STEM Doesn’t Care About Your Feelz

Top Dem Economist Says Woke Math Is a National Security Threat (freebeacon.com)

Look, I’m sorry that you feel bad because others are better at math than you.

I’m truly sorry that it’s because of our education system, and that you didn’t receive the best education when you were younger, because you live in a poor school district. We absolutely need to work on fixing that. Everyone in America should be able to receive a high quality education, whether you’re in rural Idaho, inner city Chicago, or Redmond, Washington.

But trying to balance things out because your education sucked doesn’t help anyone.

Larry Summers, a Harvard economist who led the National Economic Council under former president Barack Obama, shared a letter on Monday signed by almost 600 academics that condemns the rise of woke math initiatives in K-12 schools. The letter says the initiatives have devalued foundational math courses such as algebra and limited advanced math courses "to reduce achievement gaps." Summers called rigorous math instruction "an economic and a national security imperative," noting that "in China, math standards are not subject to continued erosion by social justice warriors who can't themselves define exponential growth or solve quadratic equations."

Not only does it hurt America, this trend hurts the very people it claims it’s for.

"While the U.S. K-12 system has much to improve, the current trends will instead take us further back," the letter reads. "Reducing access to advanced mathematics and elevating trendy but shallow courses over foundational skills would cause lasting damage to STEM education in the country and exacerbate inequality by diminishing access to the skills needed for social mobility."

Adrian Mims, one of the letter's signatories, told the Free Beacon that educators should focus on elevating students to advanced math classes, not trying to "lower the ceiling."

"If you do that, it's going to eliminate a lot of postsecondary opportunities for them," Mims told the Free Beacon.

The letter notes that eliminating advanced math courses would particularly harm public school students and place them at a disadvantage over students in private schools. It also warns that such reforms would reduce American students' proficiency in calculus, algebra, and logical thinking at a time when those skills "are arguably even more critical for today's grand challenges than in the Sputnik era."

This just puts you further in a hole, and makes it harder for you to climb out of it. And harms everyone else in the process.

Call Me When You Can Do This at Room Temperature

They’ve been telling us for about 70 years that reliable fusion generation is “a generation or so away”. The truth is that there are about 100 technological breakthroughs that have to occur to make that possible. We’ve accomplished about 60 of them.

But this is a big one.

Finally, a Fusion Reaction Has Generated More Energy Than Absorbed by The Fuel (sciencealert.com)

For the first time, a fusion reaction has achieved a record 1.3 megajoule energy output – and for the first time, exceeding energy absorbed by the fuel used to trigger it.

Just exceeding doesn’t amount to much. We need to exceed by some pretty significant margins to make it worthwhile. Still, this is huge.

"This result is a historic step forward for inertial confinement fusion research, opening a fundamentally new regime for exploration and the advancement of our critical national security missions. It is also a testament to the innovation, ingenuity, commitment and grit of this team and the many researchers in this field over the decades who have steadfastly pursued this goal," said Kim Budil, director of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

"For me, it demonstrates one of the most important roles of the national labs – our relentless commitment to tackling the biggest and most important scientific grand challenges and finding solutions where others might be dissuaded by the obstacles."

One of the other hurdles is getting this to happen at reasonable temperatures. We may never cross that one. But even if we can do it at fission-like temperatures that might be enough to start getting use out of it.

Then, 192 high-powered laser beams are blasted at the hohlraum, where they are converted into X-rays. These X-rays implode the fuel capsule, heating and compressing it to conditions comparable to those in the center of a star – temperatures in excess of 100 million degrees Celsius (180 million Fahrenheit) and pressures greater than 100 billion Earth atmospheres – turning the fuel capsule into a tiny blob of plasma.

How do we contain a large scale reaction occurring at 180 million degrees? We don’t. And if we can’t contain it, we can’t sustain it.

So, this is great news, but there’s still a way to go. Next time someone tells you that fusion is a “generation or so” away, you might actually be able to believe them.

But to do that, we need more people in STEM, and far fewer people worried about whether or not math is racist.

In 15-20 Years, We’re Going to Really Pay For What They’re Doing to Education

Math Is Now 'Racist' According to California – PJ Media

According to The San Francisco Standard, the new standards pull programs for gifted students, “de-emphasizes calculus, and applies social justice principles to math lessons.”

How about we apply math to math lessons?

“We were transforming math education, and change is hard and scary,” said Rebecca Pariso, a math teacher at Hueneme Elementary School District. “Especially if you don’t understand why that change needs to occur. But I didn’t expect it to go this far.”

I don’t undersand why it needs to occur, because it doesn’t need to occur.

This is right.

Over a thousand STEM experts signed an open letter condemning the proposed framework, saying it politicizes math. “[California’s] proposed Mathematics Curriculum Framework is presented as a step toward social justice and racial equity, but its effect would be the opposite—to rob all Californians, especially the poorest and most vulnerable, who always suffer most when schools fail to teach their students.”

‘Anti-Racism’ in STEM is Destroying our Future

There Is No Such Thing as "White" Math - Common Sense with Bari Weiss (substack.com)

Take for example the recent educational program called “a pathway to equitable math instruction.” The program is backed financially by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation; it counts among its partners the Lawrence Hall of Science at UC Berkeley, the California Math project, the Association of California School Administrators, and the Los Angeles County Office of Education, among others; and it was recently sent to Oregon teachers by the state’s Department of Education.

The program argues that “white supremacy culture shows up in the classroom when the focus is on getting the ‘right’ answer” or when students are required to show their work, while stipulating that the very “concept of mathematics being purely objective is unequivocally false”. The main goal of the program is “to dismantle racism in mathematics instruction” with the expressly political aim of engaging “the sociopolitical turn in all aspects of education, including mathematics.”

Well, I was going to comment on this, but two paragraphs down, the author does a far better and more succinct version than I could have.

So let me state the following for the record: Nothing in the history and current practice of mathematics justifies the notion that it is in any way different or dependent on the particular race or ethnic group engaged in it.

Getting the right answer is not racist, nor is expecting the right answer. Being required to show your work is not racist. It shows your understanding of the problem. And allows the instructor to give you partial credit, if you clearly understood the problem but somehow misread your scribbles and read a 6 as a 0 and ended up subtracting wrong.

I certainly would not want to drive over a bridge built by someone who had been taught by people that thought being forced to get the correct answer was racist.