This happened a while ago, and even more uplifting is Ne’Kiya Jackson got into college by doing this!
Stumped? This [theorem]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pythagorean_theorem) is a contender for most different proofs.
The article states nobody has ever found a proof for the Pythagorean theorem utilizing trigonometry before until these young ladies did.
There had been one other documented proof of the theorem using trigonometry by mathematician Jason Zimba in 2009
No it doesn’t.
I see that now. Higher up in the article was a bit misleading
What no one told them was there had been more than 300 documented proofs of the Pythagorean Theorem using algebra and geometry, but for 2,000 years a proof using trigonometry was thought to be impossible, … and that was the bonus question facing them.
The 60 Minutes episode is a bit misleading in how they discuss this too. Basically it’s very impressive because they were high school students. A proof of this kind had only been done once before. They each found one independently and worked to find a general method for more proofs. Watch the 60 Minutes episode.
Half the time in these stories it comes out the parents/relatives/friends happen to actually be experts in the field and work at some high level place where the teens in question just happened to have access to cutting edge resources and ‘guidance’.
They already went to a cutting edge private school that has a 100% graduation rate. I could see what you mean if it was just one student, but these kids were working independently. The school is the common thread.
What you say might be true if it were an easy accomplishment for an adult. Like those kids who are 10 years old with 2 businesses. Then you find out that their parents have 5 businesses. What are the chances that two students independently have outstanding mathematicians as parents?
Not only that, but they also explained their proofs. Watch the video. It’s not a “kid with a boring online business” story.
And they only got $500 for it. Not quite on the level of the Fields Medal… although apparently even that’s only $15,000 CAD (not sure why Wikipedia tells me the amount in Canadian money, but whatever).
Whether that’s true or not, the article transcript explains why this is still a big deal:
Bill Whitaker: Why do you think so many people found what you did to be so impressive?
Ne’Kiya Jackson: Probably because we’re African American, one. And we’re also women. So I think-- oh, and our age. Of course our ages probably played a big part.
I was going to say, I could have sworn someone else had done this before.
Still this just makes me wonder what we could accomplish if we could get everyone the quality of education private schools offer, but as a public system. Finland banned schools from charging fees, meaning they have the same solid level of education for everyone, and it clearly has benefitted them and decreased inequality.
So much wasted potential in our nations, it hurts to see it.
Doesn’t matter in the US. “Education” is so focused on job training that guidance counselors will think you’re mental if you’re more interested in education then min-maxing your (promised)income.
Yeah, it’s kinda weird. It would never be called a theorem if it hadn’t already been proven 20 ways to Sunday, it would stay a theory until then.
Link didn’t format correctly. Need an open parenthesis in front of the https.
Very relevant, in combination with the click bait title.
It’s insane that her first thought, in response to the question of why people were surprised, was the color of her skin, followed by her gender, and only then did she mention the thing that was probably the first thing everyone else thought of: her age.
Regardless, very impressive indeed.
Why did people find your amazing mathematical achievement amazing? Racism. Sexism… Oh yeah, also because we’re young. So not because it’s cool, it’s hard and it’s amazing? Nope, just because we happen to be black girls in school, and did this in America…
Such sadness man. Even the bit about people saying African Americans don’t have the brains for it or something. Wow, it’s sad.
Is it insane though
The educational system must be reformed!
So so so so many ads in that page that I genuinely lost the article in the middle, that’s a first.
I didn’t see a single ad, I’m using this:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/ublock-origin/Will that work on my pixelgooglephone?
Yes just install Firefox and the ublock addon.
Yes, Mozilla has had a browser on android for a while now. It also has many of the same privacy addons as the PC version
Not to beat the point to death, but I’m using FF and UBO on a stock Pixel 7a. I’m browsing Lemmy using Sync, which means i need to purposefully open the link in Firefox, or it uses the Sync built in browser
But if your default browser is Firefox then sync uses a webview based on that. With uBO.
I checked my settings in Sync. The default browser is set to internal at the moment
Default browser in Android, not Sync.
Pictures are better than words
My current settings
Internal browser on OP’s link
Device browser (Firefox) on OP’s linkWhatever internal browser Sync is using, it isn’t Firefox. My default browser on my device is Firefox.
Why aren’t you using an ad block?
I love when pages or websites have so much bloat, ads and bs that it’s actually a huge effort to try and use their site, but then if you use an adblocker to actually be able to use their site, you get notices like OHH NOO YOU ARE USING AN ADBLOCK WE ARE SO SAD PLEASE DISABLE AND HELP US PAY FOR INDEPENDENT JOURNALISM yadayada… lol please. Hypocrites. If good marketing is all about removing user friction, I don’t understand why they add this much friction as ads and spam.
And here I am at 46 and I can’t help my daughter with her middle school math homework.
I relearned basic math when my kids started school. I was 30. It’s not too late to learn new tricks. The new math they teach makes mental math much easier.
It also doesn’t help that they changed math and you now need an entire sheet of paper for each problem.
That’s fine. That just means that you’re not good at Math or not good at teaching. I’m sure you’re good at other things.
I remember hearing this alot growing up, how “you are not a math person”, and I believed it.
Now I have a masters in mechanical engineering and a few patents. Don’t believe this trope of “you aren’t good at math”.
I can relate with this. A doctor told me when I was a middleschooler that I would never graduate from college. Welp… my master’s degree proved him otherwise.
If there is such a thing as a learning disability for math, I definitely have it. You only were required to take one math class in college. I took finite math because I was told it was the easiest class. I squeaked by with a C. It’s not that issue like with dyslexia where you see numbers switched around, I just find it all totally baffling.
Dyscalculia is dyslexia for numbers
That’s what I was thinking of. I don’t have that. I’m just math stupid.
Me too, math is just too hard.
You probably aren’t. You probably weren’t properly taught fractions and decimals. There have been studies that show that the overwhelming majority of, specifically Americans, who say that they are bad at math, just never really grokked fractions and decimals, and so the rest of the language makes absolutely no sense. We have been terrible at trying to teach that specific part of math for decades in this country. I really wish we would adopt the curriculums that are actually working elsewhere in the world at a national level.
My mother is still a teacher in her 80s (substitute teacher so she has something to do in retirement,) and I majored in Computer Science and Music Education, I just quickly found out that education is not a field for men to be in, in this country. Too risky.
I love Math, but that doesn’t mean I love anything with numbers. Accounting classes? Jesus, what a nightmare.
Yeah, math is so much more than numbers.
Yeah, I didn’t claim it was.
If I said that I was bad at algebra, which are part of math, would you have said “yeah, math is so much more than algebra”?
what they’re good at I can’t say out loud
It’s horrifying, seeing all the things you’ve forgotten laid out in front of you day after day!
How is a trig proof different than algebra or geometry proof? I’m good with numbers, but I sucked at proofs.
Trig requires some assumptions and special tools, like SOHCAHTOA and what not that don’t really exist in standard algebra.
Oscar has a heap of apples.
It’s a mathematical proof, but it’s using trig inside the proof.
If you ever want a fun rabbit hole of mathematicians losing their minds, they had a massive existential crisis about calculus with “What if all of calculus is wrong!?!”, and the subsequent proof developed is one of those things that took years and likely involved a lot of amphetamines.
That’s one smart cookie
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