Abstract
A focus on math and science education to raise total factor productivity and wages and secure
state and local pensions, military and other federal pensions, Social Security, Medicare,
and maintain stock market and house prices.
Math Ed Ideas
Promote math ed ideas like the following.
Number line rules. Why does the number line not intersect itself?
What is the absolute value of +2? Is it +2 or unsigned 2? Does the school system teach both?
An easy and rigorous road to calculus using power functions that vanish at a base point to define limit, continuity and derivative.
Inspiring students to become part of solving cancer, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s by the quantum mechanics of molecular docking.
Courses
More pathways and sequences through elementary math. This would allow different conceptual approaches to be tried that can fit different students. Some of this may require working with the state for approvals.
A sequence through calculus that does not involve trigonometry. Perhaps this already exists. If so, it can get greater visibility and support. High school trig is actually quite difficult. It is as difficult as the trig in the Feynman Kac path integral in quantum mechanics. That was so difficult, that David Beaglehole and I invented a way around it in our 1991 publication General Solutions of some interest rate-contingent claim pricing equations. That paper contains solutions that are dual use in finance and quantum mechanics. A 2021 paper, “Quantum harmonic oscillators and Feynman-Kac path integrals for linear diffuse particles” by Pierre Del Moral and E. Horton applies the same trick in the quantum context. I am currently working on releasing some applications of these papers for an improved approximation of more complex systems that can be of use in molecular docking, the search for molecules that dock with cancer, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s and others to stop replication of malformed molecules. I hope to inspire students to take up this cause as a career. This may appeal to girls and others who are more interested in this type of mission than generic physics and math.
Data science course emphasizing Python. This course would involve group projects to do simple applications using easy to use software of cointegration, vector error correction models and generalized method of moments. This will help students get into top schools with scholarships. Economics is the most popular major at Yale. These specific topics even as a group project will help students get into Yale as an econ major with a scholarship. Some students may be able to complete the International Monetary Fund’s online course on cointegration and vector error correction models after these projects. A certified pass in the IMF course would get them into a top school with a large scholarship.
An easier version of the old version of the MIT 6.001 course, Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs (SICP). This is one of the most legendary exciting courses in computer programming available on-line. Every problem in that book is worked out on line. There are video lectures of this course using Scheme. The school version would use a combination
of the on-line materials and help. It would focus on the first few chapters of the book which are partly a version of simple algebra and calculus in the Scheme language. Scheme is a version of Lisp and is an artificial intelligence language. This course would also get students into college with scholarships.
Math reform
Some of the words and phrases of math were poorly chosen but have become a global standard. An example is to use greater than to mean plus two is greater than minus three. This is confusing because greater than is a survival phrase. If an animal is greater than a child, it is a threat whether on the right or left. Words or phrases like more positive, positiver or pluser should have been chosen instead.
This will require some form of activity much larger than a single county. However, larger national and international groups might be sparked to set up such a project if they knew a local school system was interested in it. The IMF might be one of the sponsors of such a reform to promote global productivity. This might be part of one of their future spring or annual meetings in Washington D.C. I have attended those in the past. Christine Lagarde, then head of the IMF, agreed to host national data for calibration of bank and insurance risk models to teach developing countries how to manage that risk. This project received some interest from USAID but
is currently abandoned.
