Eating corn on the cob is messy and gets stuff stuck in my teeth. It’s also slow. I always find a knife (even just a plastic butter knife), cut the corn off, and eat it with a fork or spoon. What category does that fit in? Until I started doing this, I think I kept experimenting with eating in different patterns. I have no idea what it’s like to eat corn without trying to optimize the process.
My feeling is that that’s probably analysis-style rather than algebra-style. (Even though the actual order of corn-kernel removal is more like that of algebraists.) Are any of the other distinctions that allegedly correlate with it ones that you can match up with your life? Of course they won’t be if you’re not a mathematics/software type.
(It would be very interesting to know whether the algebra/analysis divide among mathematicians is a special case of something that applies to a much broader range of people, and corn-eating might be a way to explore that. But I don’t think cornology is far enough advanced yet to make confident conjectures about what personality features might correlate with different modes of corn-eating.)
I’m a software engineer and my degree in college required a good chunk of advanced math. I am currently in the process of trying to relearn the math I’ve forgotten, plus some, so I’m thinking that if this analysis/algebra dichotomy points at a real preference difference, knowing which I am might help me choose more effective learning sources.
But I find it hard to point to one category or another for most aspects. Even the corn test is inconclusive! (I agree that it sounds more like an analysis thing to do.)
I love the step-by-step bits of algebra and logic, but I also love geometry.
I think I do tend to form an “idiosyncratic mental model of specific problems.” As I come to understand problems more, I feel like they have a quality or character that makes them recognizable to me. I did best in school when teaching myself from outside sources and then using the teacher’s methods to spot check and fill in gaps in my models.
I think object oriented programming is very useful, and functional programming is very appealing.
I use(d) vi/vim because that’s what I know well enough to function in. I barely touched emacs a couple times, was like, “dafuq is this?” and went back to vim. I never gave emacs a fair chance.
I think I lean towards ‘building up’ my understanding of things in chunks, filling in a bigger picture. But the skill of ‘breaking down’ massive concepts into bite-sized chunks seems like an important way to do this!
My tentative self diagnoses is that I have a weak preference for analysis. Reading more of the links in the OP might help me confirm this.
Eating corn on the cob is messy and gets stuff stuck in my teeth. It’s also slow. I always find a knife (even just a plastic butter knife), cut the corn off, and eat it with a fork or spoon. What category does that fit in? Until I started doing this, I think I kept experimenting with eating in different patterns. I have no idea what it’s like to eat corn without trying to optimize the process.
My feeling is that that’s probably analysis-style rather than algebra-style. (Even though the actual order of corn-kernel removal is more like that of algebraists.) Are any of the other distinctions that allegedly correlate with it ones that you can match up with your life? Of course they won’t be if you’re not a mathematics/software type.
(It would be very interesting to know whether the algebra/analysis divide among mathematicians is a special case of something that applies to a much broader range of people, and corn-eating might be a way to explore that. But I don’t think cornology is far enough advanced yet to make confident conjectures about what personality features might correlate with different modes of corn-eating.)
I’m a software engineer and my degree in college required a good chunk of advanced math. I am currently in the process of trying to relearn the math I’ve forgotten, plus some, so I’m thinking that if this analysis/algebra dichotomy points at a real preference difference, knowing which I am might help me choose more effective learning sources.
But I find it hard to point to one category or another for most aspects. Even the corn test is inconclusive! (I agree that it sounds more like an analysis thing to do.)
I love the step-by-step bits of algebra and logic, but I also love geometry.
I think I do tend to form an “idiosyncratic mental model of specific problems.” As I come to understand problems more, I feel like they have a quality or character that makes them recognizable to me. I did best in school when teaching myself from outside sources and then using the teacher’s methods to spot check and fill in gaps in my models.
I think object oriented programming is very useful, and functional programming is very appealing.
I use(d) vi/vim because that’s what I know well enough to function in. I barely touched emacs a couple times, was like, “dafuq is this?” and went back to vim. I never gave emacs a fair chance.
I think I lean towards ‘building up’ my understanding of things in chunks, filling in a bigger picture. But the skill of ‘breaking down’ massive concepts into bite-sized chunks seems like an important way to do this!
My tentative self diagnoses is that I have a weak preference for analysis. Reading more of the links in the OP might help me confirm this.