Re: FHSST-Maths: officially dumbed down...

[Sam Halliday]

On 13 Apr 2005, at 04:46, Mark Horner wrote:
> Ok - on a more serious note - a little worried about the use of the 
> word infinity so early on. I think we should explain that concept 
> carefully - but thats the right place to do it.

well spotted. i feel footnotes are being used too much... perhaps it is 
time to write (or copy from physics) the "new word" environment for 
this scenario

> If we going to have some solid basics in, where does the precedence of 
> operators (is that programming jargon - should it be operations) fit 
> in?

i was hoping we'd get away with "operations", but if we have the new 
words env i could do a better job

>  Just the line where you have a+b/c - they should know that they do 
> the division first but if we want to be clear and correct we might 
> want to say something, though I defer that decision to the maths team.

i'm pretty sure i do ordering before division

> I think the books should be relaxed but correct. The comment about 
> mathematicians being lazy might raise some eyebrows but its fine by me 
> :) after the talk I saw today by a theorist (mathematician in 
> disguise) its undeniable.

hehe... perhaps its best as a footnote.

cheers,
Sam
--
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