What goes around...

by liberal japonicus

Open thread-y post. Been reading a lot about the revolt in Russia and a common hook is to plug it into some historical event. The obvious one is 1991 KGB takeover and Yeltsin and Czar Nicolas II is another fave. But there is also Yemelyan Pugachev (Catherine the Great), one of the false Dmitris (one, two or three) and a couple of others that I can't relocate. We also discussed the Mandate of Heaven, and how it has been on repeat in China. So thinking about all this, the Guardian article caught my attention.

A new exhibition in Paris aims to show how England in the middle ages was very much part of Europe’s dynamic art, architectural, trade and culture scene between AD1000 and AD1500.

Organisers said the event would discredit the “popular perception” – mainly across the Channel – that medieval England was “primitive and barbaric” while France and parts of Europe enjoyed a gothic zenith.

[...]

Unfortunately, while France and other European countries largely preserved their medieval treasures, England’s artistic heritage was “systematically and ruthlessly decimated” by the 16th-century Reformation and the revolution led by Oliver Cromwell in the 1640s, he said.

Looking at British history in the 16th century as a kind of Brexit is an interesting thought.

Anyway, open thread.

Comments

[wj]

Been reading a lot about the revolt in Russia and a common hook is to plug it into some historical event.

C.f. Putin comparing it to 1917.

I confess that it also flashed across my own mind the "The June-ists" simply doesn't have the same ring as "The Decemberists". (And yes, I do know that the Decemberists have a very different agenda.)

[wj]

Unfortunately, while France and other European countries largely preserved their medieval treasures, England’s artistic heritage was “systematically and ruthlessly decimated” by the 16th-century Reformation and the revolution led by Oliver Cromwell in the 1640s.

Not unlike the Taliban in Afghanistan. (Who, I hear, are currently trying to generate revenue by taking tourists to see the remains of the Buddhas of Bamiyan. Which they trashed the last time they were in power.)

[Pro Bono]

...while France and other European countries largely preserved their medieval treasures, England’s artistic heritage was “systematically and ruthlessly decimated”...

That's interesting: why were things different in England? Yes, Thomas Cromwell looted the monasteries to raise funds for Henry VIII, but other countries found their own ways to confiscate monastic assets. Four generations later Oliver Cromwell's puritans did some damage, particularly in my area. But France had a revolution too, which abolished their monasteries...

[Pro Bono]

...while France and other European countries largely preserved their medieval treasures, England’s artistic heritage was “systematically and ruthlessly decimated”...

That's interesting: why were things different in England? Yes, Thomas Cromwell looted the monasteries to raise funds for Henry VIII, but other countries found their own ways to confiscate monastic assets. Four generations later Oliver Cromwell's puritans did some damage, particularly in my area. But France had a revolution too, which abolished their monasteries...

[Pro Bono]

...while France and other European countries largely preserved their medieval treasures, England’s artistic heritage was “systematically and ruthlessly decimated”...

That's interesting: why were things different in England? Yes, Thomas Cromwell looted the monasteries to raise funds for Henry VIII, but other countries found their own ways to confiscate monastic assets. Four generations later Oliver Cromwell's puritans did some damage, particularly in my area. But France had a revolution too, which abolished their monasteries...

[CharlesWT]

What is the state of Oregon coming to? The state legislature has decided that untrained adult human beings might be trusted with running a fossil fuel pump!

House Bill 2426: Authorizes self-service dispensing of Class 1 flammable liquids at retail dispensary.

[wj]

It just means they are becoming more like that neighbouring bastion of libertarianism California.

[wj]

Whew! This is big!

Today, ruling on Moore v Harper, the Supreme Court shot down the “independent state legislature theory”. Which greatly reduces the chances of some (probably Republican) state legislature trying to appoint Presidential electors in defiance of how their state's voters actually voted. Definitely a plus as we look towards 2024.

[Girl from the North Country]

I think at least some of the rightwing SCOTUS justices are running scared. They've seen the reaction to striking down Roe, they've seen the reaction to the stories about Alito's and Thomas's corruption, and they suddenly see that their position is perhaps not quite as assured, and lifelong, as they had always assumed. About time.

[wj]

I think at least some of the rightwing SCOTUS justices are running scared.

The political hacks (Kavanaugh and Gorsuch) in particular.

[Michael Cain]

Today, ruling on Moore v Harper, the Supreme Court shot down the “independent state legislature theory”.

I was pleased by the margin, it was about the best outcome possible. Alito not signing on to Part II of the Thomas dissent was a pleasant surprise.

[nous]

Gorsuch was a dissenter on Moore v Harper and signed off on all of Thomas' arguments.

[wj]

Even the hacks down run scared on everything. But the trend seems clear.

[Hartmut]

I assume some of the majority are fuming on the inside and can barely keep themselves from shouting: "You idiots! Have you never heard of salami tactics despite admiring and envying Victor Orban? We were already successfully so far down the road to de facto kill democracy while keeping the facade/veneer up. And now you ruin it by getting ahead too far forcing us to row back to keep enough reputation to go on. This way it will take far longer to reach our common goal!"

πέτρην κοιλαίνει ῥανὶς ὕδατος ἐνδελεχείῃ
Gutta cavat lapidem, non vi sed saepe cadendo
Steter Tropfen höhlt den Stein.

[Michael Cain]

Gorsuch was a dissenter on Moore v Harper and signed off on all of Thomas' arguments.

He also signed on to the entire Thomas dissent in the EPA Clean Water Act case. That was the nonsense that the CWA applied only to waters that were navigable for commercial purposes, and the only things that could be regulated were the ones that physically interfered with commercial navigation.

[wj]

My impression has been that Barrett is far more of an ideologue than Gorsuch. But perhaps I am mistaken in that.

[Michael Cain]

My take on Gorsuch, and lots of people disagree with me, is that he will consistently vote for anything that reduces federal authority and/or transfers federal authority to the States or Tribal Nations. Beyond that he can be quite reasonable sometimes.

[Nigel]

My impression has been that Barrett is far more of an ideologue than Gorsuch. But perhaps I am mistaken in that.

I don't think that's the case - just that their ideologies have different roots, and scopes which may overlap, but often don't.

[Nigel]

Kornilov is the obvious analogue, and referenced by several Russians.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kornilov_affair

[Girl from the North Country]

From an interview with Hannah Fry in today's Times:

I think that I am better at this — at making difficult things understandable — than I was as a straight mathematician. I can contribute more this way. For my PhD I spent four years on one equation, which is so indulgent. There are researchers adding value to the world, but ultimately I wasn’t.

***

There is beauty in seeing how things work, not how things look. That, for me, is what maths is all about. I’ve heard it described as a portal to the playground of the soul. It’s a way of seeing and exploring the world. Maths is about feeling comfortable being stuck and not letting frustration be any indication of your own ability. A friend who used to be a maths teacher says, “Mathematicians aren’t the ones who find it easy, they just enjoy how hard it is.”

I wondered whether any of this resonated with any of you mathematician types....

[hairshirthedonist]

For my PhD I spent four years on one equation, which is so indulgent.

Not exactly backpacking around Europe, but okay. I'll take her word for it. x:o

[Girl from the North Country]

From today's NYT, under the headline "The Supreme Court Rejected a Dangerous Elections Theory. But It's Not All Good News."

On Tuesday, the Supreme Court decision in Moore v. Harper rejected the most extreme version of the so-called independent state legislature theory. In doing so, the court avoided any immediate and significant disruption of the structure of federal elections.

But the decision, written by Chief Justice John Roberts, is not a total rejection of the theory. The court actually endorsed a weaker version of it, and this version will loom over — and potentially affect — the 2024 elections.

The independent state legislature theory is the view that the Constitution creates a uniquely independent role for state legislatures when they regulate federal elections. The extreme view that the North Carolina legislature took in the case would mean that even state constitutions could not limit the legislature’s power to, among other things, design the state’s congressional voting map in a way that unfairly maximizes one party’s advantage over the other (in this case, Republicans over Democrats).

If this extreme view had prevailed, it would have meant that even if a state constitution banned partisan gerrymandering, regulated the voting process or required a particular structure for primary elections, none of those constitutional requirements could be applied in federal elections. Nearly all state constitutions protect the right to vote, but state courts could not enforce this provision, along with all other substantive state constitutional provisions, in federal elections. If all these provisions were unenforceable, it would destabilize the federal election process and spawn numerous election-administration problems.

Relief that the court did not endorse this extreme position, though, must be tempered by the fact — which many initial responses to the decision have not recognized — that the court simultaneously endorsed a version of the independent state legislature theory. The court held that the Constitution imposes some limits on the way state courts interpret their own state constitutions. These limits also apply to the way state courts interpret state election statutes — as well as the way state election administrators apply state election statutes in federal elections.

Yet the court offers no guidance, no standard at all, for lower courts to know when a state court has gone too far. The decision merely says that “state courts do not have free rein” and that they may not “transgress the ordinary bounds of judicial review such that they arrogate to themselves the power vested in state legislatures to regulate federal elections.”

The court offers no concrete understanding nor any example of what that means. It’s clear that a majority was cobbled together among conservative and liberal justices by agreeing to decide this part of the case in the narrowest terms. Indeed, the court announced this constitutional constraint but avoided telling us even whether the North Carolina Supreme Court — in the decision the U.S. Supreme Court reviewed — had violated this vague limitation.

North Carolina’s constitution, unlike that of some other states, does not expressly ban partisan gerrymandering. But the state court interpreted general provisions in the state constitution — such as that requiring elections to be “free and fair” — to in effect ban partisan gerrymandering. Whether this decision transgresses ordinary judicial review or exemplifies it remains a mystery. Had the court resolved that question, it would have provided much-needed guidance for 2024. But the majority might well be divided on that question, with the opinion papering over that division rather than confronting it.

Judicial minimalism can be a virtue in many contexts. Deciding cases on narrow grounds or postponing resolution until a sharp conflict is unavoidably before the court can limit judicial overreaching and produce more consensus within the court.

But in the context of election law, it can be a vice. Elections benefit greatly from clear rules laid out well in advance of Election Day. Such rules minimize voter confusion; bolster the ability of election officials to communicate clear, consistent messages to voters; enable political campaigns to organize efforts to mobilize voters; and avoid continual litigation over unclear rules or doctrines. Clear rules specified in advance are all the more important in this era of pervasive distrust and suspicion concerning elections.

Rejecting the extreme version of the independent state legislature doctrine did provide important clarity along one dimension. But by endorsing a weak version of the independent state legislature theory, the court has ensured that legal uncertainty on this remaining constitutional front might roil the 2024 elections — and it has opened a different, if less expansive, set of problems. No great feat of lawyering will be required to transform disputes in federal elections about the actions of state election officials or state courts into federal constitutional claims that assert those state actors have “gone too far” in their interpretation of state constitutions or state statutes.

For illustrative purposes, let’s say in 2024 the Wisconsin state legislature passes a law establishing deadlines for requesting or returning absentee ballots, but a state court rules those deadlines unconstitutional because they contradict the state constitution’s guarantee of the right to vote. The losing party will now turn to the federal courts and argue that the state court has gone “too far” in its interpretation of the state constitution.

With Tuesday’s ruling, candidates and political parties are going to constantly test the boundaries in 2024 in the effort to gain partisan advantage. And with at least some of these challenges, like the hypothetical one above, the Supreme Court might well be called on for an answer.

The minimalist approach enabled the court to present a strong, mostly united public front on a significant case. But as an issue, the independent state legislature theory is still with us, and courts, campaigns and voters are still going to have to deal with the legal uncertainty the court has left hanging over the 2024 elections.

Richard H. Pildes, a professor at the New York University School of Law, is the author of the casebook “The Law of Democracy: Legal Structure of the Political Process.”

[JanieM]

Related to GftNC's 10:25:

John Von Neumann once said to Felix Smith, "Young man, in mathematics you don't understand things. You just get used to them."

From here, though I've seen it quoted here and there.

More on John von Neumann.

[hairshirthedonist]

I liked this comment from Janie's first link:

Young man, with von Neumann you don't interpret quotes, you just get used to them. – Meni Rosenfeld Nov 22, 2016 at 12:13

[GftNC]

I love that, Janie. My favourite quote on mathematics (which I may well have mentioned before), and which I always thought (had seen it in a book about him) was by Paul Erdos, turns out (probably) to be:

Hilbert’s dismissal of a student who had left mathematics for poetry, “I always thought he didn’t have enough imagination for mathematics”

But Erdos did say many wonderful things (I particularly like his concept of "the Book"), and I also think that this is a truly wonderful thing to have said about one:

The mathematics of Paul Erdős is the mathematics of beauty and insight.

https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Paul_Erd%C5%91s

[GftNC]

I also see, to my great pleasure, that von Neumann and Erdos were both among the group of Hungarian scientists and mathematicians known as "The Martians":

Leo Szilard, who jokingly suggested that Hungary was a front for aliens from Mars, used this term. In an answer to the question of why there is no evidence of intelligent life beyond Earth despite the high probability of it existing, Szilárd responded: "They are already here among us – they just call themselves Hungarians." This account is featured in György Marx's book The Voice of the Martians.[2]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Martians_(scientists)

[wj]

How is it that Gov DeSantis has (apparently) missed the opportunity to tout this example of Florida's vast superiority to the rest of the country when it comes to "traditional values"?
https://thepickler.com/blogs/pickleball-blog/nude-pickleball-tournament

[Donald]

Pole drift speed is about 4 cm per year.

https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2023GL103509

( we were talking about that a few weeks ago.)

[Snarki, child of Loki]

"Mathematicians are like the French: they translate everything into their own language, where it means something completely different."

[Pro Bono]

I wondered whether any of this resonated with any of you mathematician types

That might be me. My observation is that there are mathematicians, and there are people who use maths with some facility. Von Neumann and Erdős were mathematicians. Einstein, for example, was a physicist who made good use of maths.

On a vastly lower level, I'm someone who uses maths. I can't claim to think like a mathematician.

[Donald]

Correcting my misreading of the link —human depletion of groundwater contributes a 4 cm per year component to polar drift.

[JanieM]

On a vastly lower level, I'm someone who uses maths. I can't claim to think like a mathematician.

Same for me. I love fooling around with numbers, and I love "logic." When I took a linguistics class in syntax 15 years ago, the logic problems were daunting for most of the people in the class and just playtime for me. Why? Basically, solving logic problems was what I did for a living (as a programmer). And though I maybe failed of my promise in never having a "career," but only a job, I feel pretty lucky that I got paid for 40 years to do something that I would have done a lot of one way or another anyhow, just for fun: puzzle-solving.

I think the biggest thing I lacked that would have been needed for me to be a mathematician is imagination. I doubt you can be a mathematician without that.

Then again, I never wanted to be a mathematician in the first place, I wanted to be a cosmologist.

As a footnote to the discussion about color perception and naming, I went looking for a particular optical illusion and found an image of it here. If this sort of thing interests you, browse through that photostream -- some really cool stuff. I was tempted to wonder if it was Michael Cain under another name. :-) (May still post something about colors and spectra if I get time....)

[wj]

I feel pretty lucky that I got paid for 40 years to do something that I would have done a lot of one way or another anyhow, just for fun: puzzle-solving.

Ditto. Definitely beats having to work for a living.

In fact, when I wanted to recruit new folks for our unit, what I did was wander around at lunch time and see who was doing the crossword puzzle. (Which shows how long ago that was.) The technical details of the job were something that could be learned; the problem-solving, puzzle-solving mindset wasn't.

[Tony P.]

My favorite bit of math(s) humor is the proof that every number is interesting.

The puzzle currently amusing me is: how to visualize displacement of "the Pole"? I'm thinking one has to distinguish between the globe's rotational axis (which precesses, but on a 26K-year cycle) and the point on the map that the axis pierces.

I think True Mathematicians need imagination, for sure. But also the frivolousness to work on puzzles that have nothing to do with the price of cheese, PLUS the skill to make progress on them.

--TP

[Girl from the North Country]

OMG, have just got home and seen the SCOTUS decision on Affirmative Action. They're not running scared enough, God damn them. The only consolation is that presumably, like the Roe decision, this will majorly benefit the Dems in 2024.

[wj]

The only consolation is that presumably, like the Roe decision, this will majorly benefit the Dems in 2024.

I beg leave to doubt it. For openers, the number of people personally negatively impacted is far smaller. Then, there are actually some who will be personally positively impacted. Overall, probably a net plus for Democrats, but nothing like the magnitude of the Dobbs decision.

[nous]

I'm guessing that affirmative action will have very little effect on the 2024 races. I don't think it rises to the level of a decisive issue for voting, especially in a world where abortion and culture wars are going to suck up most of the oxygen. If it has any particular effect at all, my guess is that losing it may actually bring a few Asian-American swing voters back over to the D side by taking away a major source of ire that had them defecting.

At this point, though, my best bet is that schools switch from race based admissions weighting systems to economic ones. Same scale, different thumb that it's harder for the SC to argue against as being discriminatory in any ways that run afoul of the Constitution.

And that's probably going to put a lot of Asian-American applicants right back on that bubble once again.

[CharlesWT]

Asians should be happy. Currently, in some universities, the acceptance rate of an Asian student with a 25% chance of being accepted would go to 90% if they were black.

If you want the acceptance rate for black and other minorities to increase, fix the K-12 schools, give them Asian parents, or both.

[Girl from the North Country]

At this point, though, my best bet is that schools switch from race based admissions weighting systems to economic ones.

I hope you're right. But, out of curiosity, what will be their incentive to do so?

I'm surprised by the consensus here about its effect on 2024, but I defer to greater local knowledge.

[nous]

I hope you're right. But, out of curiosity, what will be their incentive to do so?

1.) Because most universities still believe that Affirmative Action remains a good and necessary thing in the US and...

2.) Because diversity of viewpoint and experience are valuable things to have in a classroom and in a college community.

At least that is going to be the faculty position at most universities as reflected by the AAUP amicus brief for the two cases.

Regents and administrators will be less committed on this, caring more about reputation and fund raising than about educational missions.

But the actual admissions process is overseen by faculty, and they will try to use their power to (quietly) preserve space for underrepresented groups at their institutions, and financial need is a solid proxy for that in the US.

[Girl from the North Country]

Ah, I see. I was pleased (but not surprised) to read your 1 and 2 as they relate to the faculty, but because I did not know that the admissions process is overseen by them I assumed that the regents' and administrators' motives would take precedence. I did understand and agree with your original point that "financial need is a solid proxy for that in the US ", I just thought the priorities of the money and reputation types would win out. But you are at the coalface, so I expect you are right, and if so, it is good news.

[nous]

The regents and administrators are going to have directives in place for adjusting the admissions process and keeping it out of legal trouble, but once that is out there, the process of reading admissions packets and making admissions decisions will be done by the faculty in the program to which the student is applying (with a bit of space left for the “undeclared” applicants.

If race goes off of the application form, then that just shifts attention off of that part of the application package and onto the personal statement as the place to make decisions about classroom diversity.

[Michael Cain]

Theoretical mathematics is about creating structure and exploring its abstract properties. Applied mathematics is when someone notices that some of the structure and properties can model the real world. Ricci-Curbastro and one of his students developed tensor calculus; Einstein used a piece of it to describe space-time and out popped general relativity.

Some mathematicians manage to be both. I'm not one of them. In one case I proved something that hadn't been proven before. It wasn't critical to the application I was working on; I could have assumed it was true and gone on. Proving it was just "nice".

However, I still claim proving a theorem and real-time computer programming require as much creativity as other arts, even though it may take years of training to appreciate them.

[Pro Bono]

My thinking is that a mathematician is someone who sees maths as a world in itself. I don't: I see it as a way of describing some aspect of reality.

[Pro Bono]

Meanwhile, six purportedly originalist justices have solemnly pretended that the framers of the 14th amendment intended to make affirmative action unconstitutional. But I don't mind their making themselves look ridiculous.

I also don't mind the ruling too much: I think moving from race-based to poverty-based admissions criteria is a good thing.

Perhaps next they'll find unconstitional under the 14th amendment admissions policies favouring the children of alumni, since past admissions criteria have been racist. Or perhaps not.

[wj]

the process of reading admissions packets and making admissions decisions will be done by the faculty in the program to which the student is applying (with a bit of space left for the “undeclared” applicants.

I wonder how much gaming of the system there is by applying to a major with fewer applicants, and then changing to a different major once safely enrolled.** Consider the lengths some parents go to in order to get their kids into a particular school -- fake extracurricular activities, fake sports participation, etc. It seems like a logical extension.

** Not sure how well you could distinguish between those and kids who just discover a new interest while in college (which I did).

[Snarki, child of Loki]

the process of reading admissions packets and making admissions decisions will be done by the faculty in the program to which the student is applying

This depends very much on the size of the applicant pool (and hence, institution).

So for graduate programs, sure. For small liberal-arts colleges, sure.

For large land-grant state universities? VERY much doubt that the faculty would sift through multiple hundreds or thousands of applications each year, producing all the random variations between departments and who exactly is on each committee that year. Shorter:"it doesn't scale"

That's where a big school will have overall criteria (with some variation) and have specialized staff do the first cut at admission decisions, perhaps punting the fewer "edge cases" to faculty.

Which seems like it would remove the element of finely-honed judgement in the admissions process, but I think there's a significant amount of randomness and imprecision, no matter how it's done.

[CharlesWT]

"More than 2,000 years ago, Plato proposed mathematics as a hidden, ideal reality that underpinned this one. All these centuries later, mathematics has grown ever more abstract, yet its real-life implications are more precise than ever and are key to the functioning of every aspect of modern life. But is math a universal reality? The answer could determine whether we would be able to communicate with aliens."
Is math real? The answer has major practical and philosophical implications: Is mathematics woven into the very fabric of reality? Or is it merely a product of the human mind?

[JanieM]

nous, you write as if applicants these days have to declare their major before they even get to college. Is that true? It wasn't when I was young about a gazillion years ago, and just for fun I asked Google about MIT and found this:

Most students declare a major in the spring term of their first year at MIT. Those who do not must decide on a major by the end of their sophomore year. Visit the Office of the First Year for information about choosing a major.

https://registrar.mit.edu/registration-academics/academic-requirements/majors-minors/declaring-major

And this:

Does MIT consider your major?
When students come here, they often feel like a kid in a candy store — the options seem infinite. When you're admitted to MIT, you're admitted to the entire Institute. We don't ask you to decide your major, your minor, or even your eventual calling.

https://engineering.mit.edu/admissions/undergraduate/

Not suggesting MIT is typical, but someone at BJ tonight who worked in the UC system is also writing as if applicants have to declare what department they want to be in.

If that's common now, how hard it is to change your major once you get some time on campus under your belt?

[nous]

Most people apply to a particular major. It's the typical way of things.

The ease of switching majors depends a lot on how much capacity the program has. A popular and competitive major will be looking to shed students in the first two years where a program with few students will be looking to add as many as possible to try to get more institutional support and budget, and they will try very hard to keep the students that they have.

You could try to game the system and get admitted to a less competitive major and then change majors, but it won't happen if the program is still at its capacity. Also, you'd need to have a strong background in the major you applied to, so gaming that will be trickier than it first appears. It's usually more efficient to go to a less competitive school for your major, work your ass off, and transfer after lower division classes are complete with a recommendation from one of your professors.

And Snarki, there's usually one or two faculty members who are taking on the role of chair of undergrad admissions and overseeing the process. They get service credit and will bank those credits for sabbatical to earn time for publishing. They will have an admissions staff that goes through all the applications to divide them into piles based on faculty outlined criteria. Bland, generic applications with mediocre student records will get weeded out early and will only get a peremptory look from the faculty. Interesting outliers will get a look. Students that add diversity (based on overall applicant pool) and seem engaged and reasonably qualified will get a look. First picks will all get letters (and possibly offers of support). Second and third tier picks will get offers as first tier picks commit to other schools in an attempt to fill capacity. Like airline seats and hotels, it's better to oversell (upper division) capacity to ensure that you remain full after people choose other schools or drop out or change their minds.

But there is a lot more faculty input than you might otherwise expect.

You get quite good and quick at whatever sort of assessment you do repeatedly for admissions or assessment. (When I was reading and assessing student writing samples, which has a similar problem of scale, it would take me about two minutes per essay to determine what score it deserved.)

It's a somewhat capricious process, but it's surprisingly accurate on-balance, and is quite personal if your packet makes it past the first cut. The caprice may seem unfair, but a good student is probably not going to be the victim of caprice at all the schools to which they have applied, so they will get in somewhere, and will have a chance to transfer if they still feel committed to a particular institution.

Obviously, less competitive schools will have less attention to individual applications and will admit more students, knowing that they will lose a lot of the good ones to more competitive programs. They are hoping for caprice to work in their favor.

And I doubt that universities with open admissions have much faculty involvement at all in the application process, but there I'd bet that the same sort of attention gets paid with whatever merit based aid they have available to the program.

[JanieM]

And I doubt that universities with open admissions have much faculty involvement at all in the application process, but there I'd bet that the same sort of attention gets paid with whatever merit based aid they have available to the program.

Again, I guess MIT is quirkier than I thought.

I worked in MIT admissions from 1977 to 1980. There is plenty of faculty involvement, but the whole process is rather different from what you (nous) describe. I won't go into details, it's the middle of the night.

Also, MIT does not give merit aid, and conversely financial need does not play any role in admissions and is not looked at during the admissions process.

[JanieM]

PS -- thanks for the explainer, nous. I would have had a heck of a hard time in a system where it was difficult or impossible to change your major. I don't think most schools worked that way in what-i-rarely-call "the good old days." But then a lot of things were different then, and I'd be the last person to say things were all better then than now.

[JanieM]

PS again -- I think i misread what you meant by "open admissions," nous. Just for the record. In the wee hours, I read it as meaning "open to people who don't want to declare a major." I guess you probably mean "open to anyone who wants to come."

Sleep, I wish I had some.

[hairshirthedonist]

Proving it was just "nice".

In my school days, there were times when I could do the math required to solve the problems (usually in more advanced AC analysis), but it would gnaw at my psyche if I didn't really understand why that math was doing what it was supposed to. It was like running hurdles mentally instead of sprinting. I could still do it, but it slowed me down. So I would ponder until I got it and the hurdles would disappear.

I'd guess a lot of people were happy just to solve the problems correctly, and I'm not sure that I didn't envy their carefree lifestyle. ;^)

[hairshirthedonist]

I should also mention that, in engineering classes, at least in my experience, there wasn't much discussion of the math beyond "This is how you do it."

[Donald]

From anthropology, the idea that men hunted and women gathered is apparently wrong—

https://www.science.org/content/article/worldwide-survey-kills-myth-man-hunter

On Charles’s link, I am more with the Platonists and always was. . The alternative, that math works because it is a human invention, doesn’t make sense to me. Why would an evolved human tendency work so well with phenomena like GR and quantum mechanics when there was zero selective pressure for a way to think about such things? But if the universe works along mathematical lines then our ability to count and understand spatial relations (which would be useful even to animals) could lead to theories that describe other processes that premodern people knew nothing about.

The alternative reminds me of eliminative materialism— the proponents need to come up with the alternative way to describe ourselves and everything else or it is just a bizarre self- contradictory fantasy. ( Like US foreign policy, come to think of it.)

[Donald]

“ The puzzle currently amusing me is: how to visualize displacement of "the Pole"?”

It always bugged me that angular velocities are vectors and so addition is commutative, but finite size rotations in 3d are not vectors and not commutative and are described by matrix multiplication. I object to the mathematics of space being that way and would like to lodge a complaint. I never liked matrices.

Maybe it is three dimensional space I don’t like. Complex variables are cool and you can map them in 2d.

But it goes along with my Platonism. That is how space works and it is described by matrix mathematics.

[JanieM]

hsh: there wasn't much discussion of the math beyond "This is how you do it."

That's how it was in all the pre-college math that I loved. Even proofs were sort of a way of saying “this is how it is,” once the proof was complete. There’s an orderliness to it that I’m pretty sure is a big part of the appeal for me. That’s why I found Michael’s comment about creativity interesting.

ETA: I thought I had posted this but I don't see it. If it later shows up twice, we'll know there are gremlins.

[wj]

I would have had a heck of a hard time in a system where it was difficult or impossible to change your major.

To me, such a university sounds just crazy.

Any decent university includes subjects that a high school student (i.e. applicant for admission) has never even heard of. Let alone knows enough about to pick as a major. Do we just cut those fields out because they aren't part of high school? I think not. A couple of years of lower division are barely enough to get a glimmer of what's available at a university.

And that's before we consider fields which only develop to the point of offering a major while the student is already there. For example, when I was a freshman, there ws no such thing as Computer Science. There was *a* single programming class (offered by either Engineering or Math; identical class, just different labels). Plus a couple of Electrical Engineering classes on how to build a computer. By the time I graduated, there was a full blown Computer Science department, complete with faculty, a major, etc., etc.

[Girl from the North Country]

Well, those SCOTUS justices are now really on a roll. I cling to the idea that at least some of this will have a baleful influence on R chances next year.

[Pete]

Open thread & it's been a while, so...

I thought Alito was kinda Scalia-lite, but it turns out he's a fully-fledged PoS. I bet he won't, but Roberts should just go full grift at this point. His idea that angels would sing and a Christ-like nimbus would greet those who turned to his page in the history books is done. It'll be a dollar sign stamped on his face with the caption: "The day integrity died".

I got no love lost for billionaires or those who ignore safety regulations and the laws of physics, but the Titan incident made me profoundly sad. I was pretty sure the likely had happened when lost contact was reported, but I hoped. With the exception of the Nautilus thing in 1970s Disneyland - which was basically a hallway with a bunch of aquariums in the walls - anything submarine terrifies me. I don't even like elevators.

I don't think I had "Russian Civil War" on my 2023 bingo card, but it was over before I could check.

Huzzah! Racism is dead! Where have I heard that before?

All men are created equal for the purposes of this 100yd dash, and the winner will be judged entirely and exclusively on Merit™! Some people are starting at the 50 and some might have their ankles shackled, but that is not germane to the issue at hand. What's important is that we're all equal. Equality!

Neal Katyal, when asked about any remaining plausible legal defenses for TFG in the documents indictment (paraphrasing): "I don't think it's a good one, but they could try 'incompetent to stand trial".

Prostitution has been somewhat decriminalized in Maine. I'm just putting that out there if anyone wants a side hustle. You know who you are.

Happy 4th!

[Tony P.]

When Mitch (Yertl) McConnell took hostage the seat vacated by the death of Antonin (Fat Tony) Scalia, and then changed Senate rules so that He, Trump's Federalist-Society-factotum Neil (The Deal) Gorsuch could be confirmed by a simple majority, I was pissed.

When Anthony (no relation) Kennedy "retired" and the execrable Brett (Lickspittle) Kavanaugh was shoved into his seat, I said in these pages that Ginsburg, Sotomayor, Kagan, and Breyer should simultaneously and noisily resign in protest. My suggestion was not well received.

By the time Yertl shamelessly rammed Amy Coney Barrett through in the final days of the MAGA regime, I was left speechless.

So when that ChristoFascist, Alito, struck down Roe, I did not have much to say. What was there to say? Same thing now that Clarence (Affirmative-Action-hire) Thomas voted to pull the ladder up after himself.

The SCOTUS as presently constituted is a sick joke. Persons who insist on continuing to treat it as a legitimate institution are whistling past the graveyard of democracy.

--TP

[Girl from the North Country]

The SCOTUS as presently constituted is a sick joke. Persons who insist on continuing to treat it as a legitimate institution are whistling past the graveyard of democracy.

Amen, amen and thrice amen.

Plus, Tony P, your post reminds me irresistibly of a poem by the little-known (I think) American poet, William Wantling, which I copy below. All I need to add is that at times of unending ghastliness, like now, I frequently use the expression the poet uses at the very end.

WHO’S BITTER
William Wantling, Korean War Vet, Junkie, Criminal etc

when Judge Lynch
denied probation
& crammed that 1 – 14
up my ass
for a First offence
I giggled

when Dr God
stuck 7 shocktreatments
to me
for giving my chick
in Camarillo
2 joints
I laughed aloud

now
when the State of Illness
caught me bending over
2 jugs of Codeine
cough medicine
& charged me w/Possession
& Conspiracy
I shrieked
in idiot joy

a bit worried
they all inquired
- What are you Wantling?
- a goddam Masochist?
I, between hilarious gasps
O howled - - No,
- I’m a Poet!
- Fuck me again!

[Snarki, child of Loki]

I was disappointed by the Russian Revolution of 1991, because I thought it was an established fact that the Cubs would win the World Series every year that there was a Russian Revolution.

Maybe this year, though?

[nous]

I did not mean to leave an impression that it was almost impossible to switch majors. Students can and do switch majors all the time, it's just that space in *competitive, highly ranked* majors is limited, and access to upper division classes is restricted in some cases to people with particular majors with particular prerequisites. You might be able to switch into the major, but only if there isn't a backlog of students trying to get through required courses. If there is a backlog, then good luck trying to switch into the major and keep your progress towards a degree.

But there are lateral, less competitive majors forming around the edges of the popular majors, with departments trying to scoop up the students who don't make the cut, hoping to boost their programs enrollment numbers and get more budget security.

So you can switch majors fairly easily within limits, given sufficient success in your lower division classes, it's just that you have to pick a less competitive major and accept a loss of prestige.

It very much begins to resemble a caste system in its effects.

But students come in expecting that they must be in a competitive major in order to succeed in life, and they work very hard to maximize GPA in order to stay in the golden major. And learning and exploring options takes a back seat to navigating through the academic obstacle course that's been set up to create the aura of exclusivity and prestige around the most marketable majors.

It's not this way at all universities and colleges in the US, but it is this way at most all of the prestigious private schools and the big R1 public universities. Everyone is banking on the value of the letterhead.

All of this is why I maintain that students get a better education at the smaller liberal arts colleges that emphasize exploration and interdisciplinarity. I think it's a better, more versatile education for most students. But it lacks the easy marketability of a recognizable major from an "elite" school.

[nous]

MIT and the Ivies may escape some of the effects of this based simply on the strength of their brand. Become elite enough and control your scarcity enough to not dilute your brand and you can market the letterhead regardless of the major.

My guess there, though, is that there is a lot of attrition in the first two years for students with limited resources, and an endless supply of aspirants to replace them, so the machine just keeps rolling.

[hairshirthedonist]

So you can switch majors fairly easily within limits, given sufficient success in your lower division classes, it's just that you have to pick a less competitive major and accept a loss of prestige.

I watched a good percentage of my fellow engineering majors switch readily in the first two years to economics, finance, etc. with no problem. I knew one guy who ended up pre-med after leaving mechanical engineering. Now he's a doctor. A real sob-story, right?

I imagine a good number of them ended up in more lucrative careers than I did. But I like to assume that they aren't as fulfilled as I am, and certainly not nearly as cool. Being an engineer is the closest thing to being a real-life Fonzie, after all.

[bobbyp]

The Supreme Court has always been a political institution. John Marshal was a consummate politician.

The latest from this Court (AA, student loan forgiveness) comes as no surprise. They should be viewed as part of a political power grab by the political right wing....that they may also be viewed as part of an institutional power grab is a feature, not a bug.

[nous]

B-school is about maximizing credentialing and networking without getting into trouble in all those damn required classes and electives.

Broad and comfortable paths to perdition, baby!

Pre-med means getting through its own set of flaming hoops like OChem, so it's by no means an easy switch.

My advice to a lot of my disillusioned students who want to become medical professionals, but who are struggling with the grind is to look at what courses are required for med school and make sure to take them (here or at less competitive schools after graduation), but to see if they can major in something more centered on communication (like humanities). Med schools are actively looking to get better listeners and communicators, and humanities programs are looking to support their students to keep them on track, rather than looking to narrow the path to upper division courses. It's a tricky path, but so is the direct path, and the tricky path has more room to explore and find new interests, and maintain curiosity and engagement.

It's not an easy sell. Young people are terrified of their futures and looking for security, and it's making it really hard for them to learn to adapt to changing circumstances (which is the one thing they most need to learn in our current moment).

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[nous]

Unlike the Affirmative Action decision, I think that the student debt forgiveness decision may well give an added push to the Ds for 2024. That's a lot of hope being snatched away from a lot of younger voters, and that's another source of anger on which to push turnout.

[Pete]

All of this is why I maintain that students get a better education at the smaller liberal arts colleges that emphasize exploration and interdisciplinarity. I think it's a better, more versatile education for most students. But it lacks the easy marketability of a recognizable major from an "elite" school.

Hear, hear!

I'm not an academic - as is patently obvious - and I had no idea university was so... vertical(?). 3 friends from HS who went on to become physicians were undergrad philosophy majors. Gilding the resumé has always been a thing, but it looks to me like a curated, branded, Instagrammy polish is the driving metric now and, if you'll excuse the broad term, actual education takes a back seat. Decades of "you need a degree" as opposed to "you need to learn". I always thought liberal arts were foundational and specialization could/would follow accordingly.

This is probably a crappy analogy, but you don't have to know anything about how a combustion engine works to do an oil change. But if you see shiny bits in the effluent, it'd be really helpful if you know what that means.

But hey, I'm old and crabby, so what do I know. I'll be outside shaking my fist at clouds.

[Pete]

Well, geez, I know I'm not that bright, but I don't think my comment deserved quarantine. :-p

[JanieM]

MIT and the Ivies may escape some of the effects of this based simply on the strength of their brand.... My guess there, though, is that there is a lot of attrition in the first two years for students with limited resources, and an endless supply of aspirants to replace them, so the machine just keeps rolling.

MIT Graduation Rate & Retention Rates
85% 4-Year Graduation Rate
94% 6-Year Graduation Rate
98% Retention Rate

https://www.collegefactual.com/colleges/massachusetts-institute-of-technology/academic-life/graduation-and-retention/#drop_outs

I'm pretty sure that at MIT, at least, there is very little attrition. (I wrote that, then looked up the above.) The Institute makes it easy to drop out and easy to come back; I dropped out for a semester and came back with nothing more to do but sign a piece of paper saying I wanted to. (It would have been more complicated if I hadn't been in good academic standing when I left. Also, full disclosure, it was several decades ago. :-) )

Part of this, of course, is that MIT has enormous financial resources. The financial aid program guarantees to meet need, and I believe that's true of at least some of the Ivies. Some students and parents think their financial need is more than the college thinks it is -- my family was certainly skating along the edge despite generous help. But I had student jobs all the way through and even had fun and learned stuff in some of them.

There are ways in which it makes sense to talk about MIT and the Ivies in one breath (probably also Stanford and a couple of others). But just for fun:

Harvard Graduation Rate & Retention Rates
84% 4-YEAR GRADUATION RATE
96% 6-YEAR GRADUATION RATE
76% RETENTION RATE

Yale Graduation Rate & Retention Rates
86% 4-YEAR GRADUATION RATE
97% 6-YEAR GRADUATION RATE
65% RETENTION RATE

*****

Also this: Young people are terrified of their futures and looking for security, and it's making it really hard for them to learn to adapt to changing circumstances (which is the one thing they most need to learn in our current moment).

Hard to blame them. I made a comment recently to a much younger person about resilience being perhaps the greatest strength in the world we're facing.... Hard to see some of this from the other end, though, especially in the world we're facing.

[hairshirthedonist]

Something other that this one?
https://obsidianwings.blogs.com/obsidian_wings/2023/06/what-goes-around.html?cid=6a00d834515c2369e202c1a6cc423e200b#comment-6a00d834515c2369e202c1a6cc423e200b

[Pete]

Yes. it started with a citation from one of nous' comments. Thanks!

[wj]

look at what courses are required for med school and make sure to take them (here or at less competitive schools after graduation), but to see if they can major in something more centered on communication

I think that is true of a lot of fields besides medicine. Undergraduate students really, really need to get some advice to the effect that, contrary to what they probably assume, graduate schools really value diverse (academic) backgrounds in their prospective students. Not to mention the obvious detail that having an unusual background is a way to make yourself stand out in the crowd. Yes, you do need to requisite basic courses. But beyond that....

[wj]

Comments from Pete earlier, and from Pro Bono 4 days back, have been removed from the Spam folder and published. Personally, I've never figured out what the spam filter is using for criteria....

[Pete]

Current data suggests "Pete" might be a trigger. You should probably keep that. ;-)

Thanks again.

[Michael Cain]

I should also mention that, in engineering classes, at least in my experience, there wasn't much discussion of the math beyond "This is how you do it."

Then in graduate school you get to "This is why you do it that way."

My limited exposure at the undergraduate level (with the applied math field I studied in graduate school) was mostly "Here are the algorithms." In graduate school we were concerned about proving that the algorithms would work, and where they didn't. Or at least might not. To quote myself, "Theory tells you where the algorithms are likely to blow up in your face, and why."

[Michael Cain]

Any decent university includes subjects that a high school student (i.e. applicant for admission) has never even heard of. Let alone knows enough about to pick as a major.

I was thinking about auditing a math class or two at the local state university (which does award PhDs in math). I was scrolling through the full graduate catalog for the math department. Despite a BS in math/computer science and an MS in operations research, there was lots of math that I had only vaguely heard of, and some I had never heard of.

[Michael Cain]

Personally, I've never figured out what the spam filter is using for criteria....

Like most blog platform providers, TypePad's spam filter falls into the "secret sauce" category. They don't tell outsiders what patterns they're looking for, or how they do their matching. I don't blame them. The volume of spam overall makes trolls look insignificant, so no one wants to tell the spammers anything that might help them defeat the spam filters.

One of the more entertaining forms of spam lately was the "kissybots" on Disqus comments at Lawyers, Guns, & Money. I haven't seen any recently -- apparently Disqus has patched the various holes that were being used.

[bobbyp]

Interesting take on the AA case.....

https://timothyburke.substack.com/p/on-the-affirmative-action-decision?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=381094&post_id=132127986&isFreemail=true&utm_medium=email

[wj]

I confess that, when I first heard of Biden's student debt relief actions, my immediate reaction was "How does he have authority to just cancel debts like that?" But I'm finding out that Congress explicitly gave him (technically the Secretary of Education) the authority to do exactly that. Only in case of national emergency, but Trump declared one (over covid) which doesn't end until 2024.

Somehow, the Supreme Court finds that, even though the Act is explicit and crystal clear, the cancellation is somehow not allowed. Its gymnastics are so implausible that one has to ask: Why didn't they just admit that their only reason for voiding the action is that they don't like it?

"Legislating from the bench" seems to be all the rage with this Court. And you don't even have to have standing (the plaintiffs were unable to show that they suffered any actual injury) in order to bring a case which will give the Court an opportunity. I won't be surprised if one of the hacks on the Court brings suit himself, if he can't find (or hire) a shill to bring suit for him, in order to change something.

[liberal japonicus]

Interesting discussion on majors at Uni. A couple of observations. I don't know if these factors still matter, but I feel like they might

-because of the presence of med schools and law schools, constraints on changing majors are different. I'm not really sure if pre-med (or pre-law) was/is an actual major. Here in Japan, medicine is a 6 year degree that is basically the med school component an additional 2 years tacked on to the end of a 4 year undergraduate curriculum. I've been following Paul Campos on the scandal of law schools, and my impression about med schools is that in some ways, it is no longer a job that people firmly associate with prestige. While med school applications have jumped up recently, they had been on a steady decline for the past decade.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaeltnietzel/2021/12/09/whats-behind-the-soaring-applications-to-medical-school/

For the data mongers, there is this
https://www.aamc.org/news/press-releases/diversity-increases-medical-schools-2022

-For linguistics, because there weren't (don't know the case now) full blown undergraduate linguistic degree programs out there, linguistic grad schools usually devoted their 1st year courses to getting students from other majors up to speed. Also, because you have different linguistic schools, even if you did linguistics at uni X, it may be that going to grad school at a different school may mean that you have to learn a different set of theories and assumptions. I don't know if that is the case with other grad schools, but I thought that they were often having to justify their existence, so the undergraduate degree was more like a high school diploma.

-Perhaps it is because I'm looking at this at the lens of linguistics, I never really thought that the competition to get into a program was so important, very few 18-20 year olds know what they want to do in the future, and the major shifting often occurs when people go on to grad school

One big problem is that I don't think all subjects are amenable to being taught in the same way, but they are generally all stuck in the straitjacket of a 4 year degree.

[Hartmut]

Unlike the Affirmative Action decision, I think that the student debt forgiveness decision may well give an added push to the Ds for 2024. That's a lot of hope being snatched away from a lot of younger voters, and that's another source of anger on which to push turnout.

Unless of course the GOP gaslighting works that this is Biden 'just breaking another promise'. That's what I see pushed at the moment. Some even add that Biden is responsible for the student debts in the first place.
Towards their own base it's of course about lazy elitist debt-shirking liberals that look down on them.

[wj]

Unless of course the GOP gaslighting works that this is Biden 'just breaking another promise'. That's what I see pushed at the moment.

As a stand-alone, that might have worked. At least to some degree. But since Dobbs, people, especially young people, are paying more attention than they traditionally do. So, a) those young people are already out of charity with this Supreme Court, and b) claiming it's somehow Biden's fault isn't going to fly.

Not to say they won't try hard. Or that it won't work with their base. But their base is shrinking, while the number of (potential) young voters is large. Motivating those younger voters to actually register and vote . . . let's just say it's a new form of counterproductive.

[nous]

People keep talking about "young voters" when discussing the student loan bailout and thinking about it as if the bloc is fresh out of college. It's not. We are talking about Millennials and Gen Z, so "young" extends up into 40-somethings.

This is a combo of the college affordability crisis, reduced earning potential as wages stagnate, and predatory student lending.

There's a 20 year bloc of college attendees who are another day older and deeper in debt, and who owe their souls to the finance company store. They are feeling lied to and exploited, and that resentment is going to fuel their political activity the same way that resentment fuels the GOP's rural base.

They have no faith in the Dems as a rule, but they know that their suffering comes at the hands of the GOP, and they are in pitchforks and torches mode after having their hopes crushed yet again.

And between this and Roe, I think the GOP is going to be in serious trouble with educated suburban women.

[wj]

People keep talking about "young voters" when discussing the student loan bailout and thinking about it as if the bloc is fresh out of college. It's not. We are talking about Millennials and Gen Z, so "young" extends up into 40-somethings.

Yeah, I got that. But that only means that it's an even bigger block of potential voters that is envisioned by those who think of it as people in their 20s. And, because it is so large, it means that it will be impacting American politics for a very long time.

[Girl from the North Country]

And between this and Roe, I think the GOP is going to be in serious trouble with educated suburban women.

FYLTGE

And hopefully, with many more groups as well.

[JanieM]

I can't remember what thread it was where we were talking about OceanGate, but this seems to be the most recent open-ish one, so...

The New Yorker has a long article analyzing the whole saga, which includes this:

“Everyone was drinking Kool-Aid and saying how cool they were with a Sony PlayStation,” he told me. “And I said at the time, ‘Does Sony know that it’s been used for this application? Because, you know, this is not what it was designed for.’ And now you have the hand controller talking to a Wi-Fi unit, which is talking to a black box, which is talking to the sub’s thrusters. There were multiple points of failure.” The system ran on Bluetooth, according to Rush. But, McCallum continued, “every sub in the world has hardwired controls for a reason—that if the signal drops out, you’re not fucked.”

So the people who were raising their eyebrows about the video game controller a while back weren't all that off base after all.

The article is mind-boggling.

[Tony P.]

Whereas this is an open thread, and
whereas math(s) entered into it briefly,
now therefore let us enjoy Patterns Fool Ya

If you are familiar with the likes of Matt Parker, Hannah Fry, and especially Grant Sanderson, you'll probably love it. Also if you're a Leonard Cohen fan, I think.

--TP

[wj]

ROTFLOL! Tony, that was great!

[JanieM]

wj: seconded. Love the title of the show, too.

[Donald]

https://edition.cnn.com/2023/07/03/politics/elliott-abrams-public-diplomacy-nomination

The closing scene in Animal Farm comes to mind.

[Tom H.]

lj: Interesting, my computer science PhD program was one of the older ones in the USA, and so had it's first year set up to handle students coming in without a CS undergrad degree - until the late 90s; so far as I know the last student who used those options entered before 1994.

Since linugistics was one of my undergrad areas of concentration outside the major, I'm surprised that undergrad programs in it are rare?

nous: In my six years on the tenure track at a state institution, I never had any role in looking at undergrad or masters' degree students. In the program where I did my doctorate, I know that the faculty looked at applicants who were being considered for fellowships, and I suppose (?) that they might have looked at applicants more widely after the staff were done with the first couple of passes of winnowing.

[Pro Bono]

You would have to work 11,411 hours at minimum wage to earn a year of MIT costs -- six times as much as in 1968.

That's a comment on another thread, but this seems like a reasonable place to add to it.

I looked up equivalent numbers for English universities. Fees for resident nationals are capped by the government at £9250, so that's what's usually charged. Minimum wage is £10.18 for a 21-year-old, £7.49 if you're younger, which makes 909 hours or 1235 hours. Not including living costs.

However, that's not the whole story - overseas students get charged much more. For example, studying maths at Cambridge costs £27,333 per year, plus "college fees" of about £10,000.