[Edu-sig] More cogitations on group theory...

[Kirby Urner]

On Sun, May 15, 2011 at 9:13 AM, Edward Cherlin <echerlin at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Sun, May 15, 2011 at 04:12, kirby urner <kirby.urner at gmail.com> wrote:
> >> Groupoids, categories, rings (clock time), fields (modular
> >> arithmetic), vector spaces, and algebras require a bit more thought,
> >> but I am sure that they can be done.
>
> I mentioned a few Lie Groups, but I omitted the name. Toposes,
> topologies, tilings, and fractals would be interesting to investigate,
> too.
>
>
Yes, it's nice to have this back office lingo to go with the work,
like a garnish.  In our case, the group theory is a kind of banter,
a chance to say CAIN (closure associativity inverse neutral)
and wink at someone, because you both went to that same
summer of code or whatever barcamp.

I've noticed the MBA types are tracked away from sounding
too much like computer scientists, which is where this
curriculum is refreshing.  Most of our students are already
employed (an educated guess) and are using some of their
free time to invest in new skills.  This is the demographic
with the best access.  Nursing homes, penitentiaries, and
high schools, tend to lag, though I could see those numbers
picking up in more liberal countries like Sweden. But then
who speaks Swedish in California... distance education
gets confusing.

One of my latest live gigs was a room full of PhDs in Baltimore.
No one there needed any more "academic credit" and yet they
all wanted to learn Python.  They weren't from the same
specialties always (quite a few were in instrumentation for
Hubble type spacecraft).  Putting a group theory spin on it,
having a few polyhedrons (literally, in my carry-on) helped
lighten the atmosphere as I was clearly not going to talk down
to them, nor bore them with too many examples about money
(a common mistake of business class teachers, when
confronted with a science-minded audience (hence names
like PermCell and PermDNA)).


> > That's perfect Ed.  Good to hear for another die-hard "group
> > theory for children" dude, a vanishing breed perhaps.
>
> It's just a fancy name for symmetry.
>
> MC Frontalot: Why do mirrors reverse left and right, but not up and down?
> John Hodgeman: They're just lazy. They could if they felt like it.
>
> Yeah, so what's really going on with mirrors?
>
> MC Frontalot is a nerdcore hiphop artist, and John Hodgeman is the
> author of More Information than You Require. He was also the PC in the
> Mac ads, and is sometimes on The Daily Show.
>
>
Sounds like I'll find lots of Youtubes of this guy.  We've already
discussed "demented".  I'd let PeeWee Herman teach Python if
he wanted, though I think some of his talking furniture items
might be better at it.

Kirby
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