"No mathematical idea has ever been published in the way it was discovered. Techniques have been developed and are used, if a problem has been solved, to turn the solution procedure upside down, or if it is a larger complex of statements and theories, to turn definitions into propositions, and propositions into definitions, the hot invention into icy beauty. This then if it has affected teaching matter, is the didactical inversion, which as it happens may be anti-didactical. Rather than behaving anti-didactically, one should recognise that the learner is entitled to recapitulate in a fashion of mankind. Not in the trivial matter of an abridged version, but equally we cannot require the new generation to start at the point where their predecessors left off."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Jews from GermanyJews from the NetherlandsMathematicians from the NetherlandsHistorians of mathematics
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
p. ix
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Hans_Freudenthal
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Hans Freudenthal
Hans Freudenthal (September 17, 1905 – October 13, 1990) was a Dutch mathematician. He made substantial contributions to algebraic topology and also took an interest in literature, philosophy, history and mathematics education.
26 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Hans Freudenthal →
Related Quotes
"A true aphorism legitimates itself; whoever feels the need to legitimate an aphorism, admits that it is illegal. The …"
"Science should be distinguished from technique and its scientific instrumentation, technology. Science is practised b…"
"[The goal of developmental research is to] consciously experience, describe and justify the cyclic process of develop…"
"Our mathematical concepts, structures, ideas have been invented as tools to organise the phenomena of the physical, s…"
"No scientist is as model minded as is the statistician; in no other branch of science is the word model as often and …"
"No statistician present at this moment will have been in doubt about the meaning of my words when I mentioned the com…"
"The urn model is to be the expression of three postulates: (1) the constancy of a probability distribution, ensured b…"
"The subject of a science is never well circumscribed and there is little use sharpening its definition. However, nobo…"
"The case of methodology is analogous though less clear. Nobody would object to the subject of methodology being scien…"
"Educational technique needs a philosophy, which is a matter of faith rather than of science."