Eli Maor Quotes
As one who has taught mathematics at all levels of university instruction, I am well aware of the negative attitude of so many students toward the subject. There are many reasons for this, one of them no doubt being the esoteric, dry way in which we teach the subject. We tend to overwhelm our students with formulas, definitions, theorems, and proofs, but we seldom mention the historical evolution of these facts, leaving the impression that these facts were handed to us, like the Ten Commandments, by some divine authority.
Eli Maor e: The Story of a Number 1993
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
Brunner and B. F, Skinner were the two most preeminent learning psychologists of the day. They were intellectual opponents, but both agreed with this principle, Amazing demonstrations of this principle are available throughout history. However, apparently the cost to do it can be huge and as of 2012 there has been no overall success on a large scale of the general proposition. On the other hand, set theory has been taught to Junior High School students well, and calculus is taught in many American high schools. However. while there are these spectacular results, the American education system of the early 21st century has been unable to produce basic arithmetic and algebra skills in over 20 percent of the population.
Eli Maor (born 1937), an Israel-born historian of mathematics, is the author of several books about the history of mathematics. Eli Maor received his PhD at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology. He teaches the history of mathematics at Loyola University Chicago. Maor was the editor of the article on trigonometry for the Encyclopædia Britannica.
