Tag: WitCH

WitCH 18: Making Serena Pointless

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August 1, 2019

1:02 pm

7 Comments on WitCH 18: Making Serena Pointless

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We have lots of catching up to do, WitCHes to burn and whatnot. However, we’ll first try to get in a few quick topical posts (give or take a couple weeks …). This first one is half-post, half-WitCH. We had planned it as a post, but it then seemed worth letting readers have a first whack at it; as always, readers are welcome and encouraged to comment below.

Serena Williams was back at Wimbledon this year, for the ninety-fifth time, almost grabbing her eighth title. This phenomenal athlete was also the subject of some media fluff, of the type that always accompanies these events. It was reported, pretty much everywhere, that

“One in eight men think that they could score a point off Serena Williams”.

Oh, those silly, silly men.

Twitter, of course, lit up over these “delusional” men and the media gleefully reported the ridicule, and more often than not piled on. A rare few articles gave tepid consideration to the idea that the men weren’t delusional, and none more than that.

The Serena fluff came courtesy of British polling firm YouGov, popular with those comforted by the illusion that someone cares what they think. Specifically, YouGov asked:

“Do you think if you were playing your very best tennis, you could win a point off Serena Williams?”

YouGov announced the result of the poll on Twitter, with catchy headline and accompanying graph:

“One in eight men (12%) say they could win a point in a game of tennis against 23 time grand slam winner Serena Williams”

Note that 3% of women also answered that they could win a point; we could see nothing in the media reports questioning, much less ridiculing, this percentage. (The missing percentages correspond to people who answered “don’t know”.)

On the YouGov website, the poll is also broken down by age and so on, but there is little information on the nature of the polling. All we are told is:

“1732 [Great Britain] adults were questioned on 13 Jul 2019. Results are weighted to be representative of the GB population.”

OK, so now the WitCH aspect. What is wrong with the poll? What is wrong with the reaction to it and the reporting of it? As always, feel free to respond in the comments. (You might try to keep your answers brief, but it won’t be easy.)

Finally, to state explicitly what should be obvious, we are not in any way having a go at Serena Williams. She is a great athlete, and throughout her career she’s had to put up with all manner of sexist and racist garbage. We just don’t believe the YouGov poll is such an example, or at least so clearly so.

WitCH 16: The Root of Our Problem

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June 15, 2019

9:44 am

8 Comments on WitCH 16: The Root of Our Problem

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This WitCH comes from one of our favourites, the Complex Numbers chapter from Cambridge’s Specialist Mathematics 3 & 4 (2019). It is not as deep or as beWitCHing as other aspects of the chapter. But, it’s still an impressive WitCH.

Update (11/08/19)

I guess if you’re gonna suggest a painful, ass-backwards method to solve a problem, you may as well fake the solution:

  • Checking directly that P(1 – i√2) = 0 involves expanding a cubic, and more, which the text does in one single magic line.
  • The painful multiplication of the products for part b is much more naturally and easily done as a difference of two squares: (z – 1 – i√2)(z – 1 + i√2) = (z – 1)2 + 2, etc.
  • After all that the third factor, z – 1, is determined “by inspection”? Inspection of what?

AS RF notes, it is much easier to spot that z = 1 solves the cubic. Then some easy factoring (without long division …) gives P = (z – 1)(z2 – 2z + 3). Completing the square then leads to the linear factors, answering both parts of the question in the reverse, and natural, order.

Alternatively, as John notes, the difference of two squares calculation shows that if z – 1 + i√2 is a factor of P then so is the quadratic z^2 – 2z + 3. That this is so can then be checked (without long division …), giving P = (z – 1)(z^2 – 2z + 3), and so on, as before.

WitCH 15: Principled Objection

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June 14, 2019

11:46 am

10 Comments on WitCH 15: Principled Objection

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OK, playtime is over. This one, like the still unresolved WitCH 8, will take some work. It comes from Cambridge’s Mathematical Methods 3 & 4 (2019). It is the introduction to “When is a function differentiable?”, the final section of the chapter “Differentiation”.

Update (12/08/19)

We wrote about this nonsense seven long years ago, and we’ll presumably be writing about it seven years from now. Nonetheless, here we go.

The first thing to say is that the text is wrong. To the extent that there is a discernible method, that method is fundamentally invalid. Indeed, this is just about the first nonsense whacked out of first year uni students.

The second thing to say is that the text is worse than wrong. The discussion is clouded in gratuitous mystery, with the long-delayed discussion of “differentiability” presented as some deep concept, rather than simply as a grammatical form. If a function has a derivative then it is differentiable. That’s it.

Now to the details.

The text’s “first principles” definition of differentiability is correct and then, immediately, things go off the rails. Why is the function f(x) = |x| (which is written in idiotic Methods style) not differentiable at 0? The wording is muddy, but example 46 makes clear the argument: f’(x) = -1 for x < 0 and f’(x) = 1 for x > 0, and these derivatives don’t match. This argument is unjustified, fundamentally distinct from first principles, and it can easily lead to error. (Amusingly, the text’s earlier, “informal” discussion of f(x) = |x| is exactly what is required.)

The limit definition of the derivative f’(a) requires looking precisely at a, at the gradient [f(a+h) – f(a)]/h as h → 0. Instead, the text, with varying degrees of explicitness and correctness, considers the limit of f’(x) near a, as x → a. This second limit is fundamentally, conceptually different and it is not guaranteed to be equal.

The standard example to illustrate the issue is the function f(x) = x2sin(1/x) (for x≠ 0 and with f(0) = 0). It is easy to to check that f’(x) oscillates wildly near 0, and thus f’(x) has no limit as x → 0. Nonetheless, a first principles argument shows that f’(0) = 0.

It is true that if a function f is continuous at a, and if f’(x) has a limit L as x → a, then also f’(a) = L. With some work, this non-obvious truth (requiring the mean value theorem) can be used to clarify and to repair the text’s argument. But this does not negate the conceptual distinction between the required first principles limit and the text’s invalid replacement.

Now, to the examples.

Example 45 is just wrong, even on the text’s own ridiculous terms. If a function has a nice polynomial definition for x ≥ 0, it does not follow that one gets f’(0) for free. One cannot possibly know whether f’(x) exists without considering x on both sides of 0. As such, the “In particular” of example 46 is complete nonsense. Further, there is the sotto voce claim but no argument that (and no illustrative graph indicating) the function f is continuous; this is required for any argument along the text’s lines.

Example 46 is wrong in the fundamental wrong-limit manner described above. it is also unexplained why the magical method to obtain f’(0) in example 45 does not also work for example 46.

Example 47 has a “solution” that is wrong, once again for the wrong-limit reason, but an “explanation” that is correct. As discussed with Damo in the comments, this “vertical tangent” example would probably be better placed in a later section, but it is the best of a very bad lot.

And that’s it. We’ll be back in another seven years or so.

WitCH 14: Stretching the Truth

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June 14, 2019

12:38 am

4 Comments on WitCH 14: Stretching the Truth

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The easy WitCH below comes courtesy of the Evil Mathologer. It is a worked example from Cambridge’s Essential Mathematics Year 9 (2019), in a section introducing parabolic graphs.

Update

The problem, as commenters have indicated below, is that there is no parabola with the indicated turning point and intercepts. Normally, we’d write this off as a funny but meaningless error. But, coming at the very beginning of the introduction to the parabola, it most definitely qualifies as crap.

WitCH 13: Here for the Ratio

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June 14, 2019

12:00 am

18 Comments on WitCH 13: Here for the Ratio

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The WitCH below is courtesy of a clever Year 11 student. It is a worked example from Jacaranda’s Maths Quest 11 Specialist Mathematics (2019):

Update (11/08/19)

It is ironic that a solution with an entire column of “Think” instructions exhibits so little thought. Who, for example, thinks to “redraw” a diagram by leaving out a critical line, and by making an angle x/2 appear larger than the original x? And it’s downhill from there.

The solution is painfully long, the consequence of an ill-chosen triangle, requiring the preliminary calculation of a non-obvious distance. As Damo indicates, the angle x is easily determined, as in the following diagram: we have tan(x/2) = 1/12, and we’re all but done.

(It is not completely obvious that the line through the circle centres makes an angle x/2 with the horizontal, though this follows easily enough from our diagram. The textbook solution, however, contains nothing explicit or implicit to indicate why the angle should be so.)

But there is something more seriously wrong here than the poor illustration of a poorly chosen solution. Consider, for example, Step 5 (!) where, finally, we have a suitable SOHCAHTOA triangle to calculate x/2, and thus x. This simple computation is written out in six tedious lines.

The whole painful six-step solution is written in this unreadable we-think-you’re-an-idiot style. Who does this? Who expects anybody to do this? Who thinks writing out a solution in such excruciating micro-detail helps anyone? Who ever reads it? There is probably no better way to make students hate (what they think is) mathematics than to present it as unforgiving, soulless bookkeeping.

And, finally, as Damo notes, there’s the gratuitous decimals. This poison is endemic in school mathematics, but here it has an extra special anti-charm. When teaching ratios don’t you “think”, maybe, it’s preferable to use ratios?

WitCH 11: Impartial

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June 13, 2019

12:14 pm

13 Comments on WitCH 11: Impartial

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The following WitCH comes from (CAS permitted) 2018 Specialist Mathematics Exam 2:

The Examiners’ Report indicates that about half of the students gave the intended answer of D, with about a third giving the incorrect answer B. The Report notes:

Option B did not account for common factors and its last term is not irreducible, so should not have Dx in the numerator.

Update (11/08/19)

The worst kind of exam question is one that rewards mindless button-pushing and actively punishes intelligent consideration. The above question is of the worst kind. It is also pointless, nasty and self-trippingly overcute.

As John points out in the comments, the question can simply be done by pressing CAS buttons. But, alternatively, the question also just appears to require, and to invite, a simple understanding of partial fraction form. Which brings us to the nastiness: the expected partial fraction form is not a listed option.

So, what to make of it? Not surprisingly, many students opted for B, the superficially most plausible answer. A silly mistake, you silly, silly student! You shoulda just listened to your teacher and pushed the fucking buttons.

The trick, of course, is that the numerator factorises, cancelling with the denominator and leading to the intended answer, D. The problem with the trick is that it is antimathematical and wrong:

  • As Damo notes, the original rational function is undefined at x = -1, which is lost in the intended answer.
  • As Damo also points out, there is no transparent, non-computational way to check that the coefficients in answer D would, as demanded by the question, be non-zero. 
  • It is not standard or particularly natural to hunt for common factors before breaking into partial fractions. Any such factors will anyway become apparent in the partial fractions.
  • To refer to the partial fraction form is actively misleading. Though partial fraction decomposition can be defined so as to be unique, in practice it is usually not helpful to do so, and the VCE Study Design never does so. In particular, if answer B had contained a final numerator of Dx + E then this answer would be valid and, in certain contexts, natural and useful.
  • The examiners’ comment on answer B is partly wrong and partly incomprehensible. One can pedantically object to the reducible denominator but if that is the objection then why whine about the Dx in the numerator? And yes, answer B is missing the constant E, which in general is required, and happens to be required for the given rational function. For a specific rational function, however, one might have E = 0. Which brings us back to Damo’s point, that without actually computing the partial fractions there is no way of determining whether answer B is valid.

But of course all that is way, way too much to think about in a speed-test exam. Much better to just listen to your teacher and push the fucking buttons.

WitCH 9: A Distant Hope

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February 15, 2019

2:23 pm

4 Comments on WitCH 9: A Distant Hope

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This WitCH (as is the accompanying PoSWW) is an exercise and solution from Cambridge’s Mathematical Methods Units 1 and 2, and is courtesy of the Evil Mathologer. (A reminder that WitCH 2, WitCH3, Witch 7 and WitCH 8 are still open for business.)

Update

As Number 8 and Potii pointed out, notation of the form AB is amtriguous, referring in turn to the line through A and B, the segment from A to B and the distance from A to B. (This lazy lack of definition appears to be systemic in the textbook.) And, as Potii pointed out, there’s nothing stopping A being the same point as C.

And, the typesetting sucks.

And, “therefore” dots suck.

WitCH 8: Oblique Reasoning

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February 13, 2019

5:58 pm

49 Comments on WitCH 8: Oblique Reasoning

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A reminder, WitCH 2, WitCH 3 and WitCH 7 are also open for business. Our new WitCH comes courtesy of John the Merciless. Once again, it is from Cambridge’s text Specialist Mathematics VCE Units 3 & 4 (2019). The text provides a general definition and some instruction, followed by a number of examples, one of which we have included below. Have fun.

Update

With John the Impatient’s permission, I’ve removed John’s comments for now, to create a clean slate. It’s up for other readers to do the work here, and (the royal) we are prepared to wait (as is the continuing case for WitCh 2 and Witch 3).

This WitCH is probably difficult for a Specialist teacher (and much more so for other teachers). But it is also important: the instruction and the example, and the subsequent exercises, are deeply flawed. (If anybody can confirm that  exercise 6G 17(f) exists in a current electronic or hard copy version, please indicate so in the comments.)

WitCH 5: What a West

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November 29, 2018

10:08 am

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This one’s shooting a smelly fish in a barrel, almost a POSWW. Sometimes, however, it’s easier for a tired blogger to let the readers do the shooting. (For those interested in more substantial fish, WitCH 2, WitCH 3 and Tweel’s Mathematical Puzzle still require attention.)

Our latest WitCH comes courtesy of two nameless (but maybe not unknown) Western troublemakers. Earlier this year we got stuck into Western Australia’s 2017 Mathematics Applications exam. This year, it’s the SCSA‘s Mathematical Methods exam (not online. Update: now online here and here.) that wins the idiocy prize. The whole exam is predictably awful, but Question 15 is the real winner:

The population of mosquitos, P (in thousands), in an artificial lake in a housing estate is measured at the beginning of the year. The population after t months is given by the function, \color{blue}\boldsymbol{P(t) = t^3 + at^2 + bt + 2, 0\leqslant t \leqslant 12}.

The rate of growth of the population is initially increasing. It then slows to be momentarily stationary in mid-winter (at t = 6), then continues to increase again in the last half of the year. 

Determine the values of a and b.

Go to it.

Update

As Number 8 and Steve R hinted at and as Damo nailed, the central idiocy concerns the expression “the rate of population growth”, which means P'(t) and which then makes the problem unsolvable as written. Specifically:

  • In the second paragraph, “it” has a stationary point of inflection when t = 6, which is impossible if “it” refers to the quadratic P'(t).
  • On the other hand, if “it” refers to P(t) then solving gives a < 0. That implies P”(0) = 2a < 0, which means “the rate of population growth” (i.e. P’) is initially decreasing, contradicting the first claim of the second paragraph.

The most generous interpretation is that the examiners intended for the population P, not the rate P’, to be initially increasing. Other interpretations are less generous.

No matter the intent, the question is inexcusable. It is also worth noting that even if corrected the question is awful, a trivial inflection problem dressed up with idiotic modelling:

  • Modelling population growth with a cubic is hilarious.
  • Months is a pretty stupid unit of time.
  • The rate of population growth initially increasing is irrelevant.
  • Why is the lake artificial? Who gives a shit?
  • Why is the lake in a housing estate? Who gives a shit?

Finally, it’s “latter half” or “second half”, not “last half”. Yes, with all else awful here, it hardly matters. But it’s wrong.

Further Update

The marking schemes for the exam are now up, here and here.  As was predicted, “the rate of growth of the population” was intended to mean “population”. As is predictable, the grading scheme gives no indication that the question is garbled garbage.

The gutless contempt with which certain educational authorities repeatedly treat students and teachers is a wonder to behold.

WitCH 3

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June 11, 2018

1:10 am

7 Comments on WitCH 3

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First, a quick note about these WitCHes. Any reasonable mathematician looking at such text extracts would immediately see the mathematical flaw(s) and would wonder how such half-baked nonsense could be published. We are aware, however, that for teachers and students, or at least Australian teachers and students, it is not nearly so easy. Since school mathematics is completely immersed in semi-sense, it is difficult to know the rules of the game. It is also perhaps difficult to know how a tentative suggestion might be received on a snarky blog such as this. We’ll just say, though we have little time for don’t-know-as-much-as-they-think textbook writers, we’re very patient with teachers and students who are honestly trying to figure out what’s what.

Now onto WitCH 3, which follows on from WitCH 2, coming from the same chapter of Cambridge’s Specialist Mathematics VCE Units 3 & 4 (2018).* The extract is below, and please post your thoughts in the comments. Also a reminder, WitCH 1 and WitCH 2 are still there, awaiting proper resolution. Enjoy.

* Cambridge is a good target, since they are the most respected of standard Australian school texts. We will, however, be whacking other publishers, and we’re always open to suggestion. Just email if you have a good WitCH candidate, or crap of any kind you wish to be attacked.

Update (06/02/19)

The above excerpt is indicative of the text’s entire chapter on complex numbers. It is such remarkably poor exposition, the foundations so understated and the direction so aimless, it is almost impossible to find one’s way back to sensible discussion.

Here is a natural framework for a Year 12 topic on complex numbers:

  • First, one introduces a new number \boldsymbol i for which \boldsymbol i^2=-1.
  • One then defines complex numbers, and introduces the fundamental operations of addition and multiplication.
  • One then at least states, and hopefully proves, the familiar algebraic properties for complex numbers, i.e. the field laws, \boldsymbol {u(z + w) = uz + uw} and so forth. All these properties are obvious or straight-forward to prove, except for the existence of multiplicative inverses; one has to prove that given any non-zero complex \boldsymbol z there is another complex \boldsymbol w with \boldsymbol {zw = 1}.
  • That is the basic complex algebra sorted, and then one can tidy up. This includes the definition of division \boldsymbol {\frac{z}{w} = zw^{-1} = w^{-1}z}, noting the essential role played by commutativity of multiplication.
  • Then, comes the geometry of complex numbers, beginning with the definition and algebraic properties of the conjugate \boldsymbol {\overline{z}} and modulus \boldsymbol {|\boldsymbol z|},  the interpretation of these quantities in terms of the complex plane, and polar form.
  • Finally, the algebra and geometry of complex numbers are related: the parallelogram interpretation of addition, the trigonometric-polar interpretation of multiplication, roots of complex numbers and so forth.

Must complex numbers be taught in this manner and in this order? No and yes. One obvious variation is to include a formal definition of a complex number \boldsymbol {z = a + bi} as an ordered pair \boldsymbol {(a,b)}; as Damo remarks below, this is done as an asterisked section in Fitzpatrick and Galbraith. Though unnervingly abstract, the formal definition has the non-trivial advantage of reinforcing, almost demanding, the interpretation of complex numbers as points in the complex plane. More generally, one can emphasise more or less of the theoretical underpinnings and, to an extent, change the ordering.

But, one can only change the ordering and discard the theory so much, and no more. Complex numbers are new algebraic objects, and defining and clarifying the algebra is critical, and this fundamentally precedes the geometry.

What is the Cambridge order? The text starts off well, introducing \boldsymbol i with \boldsymbol {i^2 = -1},  and then immediately goes off the rails by declaring that \boldsymbol {i = \sqrt{-1}}. Then, in brief, the text includes:

(a) an invalid treatment of the square roots of negative numbers;

(b) complex addition stated, presumably defined, with the inverse \boldsymbol {-z} introduced but not named;

(c) complex subtraction, followed by an almost invisible statement of the relevant field laws, none of which are proved or assigned as exercises;

(d) scalar multiplication;

(d) the complex plane and “the representation of the basic operations on complex numbers”;

(e) complex multiplication defined, with an almost invisible statement of field laws, none of which are proved or assigned as exercises, and with no mention of the question of multiplicative inverses;

(f) the geometry of multiplication by \boldsymbol i;

(g) the modulus of a complex number defined, with algebraic properties (including {\boldsymbol {|\frac{z}{w}| = \frac{|z|}{|w|}}) stated and assigned as exercises;

(h) the conjugate of a complex number defined, with algebraic properties stated and either proved or assigned as exercises.

(h) Finally, as excerpted above, it’s on to reciprocals of complex numbers, multiplicative inverses in terms of modulus and conjugate, and division.

(i) This is followed by sections on polar form, de Moivre’s theorem and so forth;

(j) CAS garbage is, of course, interspersed throughout. (Which is not all Cambridge’s fault, but the text is no less ugly for that.)

At no stage in the text’s exposition is there any visible concern for emphasising or clarifying foundations, or for following a natural mathematical progression. There is too seldom an indication of what is being defined or assumed or proved.

What is the point? Yes, one can easily be overly theoretical on this topic, but this is Year 12 Specialist Mathematics. It is supposed to be special. The students have already been introduced to complex numbers in Year 11 Specialist. Indeed, much of the complex material in the Year 11 Cambridge text is repeated verbatim in the Year 12 text. Why bother? The students have already been exposed to the nuts and bolts, so why not approach the subject with some mathematical integrity, rather than just cutting and pasting aimless, half-baked nonsense?

Now, finally and briefly, some specific comments on the specific nonsense excerpted above.

  • division of complex numbers has already appeared in the text, in the list of (unproved) properties of the modulus.
  • the algebraic manipulation of \boldsymbol {\frac1{a+bi}} is unfamiliar and unmotivated and, as is admitted way too late, is undefined. There is a place for such “let’s see” calculations – what mathematicians refer to as formal calculations –  but they have to be framed and be motivated much more carefully.
  • There is no need here for a “let’s see” calculation. The critical and simple observation is that \boldsymbol {(a + bi)(a-bi) = a^2 + b^2} is real. It is then a short step to realise and to prove that \boldsymbol {\frac{a}{a^2 + b^2} - \frac{bi}{a^2 + b^2}} acts as, and thus is, the multiplicative inverse of \boldsymbol {a + bi}.
  • Having finally admitted that \boldsymbol {\frac1{a + bi}} has not been defined, the text goes on to not define it again. The text states the multiplicative inverse of \boldsymbol z, but it is not clear whether this statement amounts to a definition or a conclusion.
  • Division of complex numbers is then defined with needless subscripts and, more importantly, with no mention of the fundamental role of commutativity of multiplication.
  • Throughout, the use of conjugate and modulus is muddying rather than clarifying.
  • At no stage is it made clear why \boldsymbol {\frac1{a + bi}} makes sense in contrast to, for example, the non-sense of \boldsymbol {\frac1{M}} for a matrix.