computer understand that it needs to add

- How can the computer go from these 3 lines of text to "sure, let's add"

- Why does text even mean anything to the computer

- For that matter, sure it can add, but HOW? It's not like it has a pencil and paper.

Because indeed the infrastructure between these 3 lines of text and the addition is not trivial. These are legitimate questions.

> it's not they have trouble learning programming. They have trouble learning anything

sheesh

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