BBC Radio 4, Analysis - Wasted Youth

[The Natural Philosopher]

In fact it is.

Or rather mathematics is the *language* we use to describe what we have always known how to do.

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

As has been shown above it's possible to tailor the explanation to the audience and precis GPS operation to one or two sentences. Avoids the 'boring' chants.

[John Williamson]

One retired teacher I know, who is still a good teacher (judgubng by the odd occasion when I've seen him at work with a group of kids), has given up working as a supply teacher, because in a lot of schools now, especially secondary ones, trying to teach has become more a session of riot control and tests of will than education.

The attitude of a lot of kids round here is that if they can sign their name once a fortnight at the dole office, that's all the education they either want or need. Mind you, they can usually work out their entitlements to the penny in a flash and woe betide the DSS clerk that gets it wrong...

[Mike Barnes]

It's not a matter of *fact*, it's English usage. A philosopher would know that.

[jgharston]

It's more like negative and positive feedback, eg catching a ball: I'll move forward a bit, that's not under the ball, I'll move a bit more, no that's too far, I'll move back a bit, etc.

JGH

[jgharston]

There was something on last week's QI that cause me to shout at him, it was so bizzaire I can't remember what it was. I'm going to have to start writing them down.

JGH

[djc]

Maths is a formalism. It is but one way to describe the observed world, or, as applied maths, to predict what happens next. But it is not the only possible description, nor the only possible means to arrive at the result. You can describe, even explain, analogue computation in mathematical language but that does not mean that the analogue computer ?in as much as such a device can be said to have intention or purpose? is 'doing mathematics'. It is a 'category mistake': "to describe one thing in terms appropriate to another"

[Huge]

I'll skip over the nautical jokes to point out that it's "boson".

[Steve Firth]

What's that you say? Boozin?