Talk:Algorithm: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 22:50, 8 October 2002

Revision as of 00:17, 9 October 2002

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:: GCD and HCF are usually covered at junior school level (10-12). Integers are probably called "whole numbers" at that stage, but the concept is graspable. I'm not sure at what age one encounters a term like "algorithm". Later, I think. -- [[User:Tarquin|Tarquin]] 22:50 Oct 8, 2002 (UTC)

There's no question those concepts are taught in math classes at that level, but that's irrelevant to the topic under discussion. My point is that the purpose of an encyclopedia article is to define/introduce its subject to someone who doesn't yet know anything about it. Unless this article explains "algorithm" in terms someone who doesn't already know what one is can understand, it is useless for its intended purpose. Ordinary people (of any age, but I'm talking about only the U.S., and it may be different elsewhere in the world) don't know what GCDs and integers are, and they don't need to know what they are to understand what an algorithm is, so the article should be written (at least at the beginning, and you can put in the technical stuff farther down) in terms they do understand -- that could have been accomplished by using the example of putting a list of numbers in numerical order, for example.

But there's a largerr issue I consider pertinent here, and that's that Americans are innumerate, not so much because they're incapable of understanding numerical concepts as that they've acquired a fear of math, and that's the fault of generations of math teachers who didn't understand or couldn't explain the concepts in terms that made them accessible. Those of us who are teaching math now (including teaching it thru the 'pedia) have an obligation to do better by the ones we teach, because math is so much more important a tool than it has ever before been in society. The more non-numerical examples we use to explain the concepts, the less math resistance we have to overcome, and the better (and easier) we get our job done. Therefore "word problems" of practical, everyday matters are better than sets of equations for illustrating mathematical principles, and therefore a list to be alphabetized is better than numbers to be sorted for explaining "algorithm," because it makes the readers comfortable with the concept before they realize it's math and resist it. (I have yet to see a 'pedia article on a mathematical topic that didn't look like it came from a math textbook instead of an encyclopedia.)

So I respectfully insist that the example in this article needs to be of a simple sorting algorithm (and there is none simpler than a bubble sort, so I'm still voting for that) that anyone can understand. I'd like for it to be of alphabetizing items, because that would obviate math anxiety, but if it has to be numerical, make it something like putting checks or invoices in serial-number order. I'd like for it to be dynamic, showing the items swapping in pairs, but I don't know how to program anything that moves, although I've started introducing animated gifs to encourage contributors that do know how to animate illustrations to do so. It is ridiculous not to take advantage of the capabilities of this medium, especially when equations are so deadly dull, and instead of showing the transformations in a mind-numbing list of them, you could have the elements moving in and out of the equations on the screen, and the novelty of that would suck your readers in, so they would pick up the concept before they realized it. -- [[User:Isis|isis]] 00:17 Oct 9, 2002 (UTC)