Japan Falls into Recession - <AUTHOR> http://online.wsj.com/articles/japan-falls-into-recession-1416182404 <comment><USER2> We have been traveling in Japan for past 4 weeks (another 2 weeks to go). Talking to regular folks, there seems to be divergence between what regular folks thinks need to be done compared to government.

The regular folks want to see Dollar-Yen parity. As Yen drops, things become more expensive and regular folks cut back more on spending. I am not sure why increasing cost of imports doesn't show up as inflation. Things would have been worse if not for drop in oil prices (major import for Japan). These folks don't believe dropping Yen is the solution as majority of investment by Japanese companies is outside Japan and weaker Yen just reduces that investment, in turn less profit flow back in the country.

The expectation of deflation is deeply rooted in regular folks. Everyone is waiting to spend on large items, just not right now. Land prices are falling so no one wants to buy a house now. We were interested in buying a place in Sapporo but everyone told us to wait until we really need to buy. An apartment costing $200-300K rents for $500-700/mo in Sapporo compared to similar place in Seattle renting for $1,000+/mo. One of our friend mentioned that they just sold their house in Sapporo and had to offer healthy discount to the buyer.

I don't have a solution to Japan's problems. But QE, weaker Yen, and raising taxes doesn't appear to be the solution. Rolling back tax increases may be a start in the right direction.

Regular folks seems to have better pulse on the problem than establishments.

<comment><USER3> > These folks don't believe dropping Yen is the solution as majority of > investment by Japanese companies is outside Japan and weaker Yen just > reduces that investment, in turn less profit flow back in the country.

The more expected result would be a change of investment patterns so that more is invested inside Japan; investments abroad bring back only a relatively small amount of money back into the domestic economy and spread over a long period of time, as opposed to domestic investment which generally involves spending in the local economy and increased aggregate demand.

> The expectation of deflation is deeply rooted in regular folks. Everyone is > waiting to spend on large items, just not right now.

And this is exactly why some inflation (caused by QE and a falling yen) would be a good thing - delays in consumer spending are a classic pitfall of deflation.

This doesn't sound like an issue of the average Japanese citizen knowing less than the establishment or vice versa, but of individuals making rational economic decisions are good for them, but bad for the economy as a whole.

(BTW, I agree with you on the VAT increase, which sounds like the exact wrong thing to do to get out of this low-growth, deflationary trap Japan has been in for so long.)

<comment><USER4> > And this is exactly why some inflation (caused by QE and a falling yen) > would be a good thing - delays in consumer spending are a classic pitfall of > deflation.

What do you mean by "delay in consumer spending" ? Oh, you mean like in the US when people buy everything at credit so that they don't have to wait, and have zero savings and huge debts as they go ? Is that the model you recommend ?

> This doesn't sound like an issue of the average Japanese citizen knowing > less than the establishment or vice versa, but of individuals making > rational economic decisions are good for them, but bad for the economy as a > whole.

You fail to incorporate the bad decisions from the japanese government which are bad for the economy as a whole. As if it were JUST the fault of dumb people. Yeah, elites know much better :D

<comment><USER5> > What do you mean by "delay in consumer spending" ? Oh, you mean like in the > US when people buy everything at credit so that they don't have to wait, and > have zero savings and huge debts as they go ? Is that the model you > recommend ?

In the context of macro economics, _delay in consumer spending_ actually means just that: They'll spend money later. You fancy a new car, but actually your current one still runs fine? You'll delay your spending and just drive your current car a year longer.

<comment><USER4> That does not mean it hurts the economy as a whole. Capitalism never predicts that growth should be skyrocketing every single year. When there are reasons for the consumption to decrease, it does and that's when new market opportunities arise for companies to grab new consumers, either by providing more affordable products, competing on features, or providing new payment options to make easier for consumers to scale their purchases.

<comment><USER5> > That does not mean it hurts the economy as a whole.

The only way for that not to hurt the economy would be finding a way to persuade the consumer to put _all_ the money saved by delaying this specific consumption into goods that _cannot_ be delayed. If I just saved $10k by not buying a new car, you won't be able to persuade me to buy a motorcycle instead, as that buy would be delayable in the same way.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Here's an article that's not behind a paywall: [http://www.bbc.com/news/business-30077122](http://www.bbc.com/news/business-30077122)

</comment><comment><USER7> Here's the thing: you actually need a strong middle class to buy your products. No amount of artificially inflating the value of the stock market through quantitative easing will give you a healthy economy. QE is like putting a fresh coat of paint on a house with a rotten interior: it makes things look pretty, but the structural integrity of the building is almost non-existent.

Employees working themselves to death for little pay is only aggravating the problem, rather than solving it.

<comment><USER8> You only have to look at the US and Euro economies post 2008 to see the real world benefits of QE. Europeans went down the austerity route and are stuck with consistently underperforming economy and the threat of deflation. The US has turned the corner and is a job creating machine again including the first real signs of inflationary pressure through rising wages. The most unusual thing I can see about Japan is it's trying to take the US and Euro approach together at the same time. Their problem is deflation. Deflation tells consumers not to buy as you wait 6 months and it'll be cheaper. It's a deadly downward spiral. So the Japanese are trying to stoke their economy to create inflation which in turn spurs consumption. Yet they go into this with a massive amount of debt already so are raising consumption taxes at the very time they need consumption. Something has to give.

<comment><USER4> > Deflation tells consumers not to buy as you wait 6 months and it'll be > cheaper.

I live in Japan for many years and I have never seen such thing as deflation here. Prices have remained stable for most items or have increased a little bit. The idea that stuff becomes cheaper as you wait is ludicrous in Japan.

<comment><USER9> No serious economist believes the old wives tale about deflation keeping consumers on the sidelines while they wait to save 1 cent (or yen) on a can of soda next year. But it's got "truthiness" so it keeps getting brought up in these HN discussions.

<comment><USER5> > No serious economist believes the old wives tale about deflation keeping > consumers on the sidelines while they wait to save 1 cent (or yen) on a can > of soda next year.

A serious economist is able to differentiate between goods that can (and will) be delayed an a consumable like a can of soda. Cars are an example of a consumer good where consumption observably is affected by deflation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Quantitative easing, Yen depreciation...

What they need to do is figure out a way to grow the population locally or through large-scale immigration. I'm afraid this is the fate that awaits the developed world (or countries with low population growth).

Japan is like a canary in the mine of post-industrialism. It'll be interesting to see what they figure out for their society and the lessons they might have for us.

<comment><USER11> Immigration is painfully unlikely due to cultural issues. It's oft suggested by non Japanese people looking at the problem but at least from what I can see, the majority of the Japanese voting public don't want immigration. There's reasons if you want a fun read. Particularly interesting is the history of people of Korean decent who are native Japanese residents for a generation or two.

<comment><USER12> > the majority of the Japanese voting public don't want immigration

The vast majority of the American public don't want it either, but businesses do, so it happens anyway.

<comment><USER13> American society is much more accepting of outsiders than any other, as far as I know. Its not like others are deliberately racist, but just that America's history has been one of accepting immigrants from all over the place, so I guess having people who don't look like you or have the same beliefs/culture/language is more accepted than in other countries. At least that's my theory.

I've lived in America for just 3 years, yet have never felt unwelcome. In fact, most Americans I meet are very curious to know about my origins and the country I grew up in. But maybe that's because I live in a very liberal city (Austin) and can communicate well in English.

I've lived in Korea for some time and unfortunately never learned much Korean to be considered fluent. So I did have a hard time. Its also a very homogenous country so I guess it makes sense why they're so exclusive; I think its the same case in Japan too.

Historically, Koreans and Japanese ( and to an extent, the Chinese) have placed an almost absurd weight on purity of their race. I don't know the situation for other places.

<comment><USER14> It is not just race but cultural as well. Brazillian Japanese who immigrated to Japan also face discrimination, even though they are ethnically Japanese.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Non-paywall WSJ link through Google: [https://www.google.co.kr/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web...](https://www.google.co.kr/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=4&ved=0CCcQFjAD&url=http%3A%2F%2Fonline.wsj.com%2Farticles%2Fjapan- falls-into- recession-1416182404&ei=VVZpVMWmJoW6uATjj4G4Dw&usg=AFQjCNHuI4sPUXsYPK6eWe3jz6dSrgaW8Q&bvm=bv.79142246,d.c2E&cad=rja)

<comment><USER16> Yeah, this trick works for most paywalled articles out there.

Googling the URL/title of the paywalled article will almost always give you access the full article (or at least a copy somewhere else).

<comment><USER17> What I don't really get is how people on this tech-savvy resource still submit links to sources which go against the very idea of free information.

Can't we just look this up somewhere else instead of encouraging this bullshit paywall behavior? Or is the quality of information that different?

<comment><USER18> > Can't we just look this up somewhere else instead of encouraging this > bullshit paywall behavior? Or is the quality of information that different?

I honestly don't know, but I think in news, time is a factor.

Use this post as a test: what non-paywall link would you submit?

<comment><USER17> Just above this comment tree, there's a link to BBC: [http://www.bbc.com/news/business-30077122](http://www.bbc.com/news/business-30077122)

Not sure how they differ since non-paywall wsj link does not work for me (still has paywall in 2 different browsers).

<comment><USER19> It doesn't seem to provide nearly as much information. Not everyone's business model is to give self-entitled individuals free stuff.

By posting urls to good articles that are behind pay-walls, you do provide a place to discuss the information, etc., and everyone can still learn. That is assuming at least some of us can read it.

I pay for the wsj. Why wouldn't I pay for good research, good writing, knowledge, etc.? People need to earn a living.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Here's the biggest underlying problem. Contrary to what one would expect, Japanese firms are actually flush with money, but due to Abenomics, the weakness of Yen means they are investing more and more abroad, rather than putting the resources in improving its own infrastructure. We all know about Softbank's recent investments in India and South East Asia. And it's not just limited to Tech or even the private sector, even infra firms are investing in troves abroad, especially in South East Asia. In a way the Japanese growth rate doesn't take into account the rent its entities are receiving from abroad. So the short term picture might actually be rosier than the numbers of would suggest.

The bigger problem is actually long term weaknesses that this trend will expose.

Another huge problem is consumer lending. Most Japanese banks are actually pretty stringent when it comes to lending to their own people. So even if low interest rates might encourage consumer borrowing appetite, there's very little supply out there. I think the PM and the central bank needs to address these, even if loosening lending might be contrary to what Japan has done in the past.

<comment><USER21> > the weakness of Yen means they are investing more and more abroad

Shouldn't a weak yen make it cheaper to invest at home relative to abroad? What's the mechanism that causes the opposite effect?

<comment><USER22> If your investment generates profit you'd rather have that profit in USD or Euro than a weak yen, particularly if the yen is weaker when the investment pays off than when you invest.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Before Abe, Japan is in a trap:

1\. It has 200% debt-to GDP ratio

2\. It has near zero interest rate and negative to zero inflation

3\. It has near zero growth rate.

It's important to understand how this trap works: Japan simply can't have meaningful growth. If there's real growth, that will force the interest up, otherwise there will be mass misallocation and high inflation. But given a 200% debt to GDP, the government just can't afford a higher interest rate, as the debt servicing cost will eat up most of the budget. So, assuming growth rate and interest rate is about the same (big if, i know), for just maintaining the status quo (regarding debt burden), for every x% the economy grows, the government has to raise 2x the amount to cover the interest expense. That's how scary it is.

That's why there's this sales tax hike and the consequent gdp dip. While other country with lower debt to gdp ratio can keep stimulating for a long time and only deal with the debt problem after recovery, Japan can't. It has to increase the government revenue relatively early, because it has a much smaller buffer to begin with.

<comment><USER24> I read a similar article on the BBC which stated that Abenomics rejuvenated the Japanese stock market and improved the country's exports, so the government was expecting that companies which generated additional income thanks to their import would increase their employees' salaries, which seems not to have been the case.

Is there any way the government could have predicted that the windfall from stock market rise and exports would not trickle down to the general public?

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Here is the common ground and controversy between most economists on the situation, I think it is interesting how much common ground there is:

The common ground:

* The government of Japan faces budget constraints; it cannot tax more than a certain amount and that includes seigniorage (taxing using inflation).

* Right now Japan doesn't seem to be immediately close to those constraints since interest rates and inflation are low.

* Lowering taxes, spending more and depreciating the currency will expand the economy, but rates will increase and so will inflation (among with wages).

* Inflation expectations can create actual inflation. It can be generalized that different people will demand higher prices in advance if they can, since they know their costs will rise. The same applies to interest rate and there is a link between them (investors demand higher yields if inflation is expected).

* Default and excessive inflation can be a result of too much expansionary policy (eventually, what is too much is up for debate), but they can destroy the gains and make the economy worse off.

The disagreement (you can see that its actually a spectrum of opinion and there are differences between the details of the policies, but for clarity I've divided them neatly into two camps):

* School A believes expansionary policy will make Japan default because the government will have lost control, since expectations can make interest rates and inflation jump rapidly. They site that the level of Debt to GDP is over 200% as evidence. They say the government should not lose credibility or else.

* School B believes that the expansionary policy is so hard to actually pull off that some expectations of inflation and higher rates are desirable. Since rates stay low and deflation is always around the corner it seems that the government can easily reverse too much expansionary policy, far before a default appears to be likely. Additionally Increased GDP will bring more revenue, decreasing the need to rely on inflation after a certain point. They joke that the "government should credibly promise to be irresponsible" to get out of the bad equilibrium that is the lost decades.

\-----

A political compromise appears to have been made by mixing expansionary policy with the decision to increase the sales tax. Since this caused a recession school B feels vindicated - getting to a default and inflation path is really hard. Interest rates and inflation refuse to bulge.

However the lack of progress will add even more to the debt to GDP, perversely aiding school A (even thought some of them might agree that B were right in the previous period). So the end result has been 20 years of the government oscillating between those two positions, without reaching a point where either side can victory (default or significant GDP growth).

<comment><USER9> There's so much about your post which is incorrect that I don't have time to debunk it all. So let me just hit the biggest error, so that others don't have to waste their time:

It's literally impossible for Japan to default on their debts, which are almost completely in Japanese currency.

<comment><USER26> It's "literally impossible" only in a very literal sense of the word. In other words, yes, Japan can indeed get out of a debt of 17 gazillion yen simply by printing 17 gazillion yen, but I'm not sure flooding the money supply like this would cause much less damage than an actual default (=the Japanese government telling its bondholders that it's not going to repay them).

<comment><USER27> You're not sure financial institutions would prefer being paid _something_ rather than _nothing_. Could you please elaborate?

<comment><USER28> At a high enough rate (e.g. war time Germany, 1980s Brazil, Zimbabwe), hyperinflation will turn your nominal returns into next-to-zero real returns. Conversely, default doesn't have to be "we won't pay nothing". A country can partially default.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Demographics. Fukishima. China. Japan faces enormous challenges. Aging population means increased healthcare costs supported by a (temporarily) declining workforce and decreased tax revenues. Fukishima's costs are incalculable but impact broadly healthcare, manufacturing, farming and fishing. Much Japanese manufacturing has moved to China and adding to that expense is Japan's need to increase its defense spending to provide a small measure of balance in its territorial disputes with its neighbor. A wave of investment and entrepreneurship is required in Japan that I'm not sure the country is capable of fostering at this time. Bearish.

<comment><USER30> These challenges are indeed real and enormous, as you point out.

Nevertheless, we should also keep in mind Japan's proven ability to utterly transform itself in a short time. Meiji and post-WWII are two precedents. Each of these change events required the following conditions:

\- clear development model to proceed towards

\- external pressure creates (perceived) existential threat

Such conditions do not pertain in Japan now, yet they may do so again in the future. I feel sure that the first is a necessary condition to transformative change. The second condition is perhaps optional.

<comment><USER29> It will be about 10 years before, demographically speaking, Japan can literally work its way into growth. Others have posted about the country's reluctance to embrace immigration and I'm afraid that is the necessary transformation unless they can find a way of innovating or enhancing productivity on a massive scale.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I don't understand following - Japan had QE measure in place thus increasing money supply. But then they also increased sales tax from 5% to 8%.

Why take conflicting measures ? How increasing sales tax is going to make consumers and middle class spend more ?

Have Japan's economists not considered it ?

<comment><USER32> "We need more women in the workforce to stimulate the economy!"

"We need to encourage women to have more babies in order to avoid a population crisis!"

Welcome to the government of contradictions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Japan is a country with too many people saving too much money.

So, one proposal: institute a small yearly wealth tax.

Avoids a lot of the problems with inflation-based approaches, and doesn't penalize people nearly as much for having liquid assets.

<comment><USER34> That's incorrect.

Japan's savings rate has collapsed, and is in dire condition.

Via the WSJ:

[http://i.imgur.com/vYsbHWg.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/vYsbHWg.jpg)

That formerly high savings rate was the only thing that enabled the Japanese government to borrow as much debt as they did.

Now that the Japanese are no longer able to save enough money, the government can't continue to borrow from that source, and accordingly the govt. has been forced to turn to the last measure available: currency debasement.

<comment><USER35> Interesting, thanks for sharing that graph.

The thing is, though: the Japanese government isn't trying to debase the Yen _because of their high debt_. The reason they're trying to debase the Yen is to _encourage growth via exports_. _Somebody_ has still been buying plenty of Japanese government debt all those last years. It would be interesting to know who.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Hasn't Japans central bank started last week to buy 100% of all newly issued government bonds? I fear this will end very badly for them since the Yen doesn't have the status as a global reserve currency like the US Dollar.

Also, the debt to GDP ratio is insane, I am still stunned they didn't default 10 years ago.

Maybe a default is the only way for them to get out of the decades of stagnation at this point, even though it will be very painful in the beginning.

</comment><comment><USER37> Paul Craig Roberts on Japan, America and QE.

[http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2014/11/14/global-house- card...](http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2014/11/14/global-house-cards-paul- craig-roberts/)

</comment><comment><USER32> 21st century activism: refusing to spend money in defiance of the government.

</comment><comment><USER38> Why Japan, WHY!</comment>


Why are Soviet math textbooks so hardcore in comparison to US textbooks? (2017) - <AUTHOR> https://www.quora.com/Why-are-Soviet-mathematics-physics-textbooks-so-insanely-hardcore-in-comparison-to-US-textbooks/answer/Scott-Miller-307?share=1 <comment><USER2> Disclaimer: I graduated from one of the top math high schools in Moscow in early 90s, I have MS in Math from Moscow State University, and a half finished PhD from the same place.

I think on average the difference between a high school student from Russia and US is negligible. Either country doesn't really require much to finish school and many kids just do the tests without understanding what is going on. What separates Soviet Union (and now Russian) system is the practice of selecting kids with interest in mathematics / physics into special classes or schools for gifted kids. This government program feeds the mathematics and physics departments in the universities and allows kids who go through this program to get a very early start in mathematics. This is very similar to government sponsored sports programs with talented kids getting help with summer camps, or even all year round training schools.

<comment><USER3> > I think on average the difference between a high school student from Russia > and US is negligible

I went to high school in Russia and then moved to Australia. The difference was immense. It felt like i just dropped 2 year levels. Even the accelerated programs were hopelessly behind the regular curriculum for my age group in Russia. AU/US high school students can't possibly compete against RU or CN high school students. The gap only begins closing around year 11/12, sometimes not until tertiary education.

One of the major factors is this weird anti-intellectualism culture that just doesn't exist in Russia. Doing well at your subjects in Russia put you in the cool group. Doing well at your subjects in AU got you labelled as a nerd. This permeates western culture across the board, hence domestically popular tv shows like Big Bang Theory which have 0 audience in countries that value intellect. I hear the culture of marginalising smart kids is somewhat changing lately though.

The other factor is that westerners really love to coddle and infantalise their children. A 12 year old in Russia is basically treated as a small adult with the associated respect and responsibilities. A 12 year old here is treated (and behaves) like a large baby.

<comment><USER4> Not the same, but I went from the Polish education system to a British university, and it also felt like it was a massive downgrade.

What really surprised me was the core principle at British unversities - "don't assume prior knowledge of anything". It basically meant that on a CS course, they teach you basic level maths, basic programming skills, you spend the entire 1st year of university learning what we learnt in school around age 15-16. A Polish university absolutely won't be teaching you basic algebra,statistics or core concepts of programing on a CS course - you are simply required to know these things, otherwise wtf are you doing on a CS course.

Also in general, I find the elective system of subjects in British schools to be.....poor. As in, I was(and am) surrounded by perfectly normal adults who are good in certain subjects(the ones they picked) and who have zero knowledge in others(the ones they didn't pick). I feel like my own Polish education has given me a very broad understanding of a lot of different subjects even if I wasn't personally interested in them. Like, even though I went to a school with a "maths and CS focus"(which just meant these two subjects had 2x the number of lessons each week), we still had lessons in history, physics, chemistry, biology, Polish literature.....all of it was mandatory, you couldn't just decide to skip it. At the time, I thought it was useless, but in hindsight I am very grateful for it because it has given me at least basic level of knowledge in many different subjects, whereas my British peers just can't even have a conversation about basic chemistry for instance, since they never took it as a subject.

<comment><USER5> > What really surprised me was the core principle at British unversities - > "don't assume prior knowledge of anything".

My experience was that even if all of the students prior to university studied maths A-Levels, we all studied different topics. Before those two year A-Levels, we all studied different topics in GCSEs. There is so much time wasted giving everyone the same knowledge because of how our system is set up with different exam boards.

I don't know if this is the case in other countries.

<comment><USER6> You don't get to choose different maths A-levels in Russia. There is one state standard that every school and every student has to stick to. You can have accelerated or deeper "special schools" but you can't evade the state standard on maths or you won't get you high school diploma.

<comment><USER7> There is a state standard in England and Wales (and another standard in Scotland). It's called the National Curriculum, although I'm not sure if it has a different name for A-levels.

There are multiple implementations of that standard, in the form of exams that meet the standards. The government checks the exams satisfy their standards.

For example, an exam on history might by on the 20th century Britain, and a different one might use 19th century Europe.

<comment><USER6> Again, the Russian standard doesn't give you choices. Everyone has to know logarithms, derivatives and certain chapters of history.

The advanced maths selective school will hammer you with more complicated geometry problems, and some contents of the first few uni courses.

<comment><USER7> Everyone in England also has to know logarithms and derivatives. There's much less flexibility for maths.

For history, the government requires that they:

• develop and extend their knowledge and understanding of specified key events, periods and societies in local, British, and wider world history; and of the wide diversity of human experience

• engage in historical enquiry to develop as independent learners and as critical and reflective thinkers

• develop the ability to ask relevant questions about the past, to investigate issues critically and to make valid historical claims by using a range of sources in their historical context

• develop an awareness of why people, events and developments have been accorded historical significance and how and why different interpretations have been constructed about them

• organise and communicate their historical knowledge and understanding in different ways and reach substantiated conclusions

The topics should be:

• from three eras: Medieval (500-1500), Early Modern (1450-1750) and Modern (1700-present day)

• on three time scales: short (depth study), medium (period study) and long (thematic study)

• on three geographical contexts: a locality (the historic environment); British; and European and / or wider world settings

and "British history must form a minimum of 40% of the assessed content over the full course."

Beyond that, it's up to the people making the exams.

I think this is great -- everyone should learn the techniques ("to investigate issues critically" etc) but the school, teacher and student have some flexibility in their learning. At university or in life, it hardly matters whether I focussed on Roman Britain or European WWII history to achieve this.

[https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...](https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/310549/history_GCSE_formatted.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> c-smile I was comparing my math books (from Soviet university, Physics and Applied Math) and my son's from Canadian university (CS).

Huge difference to be honest. Canadian ones (same as in US I think) were more like belletristic texts written with the goal to give basics without too much thought needed by the reader.

In contrast you cannot approach Soviet text math book without serious thinking effort. You need to overcome some mental barrier to get into. If you cannot do that then this is not yours - choose something else.

I believe that is because of different motivations of high-school systems. University on the West gets its money directly from students so they motivated to attract and keep as many students as possible - so books are entry level to do not scare students. Barrier here is established from "paying user" side.

In USSR universities were getting money from state/society as education was free so they must maintain those barriers so only those who went through were there. Barrier here is from "service provider" side.

<comment><USER8> Read, then reread, and still do not understand your point.

Are you saying that in Russia, since the education was free that the goal of the textbooks was to make it hard to want to stay in school, if so, to me, seems like it's unlikely, but possible.

Putting aside non-Russian textbooks, what are you saying the intended reasoning of the textbook form was as it relates to Russian culture?

<comment><USER9> I don't think the books were made hard intentionally.

From what I understand, in the US, the same course on, say, Introduction to Calculus, can be attended by people who are learning to be MDs, chemical engineers, accountants and mathematicians because there is no fixed curriculum and everyone can pick up that course. So the textbooks and courses need to be as accessible as possible to accommodate a wide range of aptitudes.

In Russia/USSR, at least till 90s (don't know if it's still true since there had been a movement to "westernize" education) you enrolled into a major, not a school, and the whole class had the same curriculum for the first two years with some specialization starting on the third year (the whole program is 5-6 years). So students with the same major go to the same courses, which are not shared with any other majors. In this system Introduction to Calculus for mathematicians will be very different from the course with the same name for sociologists and does not have to be as accessible for people who do not really care about strictness of proofs, structure and other "mathy" stuff.

<comment><USER10> it's/was the same in ex yugoslavia countries.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Here is an interesting paper [1](PDF) by a Russian mathematician who has taught mathematics in Russia, USA and Brazil. He compares the "very successful usage of word problems in Russia and contradictory, inefficient and often immature treatment of word problems in USA."

[1] [http://toomandre.com/travel/sweden05/WP-SWEDEN- NEW.pdf](http://toomandre.com/travel/sweden05/WP-SWEDEN-NEW.pdf)

<comment><USER12> Wow, this is a great read! I'm on page 18 so far. It's been discussing how "word problems" are key to developing critical thinking skills, and how far behind the US seems to be in them. One point made: the idea that word problems can wait till algebra, which gives a universal method for solution, totally misses that they develop logic skills and practice with problem solving, which makes learning algebra so much easier.

<comment><USER13> This isn't the case anymore. US Common Core Math lessons use word problems from the first grade onward.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I can only assume but culture makes things very different. I often said that French abstract algebra books stopped me from learning for 10 years (after many serious attempts). One book from Garreth Williams unlocked 80% of my issues. The shocking part was the approach. It was very operational, you calculate, you manipulate concrete data. In French books it's all theorems and concepts. Learning curve to make a Haskeller faint. And that book is not the only instance, Gilbert Strang lectures on youtube are also similar in style. It also correlates with the pragmatic engineering of US history (electricity comes to mind).

<comment><USER15> I feel like it's worth pointing out here, for Americans who don't know better (no blame implied), that the French have one of the best mathematical pipelines in the world. They have almost as many Nobels (13 vs. 11) despite having 1/5 the population. Guardian article about them here:

[https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/may/31/europa- french-...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/may/31/europa-french-maths- ecoles-normales-superieures)

So please don't think France is a backwater that just doesn't know how to do math - on the contrary, it may be the best country in the world to be born into, if you want to be a mathematician.

For what it's worth, I'm an American who honestly is pretty bad at math, but I try to keep learning, though I'm past an age where it will matter in college or higher education.

<comment><USER16> A paraphrased anecdote I heard about French math education:

"In America, they start by teaching you how to add two numbers, then once you've mastered that you learn to subtract, then once you've got that down you learn to multiply and divide and so forth. In France they tell you: this is an arithmetic object. The operations on it are add, subtract, multiply, and divide. It's simple!

It's a good way of cranking out a bunch of Fields medalists, while everyone else has no idea what's going on."

<comment><USER17> _To the question "what is 2 + 3" a French primary school pupil replied: "3 + 2, since addition is commutative". He did not know what the sum was equal to and could not even understand what he was asked about!_

[https://www.uni-muenster.de/Physik.TP/~munsteg/arnold.html](https://www.uni- muenster.de/Physik.TP/~munsteg/arnold.html)

<comment><USER14> To be honest, what he's criticizing is also what is lacking in post-primary school math education. The mechanical reduction (3 + 2 -> 5) leads to a road block when you start thinking into solving equations.. because there's no single path of reduction. You need to see the formulas as material you can transform in your mind.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Personal experience. In USSR till 16, then 11th and 12th grade in US. Yes, the books and the curriculum were way harder in the Soviet Union, but it's largely pointless.

In USSR, there were 2-3 kids in the entire class who actually vaguely understood the material and the other 28 were just copying their homework.

In a US high school, by contrast, you can choose to take whatever level of math you are able to grok (AP, College Prep, etc...)

Given the average results, I vastly prefer the US system. USSR system was a one size fits all that didn't work well for the average pupil.

<comment><USER19> Underrated point. In Poland grades often don't matter at all (e.g. for university admission). Cheating is widespread in school (but not at final exams after high school). Meanwhile in US your high school grades matter for university admission etc.

And, yes, it is often possible for students to complete these harder classes without much to show for it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> We had a very famous MIT professor on a 6 month sabbatical at our lab in the early 90's. He remarked on the difference between US and our institution in Belgium being that here you can just assume undergrad students would be fluent in basic math subjects, whereas in the US (in this case MIT) you would have to explain even very basic math.

Now 3 decades later we are also at a US level as math has in general been completely de-emphasized at all levels of education.

As for textbooks, at the time EU ones were pretty clean, mostly definitions, axioms, proofs and conjectures, plots etc, layed out in simple black on white, whereas US textbooks were extremely wordy, full of colour and irrelevant photos blasting away at your senses.

Sadly this seems to be the style that commercially won, but I doubt very much it is beneficial to the student.

<comment><USER21> I don't think just plopping all the subject material in front of a student and expecting everyone to immediately "get it". Some people may have the intuition to read a group of definitions or a proof and suddenly understand the higher level concepts gluing everything together, but that certainly doesn't work for everyone.

Anecdotally, having a textbook that explains a concept via examples without jargon and informative pictures, _then_ throwing all the definitions and proofs at me has been much more helpful to my understanding in multiple subject areas.

I'd also throw "extremely wordy passages" in there as well because having something repeated & reframed multiple times has help me understand something from multiple perspectives - and remind me of a previous definition at a crucial point in the text.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I have a feeling that TV/media really did play a huge role in the decline of intellectualism in the western world. The USA loves its TV, hollywood and celebrities. It's been reinforced throughout the culture and it makes a lot of people very very wealthy. The more time you spend watching tv the more money they make. Though here's the crux for them, educated people think more and do more so they don't make good customers. So fill the TV with anti intellectualism. Then toss it the political usefulness of a mindless medium and you have a dangerous conduit so to speak.

A friend grew up in a household where his mother forbade TV and video games. During this covid-19 lockdown, instead of mindlessly watching TV like everyone else appears to be doing, he built a deck and is rebuilding his garage among other projects. Every other friend I talk to is sitting around drunk, high or watching TV. Few do some projects but it's mostly TV show chatter in the chat apps.

Personally I don't hate TV and I have netflix. Though I only really watch it in spates and when it is on, I am on my laptop or doodling in my notebooks. It's more for background noise than content. Though of course there are some times when I'm tired and just want to sit and watch an episode of a show.

<comment><USER23> Politics played a bigger role. Simply put they had to aim for lowest common denominator when setting standards else claims of discrimination would pile on.

Many school systems went so far as to either modify grading systems to prevent embarrassment or celebration of achievement. Schools types which attempt to provide a more specialized learn curriculum are regularly demonized for one reason or another.

If you want the best education then the word fairness needs to be applied properly. Fairness is insuring all students are offered the opportunity to learn and receive an education while accepting there are many who can learn more and should be offered the opportunity to do so even if that includes elevating them among their peers.

Educational achievement should be held in higher esteem that sports yet for some odd reason we do not consider fairness is sports an issue where some kids cannot compete because of ability yet in learning we do.

<comment><USER22> Schooling has indeed been dumbed down but that as happened in the more recent decades. TV/media manipulation has been at work slowly getting our intellectual capacity for decades, since WW2. I even will go as far as to say it was a direct result of WW2. Cant have kids growing up to be commies. Best have little Susie and Joey sit and watch wholesome american tv reinforcing traditional american values of imperialism, idealism, consumerism and obedience to authority.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I had an exchange year during High School where I moved from Germany to Florida for a year and attended a public school. I hate to say this but to me the classes were laughably easy. While I was a 10th grader in Germany I could have easily graduated there.

I do however favour the US system of individual classes where you could advance in e.g. Mathematics but if you had trouble with language you could take a less-intensive course.

This doesn't work in Germany. You either advance with all subjects at once or you don't. One of the most stupid things that I have witnessed. In our 11th/12th grade we would have a huge difference between grades. About 20% of people were getting straight A's while over a third struggled to even pass. Barely anyone in the mid-range. Terrible system which makes it really really hard for teachers to teach a class.

<comment><USER25> You have a form of in Germany that in most of the states with the "Leistungskurse" or the "Profilklassen".

I'd argue that its extremely important to _not_ be able to drop courses since it contributes to a well-rounded education, something the US sorely lacks.

<comment><USER24> Yeah but this system is taking a huge toll on the teachers. Our maths teacher had to basically give two different courses within one class, because the gap was so big.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I mean, could it be as simple as "Learning math is more important to Russians than to Americans?" And before you dismiss this as simplistic, consider everything that's competing for attention with "learning math." What things are Americans either preoccupied with or beset with, that Russians esp. Soviet Russians, weren't? I'm thinking, the profit motive. Particularly as concerns textbook publishers. And parents who need to pay for healthcare and that oversized house. And textbook readers who wonder how the hell they'll ever use this to find a job.

<comment><USER27> No, learning math was never more important to an average Russian than it was to an average American. An average Russian has never knew math any better than an average American.

Source: attended school in both countries.

<comment><USER28> Are you in your early, early 20s? Because the Russian education system fell apart recently. Bribes and teachers moving to Europe and all that.

<comment><USER29> I'm 28. We emigrated to Australia(from Russia) when I was in approximately grade 3-4. I basically did no mathematical study for 4-5 years, the system was that far ahead. From family in Russia I hear that ridiculous amounts of homework(2hrs daily if you're on top of everything) is still a thing for young children although there's all sorts of strange pro-putin insertions in the curriculum but ultimately I don't know, it seems like Russia as a whole has very quickly lost the few positives the Soviet Union brought. I felt the quality of teaching was much better aswell. It seemed like many Australian teachers did not fully grasp many of the concepts themselves. From what I understand the American curriculum is even more relaxed so I'm not entirely sure where the above commenter gets their information from or if they're being entirely honest.

<comment><USER27> _I 'm not entirely sure where the above commenter gets their information from or if they're being entirely honest_

You left Russia when you were 10, so you were basically a child. Then you "heard from family" something you've never actually experienced. On the other hand, I was there in Soviet Union/Russia going through all 10 grades in three different schools, and then getting my masters in engineering, while tutoring high school students in math to make some cash. Then I tutored undergrads as a TA here in US while getting my phd.

You have very little actual experience of Russian education, and zero experience of American education, and you're questioning my honesty?

<comment><USER28> I think we are just saying that you had an uncommon experience. Were you in a small town by any chance?

Also, going back to the parent's post: "it seems like Russia as a whole has very quickly lost the few positives the Soviet Union brought"

Right, kind of tragic.

<comment><USER27> _Were you in a small town by any chance_

Average town (0.5M), average family (engineers), average school (not the best, not the worst), though the high school I attended had math specialization, so by the end of it I knew more math than an average Russian (or an average American).

 _it seems like Russia as a whole has very quickly lost the few positives the Soviet Union brought_

Now imagine North Korea collapses, becomes like South Korea 30 years later, and someone makes a statement like that about it. Puts it in a different light, doesn't it?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> We have lots of Soviet teachers in Israel, they always said "it's better to solve something in 15 ways than solve 15 things the same way" and that resonated.

To be fair though, that approach is omnipresent in the math faculty in the Hebrew University - so it was not unique to the Soviet paradigm but it was interesting to see it in High School.

There is also a genuine sense of "let's try to do this!" that's very common in computer science but is more common in "soviet" math than "regular Israeli" math.

The most important distinction IMO was that these teachers were not _afraid_ of Math and could discuss higher level non-high-school concepts typically. Having a teacher that loves the subject is important.

</comment><comment><USER31> In my high school year in international school(in germany) I've seen many students from diverse backgrounds. I could see balanced number of students taught from their own origin: US, asian or international school itself.

One thing I remember until now is that students from US kept using the phrase 'plug-it-in' whenever they substitute values into quadratic formula. Overusing that term made me laugh about their attitude towards math because it felt as if they didn't really care what's inside that magic formula that pops the answer out.

It felt so 'american' because I felt the same attitude when they treat computer programs:

'I don't give a shit about what's going on. Some smart asian kid will make me a magic machine that I just need to plug in the numbers and prints the answer, while I focus on making varsity football team next year.'

You can downvote me for my racism though. All excuse I can make is that they also laughed when I told them how their attitude towards math sounded like.

<comment><USER32> "Plug-it-in" is simply jargon for what would more properly be called substitution and reduction. One would use the exact same sort of reasoning when doing "proper" math proofs, so I think your attitude might be a bit misguided - there's no "magic" involved.

<comment><USER31> yes but I've already seen the attitude among american students who treat plug- it-in equivalent to plug-in devices xD

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> This is a question close to my heart.

I was a huge fan of Russian Math and Science books and I used them to study for an entrance exam to IIT (its more difficult to get into IIT than Harvard) and came out in top 100 in the country.

But, inspite of coming out at the top of the exam, I found Russian maths books very interesting and sometimes very difficult to master.

This coming from a country full of brilliant mathematicians. Russian math books are not only hardcore compared to US - they are hardcore compared to India also!!

One particular example is V. A. Krechmar.

[https://www.amazon.in/Problem-Book-Algebra-V- Krechmar/dp/935...](https://www.amazon.in/Problem-Book-Algebra-V- Krechmar/dp/9351448320)

If you consider yourself good in maths, try solving the problems from this book!

There is simply no comparison of Soviet Math Books with the rest of the world. US is so far behind that this comparison is not apt. The closest is Indian Math books or books from Cambridge like S. L. Loney.

<comment><USER34> "its more difficult to get into IIT than Harvard"

By what metric? I doubt that everyone who got into IIT could get into Harvard.

But I may be a bit biased because I work with some IIT graduates who are a bit underwhelming relative to the reputation of their alma mater.

<comment><USER35> It's a hard comparison since Harvard and the IITs have different admission processes. Admissions to the IITs happen via a single exam, which is held at the end of 12 years of school education and is conducted over a few hours consisting of upper level physics, chemistry and mathematics. Harvard meanwhile has a lot more in terms of admission criteria, with essays, SAT scores and other things taken into consideration.

The easiest way to justify OPs stance is to compare the admitted / applied ratio for both schools, owing to the sheer number of people taking the IITJEE and the relatively low number of seats available (around 10k), the success ratio is lower than Harvard.

<comment><USER34> I agree - that could be the closest to a sound argument, but it's a very superficial one. Someone who claims to be highly intelligent by virtue of their alma mater should know better than to advance such an argument to an educated audience.

<comment><USER36> OP was not saying anything about intelligence or claiming to be highly intelligent. It was a personal (and very interesting, IMO) anecdote on their experience with math text books.

<comment><USER34> I take no issue with his anecdote.

He said that getting into IIT was more difficult than getting into Harvard, which is a pretty clear claim about the intelligence of an IIT student, and by extension, his intelligence.

The IIT graduates I've met are generally quite smart, but I've also noticed occasional arrogance which can lead them to think, say, and do irrational things, such as implying the superiority of IIT to Harvard, e.g. comparing apples to oranges.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> The linked article points to the fact that because the Soviets were resource- constrained, theory was more accessible than equipment which drove the education system to favor theoretical training.

I wonder if there's a trade-off to this. On one hand you produce some really elite theoretical minds (Pontryagin, Lyapunov, Kolmogorov, etc.). But the counterfactual is that it excludes those with high IQ but are more practically-oriented as well as late-bloomers who didn't take to math early but would have become reasonable applied mathematicians (I belong to this category). I guess we will never know.

To draw a parallel, one of the criticisms of the French system -- where mathematics is treated as the most important arbiter of intelligence (for grandes ecoles admissions) -- is that other aptitudes are almost seen as secondary. It optimizes too much for a very narrow aptitude -- which is great for producing Fields Medalists, but underoptimizes for talent elsewhere.

In my experience, while the American education system on the other hand is kind of a piece of cake from K-12, it somehow manages to catch up at the college level (more or less). At the graduate level, the differences in ability between a U.S. graduate student and a Soviet-system/Eastern European educated one is largely diminished. And it does this without over-optimizing for any particular aptitude so deep expertise is developed over a broader field in the U.S.

<comment><USER38> > The linked article points to the fact that because the Soviets were > resource-constrained, theory was more accessible than equipment which drove > the education system to favor theoretical training.

Yes, indeed. Most people don't realize that the soviets were awful at product engineering. Their consumer-oriented products (TVs, radios, cars) were pretty terrible when compared to their western counterparts. My pet theory is that this was, in part, due to the over-emphasis in theoretical approaches instead of practical applications (that plus the lack of resources and the communist ethos against consumerism).

<comment><USER39> I'm reminded of the engineer's triangle here: "Good, fast, cheap. Pick two." The problem with a lot of Soviet design was that they always had to pick cheap since there were often shortages of resources. Their designs were fundamentally influenced by scarcity, and it makes it difficult to make anything good, especially if you need something quickly. That doesn't excuse the fact that many designs were knockoffs and terrible in their own right, but it does explain their underlying design choices.

There's an interesting book titled "Made in Russia: Unsung Icons of Soviet Design" that details many examples of this. The one example that always struck me was the Soviet soda machines. They could not waste previous metal on soda cans, so the soda machines came with a communal cup. You put coins in the machine for soda, and it filled the communal cup like a fountain drink. But once you were done drinking you had to return the cup to the machine and press a button to clean it out and make it ready for the next customer. This process seems ghastly and ridiculous but makes sense when resources are scarce. It was the design tradeoff the Soviets made so that soda machines would be available in the first place.

<comment><USER17> > _They could not waste precious metal on soda cans_

I have read somewhere that metal in Soviet Union was pretty cheap...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> I'm from Lithuania.

My dad had present from our relatives in Canada - basketball shoes (eventually stolen) and a calculator. That calculator pulled a lot of favours over time, he was the only one in town to have one. Dad couldn't believe you could just order anything from catalogue in 70s. Anything the world, you can buy. Such a unreal concept. He also got Beatles LP from somewhere (eventually confiscated from teachers).

It's a good point the access to many basics weren't there. I've finished high school in 2006, got my first PC in 1998. Very quickly I've learned to solve math problems using graphing calculator apps. Cheated my German classes by translating from German to English using Babelfish then to Lithuanian.

The only other time I ever had to do derivatives and integrals was math class at university... while studying for management degree!

</comment><comment><USER41> This website contains contains links to lot of these textbooks - [https://mirtitles.org](https://mirtitles.org)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> I'm a Swede who returned to their native Croatia in the late 90s and early 2000s and found that kids were learning maths on a much more advanced level than we were in Sweden.

I've throughout my life learned that this goes for most of eastern europe. I can't explain why. If it's a more demanding education or if they have some sort of genetic/environmental predisposition for maths.

But the phenomenon has been pretty consistent in my experience with people from Romania, Bulgaria, Russia, Ukraine and the balkans.

One memory that stuck with me was how the village children would come back from their last day at school, beginning of summer, and show off their report cards.

Dozens of happy kids walking along a dirt road with their report cards in hand, ready to show them off to any adult that might give them a few Kuna or candy for the effort.

I was shocked, having been raised in Sweden.

</comment><comment><USER43> In a US college in the 80s, the math professors definitely seemed to be in awe of the Russians when it came to this stuff. And though I was in the US, early on I was in an utter hardware wasteland, and I do think that not having much hardware access improved my ability to just sit and think about things with pencil and paper.

<comment><USER44> Similarly, working on products with no debugger and a single LED for a UI meant that I had to reason very carefully about how the code I wrote worked. If I made a mistake there would be no feedback other than the behavior of the product.

<comment><USER45> Funny, that's how I presently program microcontrollers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> I was taught in university by soviet professors and had to study soviet textbooks and from what I can tell, Soviet textbooks are extremely steep and unfriendly. There is not a single odd word and it even feels like they had to save the paper. Text is often describing schemes that are 5-10 pages before. It takes significantly more concentration to understand the whole thing. It feels like authors used to compete in the precision of information rather than making it more available for someone who is going to read it.

On the other hand, books from USA tend to be more friendly and will first explain the basic intuition and only then dig deeper if necessary.

</comment><comment><USER47> speaking from personal experience, the math I learned up to grade 4 in the Soviet Union was enough to glide through all of American high school math. And I wasn't in any way an advanced math student in the USSR. And I dont seem to recall any extensive, South Korean style homework.

<comment><USER48> You are probably really gifted. I don't think this is a typical experience, that a fourth grader in any country who doesn't do much homework knows most of US high school math.

<comment><USER47> In my Soviet school, we went up to Grade 10 US high school math and I have a clear memory when my old knowledge stopped and I had to actually learn. Up to that point it really did feel like just redoing old classes again.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> This a gem of a line:

"Coding up a simulation and having a computer torture it until it confessed the results you wanted certainly takes talent, but it is arguably a different kind of talent than thinking deeply about the problem itself."

</comment><comment><USER50> The classic answer to this question is that "math was cheap."

The Soviet Union was comparatively poor to the United States, so you create advantages where you can for the least investment. Math and national security are closely linked, aerodynamics, radio communication/RADAR, encryptions, etc. investment in rigor payed them dividends.

</comment><comment><USER51> My wife's 12 yr old niece lives in India. Every time I see her, she's studying all day.

I happened to look at her math books. They had hundreds or thousands of word problems in one year's cheap textbook. And she had solved ALL of them TWICE over within 8 months. It was unbelievable.

I haven't seen anything quite like this in America.

</comment><comment><USER52> Well I went to IIT and our education system is more like Soviet Style education, heck we used the same books for competition prep.

I aced every class always stood first in my class till class 10th and after that my performance dropped till I realized that "I am not supposed to care about understanding a concept in its entirety and solve problem based on only things I've learned however limiting it was". It was first unsettling to me because in earlier classes I always went into depth and tried building my understanding of a subject from ground up but in class 11th, there was no time for all that. I did what everyone does, I basically figured out how to solve problems based on pattern recognition, this literally required no understanding or even how things for together but remembering few rules and forumla and their order, and there you go - I cleared IIT just like that, no coaching or help required.

This literally killed all my love for subjects and it became a "game" to solve problems and acquire points. So I stopped bothering with deeper understanding all together and began having life as in hanging out with friends and girlfriend and only coming back to study when I am in mood to game the system again.

I never enjoyed this kind of labor, slow placed exploration made bigger impact on my mind and I've forgotten most of the things I learned in competition mode.

Thing is those students who feel like they can't build concepts in air without solid roots, they are going to suffer in Soviet Style education.

<comment><USER53> I'm not sure this is specific to any particular school of mathematical education. There is bound to come a point at which you cannot understand everything and have to start winging it. If you can cope with that, that's good, you are prepared psychologically for research mathematics. And just having learned the patterns will hold you in good stead. But if (as I did) you find the whole thing an insult to your pride then you are only preparing yourself for failure.

<comment><USER35> India (and a few other places) face this issue to a larger extent, I feel. When the judgement of your education comes via one single competitive exam, you tend to maximize that reward. In the Indian education system (and to similar extent afaik in china, south Korea and Japan), having nationwide tests that are the only factor for university admissions in math and science forces everyone competing to solve for performance in the exam. And it is far easier to do this by learning how to solve problems than by learning the material then using that knowledge to solve problems.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> Excerpt:

"At the risk of oversimplifying, I noticed that because of the traditional scarcity of equipment, Russian students and scientists had to

 _think_

rather than experiment, whether with computers or accelerators; it was often all that was available to them."

<comment><USER55> > traditional scarcity of equipment

This sort of thing likely led to what one of my Russian professors was pretty proud of: That Soviet microbiologists with some bacteria, a pH meter, and some basic chemicals like sodium citrate could bang out publications, with some well-designed and elegant experiments. We Americans, on the other hand, would spend thousands of dollars on fancy machines, reagents, etc. and were less productive.

<comment><USER21> constraints breed creativity!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> Soviet body builders only used free weights and a pull-up bar. You don't need anything but that to get big muscles. Similarly, you don't need anything except a chalk board to teach math and most other subjects.

<comment><USER57> But you do need a computer to teach programming (generally.) The US has generally been about efficiency, there isn't much need wasting time on paper with a problem when we can understand the concept and solve the problem with a computer. That's my opinion of course, as an American. So I'm biased. When I was taking advanced math classes, my first thought when presented a concept was "how can I solve this by writing a calculator program to do it for me." Maybe that isn't common, I don't know, but while it might not be what everyone does...I think that is the American thinking on learning things.

<comment><USER58> I actually am very glad that we did not have computers in my school at the end of the 80ies. This was in Lithuania, then a part of the USSR. We had programming classes, so without the computers we were taught the basic concepts: variables, assignment, conditions, loops. Just concepts in a pseudolanguage. Later, when I had access to the computers learning the languages boiled down to "what's the syntax for this concept?" And then writing my programs with a pen and paper because I had no computer at home for a few more years.

Now I sometimes shake my head when I see comments like "I do not know programming, which language (or worse—fraamework) should I learn?" It is so tempting to say "duh, learn programming and worry about the languages later".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> Is following along and learning / practicing math directly from a textbook still the most effective way to learn math?

Now that we have devices in our pockets and on our desktops with more and more capabilities that have educational use cases such as interactivity and AR, how would a calculus lesson be made in 2020? Could we just go down the street, aim our devices at cars passing by, or cars speeding up from a stop sign, and see how speed, acceleration, and position relate to each other in real-time? Or aim it at a pool table, bounce a cue ball off another ball and see how vector summation can work in real life? Or input the weight of a cue ball, the type of surface (felt?) and then see how the applied force can be estimated based on how fast the cue ball moves when you hit it? Interactive bits like this as examples and practice mixed in with the text?

<comment><USER60> I think that's a great way to get an intuitive understanding of the concepts, as an introduction to the subject, but at some point you really do have to sit down with numbers and equations and learn the theory behind it all and apply it to examples that aren't constrained by the reality you can physically experience in a classroom.

<comment><USER59> You would certainly have to sit down with numbers and equations, but that still doesn't automatically imply that a textbook is the best way. You can derive numbers and equations via an app for example.

My question is this: if you always had the textbook's author, who is an expert instructor with decades of teaching experience _instantly_ available, in person, whenever you want a lesson or to be reminded of an equation or want to learn more about a subject, at no harm to him and his well-being: under which situations would you opt for the textbook?

To me it feels like a textbook is one way to store and transfer and spread knowledge, but is it automatically the best way to ever do so? Or is the textbook simply one technology, and we are still searching for the best way to teach as many people as possible with the resources and technologies at our disposal?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER61> It's not just textbooks. The whole approach was different. You would be regularly called upon in class to do a problem on the blackboard. You would be graded on the spot publicly. There was no participation trophy type stuff. Teacher could easily make fun of you for not knowing something etc.

<comment><USER62> Sounds like a recipe for producing a handful of brilliant scientists and a generation of traumatised students.

<comment><USER61> Could be or might be just people with better adaptation to tough env. Someone needs to do a study on this :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER63> When I moved to Canada in 98 from Belarus, I had minimal language knowledge. I was also half way through school year. After my testing was done I was put in to next grade.

Even though I was not the best student in my home country, prolly mediocre at best. With some subjects being better than others, still it was surprising to me.

By next school year I also felt that science classes were way behind what I was used to, and even though I could only read and barely understood instructions, I still was able to do very well in all of my stem classes despite lack of language knowledge. Honestly it was kind of annoying that I had to do things that I already have done in previous grades.

As I have started getting better with English and started paying less attention in class and less to my homework, eventually I fell somewhat behind.

</comment><comment><USER64> Easy answer: Russia's education was for engineers, US for snowflakes.

Also it extents to CS. It's 10x easier to find competent Russian programmers than in the US. They are dominating the various math contests or chess for decades.

</comment><comment><USER65> My friend went to one of the best high schools in my country (Poland), where students would, on their own accord, practice using old Soviet math textbooks.

I got my hands on one of them where the task stated was usually something short, like: "доказать тождество", followed by a set of rather insane(at least for a highschooler) equations.

That bit about a dearth of equipment is true in most eastern block countries by the way. Case in point: the other day I asked my younger cousin, who's currently doing his master's, if they still use those multimeters with nixie tube displays like I did ten years ago.

They do.

</comment><comment><USER66> My son started in the Russian School of Math - a pretty popular after-school program in many US cities. What is fascinating is the core theory that algebra can be grasped by children as young as 6. And there seems to be some truth to this given my son's experience.

One random shout-out: I think if more of us learned math from folks like 3 Blue 1 Brown we would love it enough to explore it more. I don't know if I'm smart enough to have become a master mathematician but I find myself falling in love with math with every video he puts out.

</comment><comment><USER67> It's not just math. Physics too. People from India who went through engineering entrance exams like JEE will have fond (or horrific) memories of "Problems in General Physics" by Irodov ([https://archive.org/details/IrodovProblemsInGeneralPhysics/m...](https://archive.org/details/IrodovProblemsInGeneralPhysics/mode/2up)). Every problem in there was something to wrestle with.

<comment><USER60> Irodov is also a great resource when preparing for the USA Physics Olympiad. (Other, slightly easier but still good ones are Morin's books.)

<comment><USER35> The International Physics Olympiad and the IITJEE have a high correlation in terms of material required as well as people who do well, it is probably the Olympiad with the highest correlation between Olympiad performance and performance in the JEE.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER68> What all of this shows is that education and economy are really not very related. This book makes the case:

> The Case against Education: Why the Education System Is a Waste of Time and > Money

What happens is that companies just hire people who have proven that they are not dumb enough to drop out of school and just did what they had to to move on with their lives.

In the end the Western countries are richer, not because the students are great, but because they have great opportunity and learn what they need to, so they can get that opportunity.

The Soviet Union really was great at showing this, lots of super smart people, good schools, lots of government investment in high tech, more effective intellectual property theft then China now, cheap natural resources, cheap oil and so on. Jet they couldn't really make a competitive economy.

Teach people the basics as efficiently as possible, show them where they can learn more if they want to, give them some resources to do so if they want to and let them find their way in a market economy.

</comment><comment><USER69> I feel lots of people have made the point that over time the emphasis on maths has been reduced such that education would be more useful to more people. I.e structuring the maths syllabus such that it would select for the maths super stars does a poor job of giving the run of the mill student much value from their maths education.

I do grad level maths every day but I've never stopped being a reluctant mathematician. Sometimes the maths of the problem is insightful and interesting but most of the time what I'm doing is battling to express/validate an intuition in a formal language.

I think that emphasis on maths as a language for the exact representation of your thoughts is maybe what the modern curriculum is up to, as opposed to the emphasis of maths as the language of your thoughts. Just the same way that you might write code to express designs; I think it'd be weird to think in code although certainly some (maybe even the best) do think about software in something closer to code than box diagrams.

</comment><comment><USER70> I stand by my answer[0] to that question.

[0]: [https://qr.ae/pNrgmY](https://qr.ae/pNrgmY)

<comment><USER71> Heck, that was common knowledge some fifteen years ago during my freshman year. I personally never bought those American coursebooks. For the price of one brick, I could pretty much buy all the required self-study material printed form. After my sophomore year, they did away with the university press anyway and told the professors to just make their materials available in electronic form.

Besides, when you're in uni, you're learning to study, not learning to be hand-held.

</comment></comment><comment><USER72> For that matter, look at say a 4th or 5th grade English textbook from the U.S. pre-1970 compared to even High School book today.

</comment><comment><USER73> Economic reasons aside, I think Soviet educators also believe that rigorous and challenging training will realize the greatest potential of students. The top students are self-driven and usually get the best resources anyway. It is the majority middle that need most rigorous and challenging training to realize their full potential. Unfortunately, US educators in K-12 decided to move in the opposite direction. David Klein's writing told appalling and sad stories of how National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NTCM) won over the course of last 100 years: \- A quarter century of US 'math wars' and political partisanship \- A Brief History of American K-12 Mathematics Education in the 20th Century

By the way, US's upper-level college course and post-graduate textbooks are hardcore too. If you don't believe me, go check out the Graduate Texts in Mathematics.

</comment><comment><USER74> My dad took the advanced courses for physics, math, organic chem in first year University of Toronto in 1970. I've seen his textbooks and they were on the same level of this. Much more advanced than what I saw in the 90s/00s. More focus on reasoning from first principles, less focus on easily approachable material.

Basically I'm saying that baby boomers had more advanced textbooks in their university period compared to what their kids got in the 90s/00s. But also less people went to university back then, it was more rigorously academic back then.

<comment><USER75> Yes, I think that websites are an analogous in the sense that eventually adding features starts to get in the way

</comment></comment><comment><USER76> > _because of the traditional scarcity of equipment, Russian students and > scientists had to think rather than experiment_

This heavily resonated with me. Early in my career (late 90's - early 00's), I had to develop the skill of _dry running_ (basically running a given block of code with given inputs in my head and predicting the outcomes) because of scarcity.

I was in a domain where I had to build 100,000+ lines of C++ into a single executable, manually deploy to a remote Solaris machine and wait for up to 5 minutes for system re-initialization before I could run a simple test.

Needless to say, we learned to predict what our code does as we wrote it. The idea of unit tests re-running automatically as you write new code in the IDE would have been dismissed as an unattainable heaven (or maybe even considered downright _satanic_ ).

</comment><comment><USER77> I had a student from the Soviet Union in my class. He said they had no funding for all the nice things we had in chemistry class. But that the difference was that he had never seen so many people unwilling to learn anything, as he had noted of American students.

</comment><comment><USER64> Easy answer: Russia's education was for engineers, US for snowflakes.

Also it extents to CS. It's 10x easier to find competent Russian programmers than in the US. They are dominating the various math contents or chess for decades.

</comment><comment><USER78> I still have my father's MIR books and they seemed to me really practical and pragmatic.

Especially the Smirnov (iirc) ones about differential calculus, where he introduces it with a physics quantification problem.

You could then imagine objects moving around... etc.

Later on he introduces the formal definitions... informally (like "we discussed this and that, let's call this concept <concept> and if you think about it if <assumption> then <theorem>"). It's like a piece of literature or a correspondance.

Compared to that, Bourbakis feel like being lost in a desert without anything to drink nor eat but dry biscuits.

</comment><comment><USER79> All the answers (and discussion here) seems to take the title question as fact. My initial reaction was - and I should say at this point I'm neither from nor live in either country, and have no national pride or whatever to be wounded by who has the harder-core textbooks - are they actually? Or do they just cover _different_ material, that the US curriculum happens to get to later?

It's a pity Quora doesn't have a question 'body', like StackExchange does for example, such that the asker could've given an example.

</comment><comment><USER80> The real question should be is why are US textbooks so hard when most people never need HS math after finishing school, and lack so many other skills that are never taught.

<comment><USER58> Unless you count thinking as an important skill.

It alway baffles me when I see "why don't they teach how to do taxes?". Well they do teach you how to read and hiw to do maths? How hard it is the to put 2 and 2 together?

<comment><USER81> Taxes and maths are two very different things. The math part of taxes usually is _easy_ , what's complex are the countless rules around it, e.g. what can be counted as a deductible expense and what not - additionally, most rules don't even make logical sense as they were written for political reasons (i.e. to appease one or another voter/corporate interest group).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER82> Because Soviet math textbooks target a different audience: those kids who really enjoy math and derive pleasure in a bit of complexity (think Sheldon Cooper from BBT). You can call them elitist. Nobody cares about the other kids.

US textbooks, on the other hand, are targeted towards more general audience-- the average student. That doesn't make them bad, just different.

</comment><comment><USER17> Most American grad level math textbooks are as hardcore as it gets; undergrad, not so much, especially compared to such introductory texts as, say, _Beginner 's Course in Topology: Geometric Chapters_ by Rokhlin et al. which, I'd say, is extreme in its hard-coreness. (A popular text by Munkres, by comparison, is a children's book.)

</comment><comment><USER83> Ah mir publications, One of my favorite book during school was elementary mathematics by them. [https://www.amazon.com/Elementary-Mathematics-G- Dorofeev/dp/...](https://www.amazon.com/Elementary-Mathematics-G- Dorofeev/dp/8123908423)

</comment><comment><USER84> I'm the only one who hates quora.com?

</comment><comment><USER85> What a mountain of USSR and eastern-europe people there are in this thread; so refreshing; this is great.

</comment><comment><USER86> I don't know about the Soviets, but American books always seem to take longer to say less than other countries texts. I think it's a volume thing: Americans see 400 pages and think it must be twice the product of a 200 page alternative...

<comment><USER87> My father always told me that American textbook authors got paid by the page. That's probably not true, but it certainly _feels_ that way when reading them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER88> Curious, with 2 smaller grade school children in the Midwest, that I am now "home schooling" during the pandemic, I find the teachers spend minimal time on math and I have to supplement them...a lot.

</comment><comment><USER89> Funny… My father worked in Protvino in the early 70s for a CERN Project…

</comment><comment><USER90> Anyone have any links for recommended textbooks? It'd be nice to have a sort of roadmap for a self learner. Especially recommended soviet textbooks.

</comment><comment><USER91> First thing that comes to mind when reading this headline the "Ivan Drakov Meme" with "If he fails, he fails" :D

</comment><comment><USER17> It may be just that Russian style of teaching is more conservative and preserved the way teaching was done in the 1800s.

<comment><USER92> > teaching was done in the 1800s.

Teaching whom? Peasants?

Soviet system was build as an attempt to provide schooling for every one, what kind of schooling of 1800 you are even talking about?

<comment><USER93> Advanced schooling used to be for the elites.

With the revolutions, the system was simply expanded, not created from scratch anew. So you would have the methods used to teach the elites be the foundations of the new system.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER94> Queue a load of people extrapolating their own personal experiences into generalisations covering the entire country

</comment><comment><USER95> A neighbor in Washington, DC, sent her son for tutoring at the so-named Russian School of Mathematics here.

</comment><comment><USER96> Who are some of the famous Russian authors for high school maths?

Sorry about going on a tangent but looking for good books for my kid.

Thanks!

</comment><comment><USER97> The teachers too. We had one that could work out trig stuff in her head to a fair amount of decimals.

</comment><comment><USER98> How do Soviet high school math/physics texts compare to those of China, and India?

<comment><USER35> I can't speak for China, but in India there has not been a historically large amount of attention paid to writing textbooks in mathematics and physics. During high school, the students who seek challenging problems often fall back to Russian text books, especially in physics. More recently there has been a push by some Indian authors, so you will find some challenging texts by Indian authors, but still nowhere close to say Krotov or Irodov for physics.

</comment></comment><comment><USER99> Would someone mind providing texts that particularly exemplify the Soviet style?

</comment><comment><USER100> America did this too. There was the New Math trend in the 50-60s which feels like common core. Here's a comedy song about it from that era.[https://youtu.be/UIKGV2cTgqA](https://youtu.be/UIKGV2cTgqA)

<comment><USER101> New Math was very far from Common Core. New Math included generous coursework on abstract algebra and discrete mathematics, both of which are almost entirely ignored in Common Core. Common Core is carefully considered, but pretty traditional.

Common Core is still a good curriculum for the minimal level of math US society wants primary and secondary students to learn. But it's not nearly expansive and innovative as New Math was.

</comment></comment><comment><USER102> I still think the US/The West model won this battle.

</comment><comment><USER103> I moved to Romania three years ago, and was surprised to find the same kind of specialist/vocational high school paths have been in use a long time in this country. Once you hit teen years you might find yourself, if you worked hard enough, in one of the more prestigious specialized high school institutions for one of many subjects, such as architecture, medicine, physics or the arts.

It seemed to me a huge pressure to put on such young shoulders, to commit to a career path so early, but that's the aptitude-based system that dominated under communism. Since the schools are so prestigious, much of that system still remains.

</comment><comment><USER104> I think it comes down to communism. According to Marx's book "The Machine" the end game of communism is essentially an omnibenevolent AI. Marx thought eventually all forms of labor would be mechanised into a colossal machine that would run the world. Thus, the whole point of education is to train the geniuses in math, science, and technology in order to bring about this machine god. That's, in my opinion, why there is such a huge emphasis on those subjects in the Soviet system. All the other subjects are full of questions and speculation, and in general seem useless from that perspective once you believe you've reduced the aspirations of the humanities' longing for justice and truth to an engineering problem to solve.

<comment><USER105> That's fascinating... and somewhat terrifying. Because it seems clear to me that it won't require communism or totalitarianism to achieve that kind of endgame (or at least, to get really close to it).

Perhaps the communist/totalitarian/power-hungry nations of the world are sitting back and waiting for us in western nations to build such a system (think AWS, but 30 years from now). All they have to do is get complete control of it by one method or another, and then they've won.

One would think a proper national defense-in-depth mindset dictates carefully considering and planning for such a future.

<comment><USER104> Here's the cite: [http://thenewobjectivity.com/pdf/marx.pdf](http://thenewobjectivity.com/pdf/marx.pdf)

"once adopted into the production process of capital, the means of labour passes through different metamorphoses, whose culmination is the machine, or rather, an automatic system of machinery (system of machinery: the automatic one is merely its most complete, most adequate form, and alone transforms machinery into a system), set in motion by an automaton, a moving power that moves itself; this automaton consisting of numerous mechanical and intellectual organs, so that the workers themselves are cast merely as its conscious linkages"

<comment><USER106> I don't think it makes much sense to say this is a state of affairs Marx would want to see in a communist society; to be honest, I have no idea where you get the idea that Marx envisioned a totalizing AI controlling society from. The Fragment on Machines is highly debated and analyzed in Marxology, but it doesn't imply what you think it implies. Marx's description of communist society is actually quite the opposite (from his TGI):

>He is a hunter, a fisherman, a herdsman, or a critical critic, and must remain so if he does not want to lose his means of livelihood; while in communist society, where nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity but each can become accomplished in any branch he wishes, society regulates the general production and thus makes it possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticise after dinner, just as I have a mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, herdsman or critic.

Post-Marxist authors and other Marxists have quite a lot to say on machinery and totalization of society to administered control (which they view as a negative thing) - see Marcuse for instance.

<comment><USER104> Wouldn't having an omnibenevolent AI providing for everyone's needs free everyone from having to be a laborer, so anyone can choose to be one thing one day and another thing another day? I see my passage and yours working together.

From what I understand, Marx didn't see communism as subverting capitalism, but as the end result of capitalism. He just wanted to hasten the process along towards an outcome which he saw as already predetermined by economic forces.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER107> I grew up in a former eastern block country.

There are many reasons for this:

In USSR and other communist countries, there was a pressure towards having more scientists, engineers and highly trained specialists. To achieve this, they had to foster excellence.

US educational system is optimized for inclusion, diversity and money making. This means technical and scientific subjects are watered down so nobody is left behind. USSR and eastern block educational systems were built to cater to the most gifted students and produce scientific excellence. That is also true for some parts of Europe today, China, India and South Korea and maybe some other asian countries.

There was also a lack of distractions so it was easier for the kids in schools and students in universities to concentrate on learning.

In general, kids were expected to do a lot of homework each day and during vacations - I remember doing tens of math exercises each day and hundreds in vacation.

There were special classes in high school for more talented kids - where they got to do more math, physics, chemistry than their peers. Those classes had the best teachers.

Best kids at math or other sciences had supplementary training, they stayed after hours and learned more advanced concepts often with University teachers.

The school books in secondary schools and high schools weren't authored by educators but by best scientist in their fields. Learning programs were unique and developed also by the best in their fields, not by educators.

Teachers followed very rigorous training in universities, so they were actually skilled in the field they taught.

Everything builds over notions taught in previous years. There's no shortcut, no constant remembering of elementary notions.

Everything was taught with proofs, in a logical manner. There was no "magic". No teacher said "this thing works this way, you have to trust me on this". Instead, all things were proofed and the students had to learn all the "whys" along with the "hows". If you were a high school student and forgot one more advanced integration or derivation formula, there's no problem in deducting it from more basic theory.

One could enroll in a technical Faculty at University only after a series of very difficult exams. Sometimes you had to fight with 30 - 40 others for a place.

Once students reached higher education, the mediocre were weed out, leaving University teacher concetrating on teaching most advanced concepts to the kind of people whou could grasp them and were interested.

Since any kind of education was free, and in many cases state provided free food and housing and many scholarship for many university students and some high school students, the state wanted to otimized their returns. That meant getting the most highly trained specialists they could for the resources they used in education.

Students were also motivated to learn, because a job as a scientist or engineer was deemed a much better career than working long shifts in cold factories.

To conclude: the communist regime had to compete with the West somehow, and in that competition they had to make learning a very competitive space.

US educational system lives from the money payd by students, or by funding based on the number of students, so on one hand it has to attract more and more students so it earns more money. US educational system is more and more impacted by ideology, and scientific education is more and more watered down, even at the best universities.[1]

For now, that impact on education is solved by bringing lots of people educated elsewhere. It will probably work this way as long as US has better standard of living. I think it is not a safe bet to rely in the long term, and since standard of living will constantly improve in other countries, US has to better its scientific and technical education, not worsen it.

[1] [https://www.city-journal.org/html/how-identity-politics- harm...](https://www.city-journal.org/html/how-identity-politics-harming- sciences-15826.html)

</comment><comment><USER108> The answer points to ingenuity due to a lack of resources which is susceptible to obsolescence.

School in the USA does a lot more than just educate, for instance child protection services and employment. The USA also takes everyone, specifically the violent and malicious, due to compassion.

The USA suffered: \- multiple World Wars \- a fifty year Cold War that was just as bad \- multiple nuclear standoffs \- horrific terrorism \- black market drug smuggling, probably the gravest problem today \- repeated invasions \- a Civil War which involved foreign intervention \- attempts at colonial occupation \- originally being made as a death camp and penal colony

</comment><comment><USER109> "Please enable Javascript and refresh the page to continue"

I don't want to "continue", I would just like to read the article.

</comment><comment><USER110> In Soviet Russia, you teach textbook.

</comment><comment><USER111> Because Spartaaaaa.

But honestly, I always thought it is because whoever wrote them didn't care to make them easier as they were not competing for the student.

But yep, they are total hardcore.

</comment><comment><USER112> ...and all those hardcore math books still couldnt help avoid a society that is now run by a bunch of thugs and "thieves in law".

<comment><USER113> I'm confused whether you are talking about US or Russia right now.</comment></comment>


India Says It Has Located Chandrayaan-2 Lander on Moon's Surface - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/08/world/asia/india-chandrayaan-2-lander-moon.html <comment><USER2> Discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20910974](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20910974)</comment>