Now, if President Obama invited me to be the next Czar of Mathematics, then I would have a suggestion for him that I think would vastly improve the mathematics education in this country. And it would be easy to implement and inexpensive.
Ako bi me kojim slucajem predsednik Obama pozvao da ja budem sledeci Car matematike, ja bih imao predlog za njega za koji mislim da bi u mnogome mogao da poboljsa predavanje matematike u skolama u ovoj zemlji. Koji bi bio lak da se implementira i jeftin.
The mathematics curriculum that we have is based on a foundation of arithmetic and algebra. And everything we learn after that is building up towards one subject. And at top of that pyramid, it's calculus. And I'm here to say that I think that that is the wrong summit of the pyramid ... that the correct summit -- that all of our students, every high school graduate should know -- should be statistics: probability and statistics. (Applause)
Matematicki program koji trenutno imamo je baziran na osnovama aritmetike i algebre. I sve sto ucimo posle toga ide u pravcu razvijanja ka jednoj oblasti matematike. I na vrhu te piramide je Analiza (tj. Diferencijalni i integralni racun). Ja vam ovde sada kazem da ja mislim da je to pogresan vrh piramide ... i da je oblast matematike, koju bi svaki student i svaki srednjoskolac trebalo da zna, jeste Statistika. Verovatnoca i statistika. (aplauz)
I mean, don't get me wrong. Calculus is an important subject. It's one of the great products of the human mind. The laws of nature are written in the language of calculus. And every student who studies math, science, engineering, economics, they should definitely learn calculus by the end of their freshman year of college. But I'm here to say, as a professor of mathematics, that very few people actually use calculus in a conscious, meaningful way, in their day-to-day lives. On the other hand, statistics -- that's a subject that you could, and should, use on daily basis. Right? It's risk. It's reward. It's randomness. It's understanding data.
Mislim, nemojete pogresno da me shvatite. Analiza je jako bitna oblast matematike. i vazi za veliki uspeh ljudskog roda. I prirodni zakoni su napisani kroz izvode i integrale. I svaki student koji studira matematiku, prirodne nauke, inzinjerstvo, ekonomiju, mora da zna Analizu do kraja prve godine fakulteta. Ali ja sam ovde da vam kazem, kao profesor matematike, da vrlo malo ljudi koristi izvode i integrale na svestan, smislen nacin u svakodnevnom zivotu, Sa druge strane, Statistika je oblast koju mozete, i koji bi trebalo da koristite na svakodnevnoj osnovi, zar ne? Statistika se bavi rizikom, mogucnosti dobitka, slucajnostima, razumevanju podataka.
I think if our students, if our high school students -- if all of the American citizens -- knew about probability and statistics, we wouldn't be in the economic mess that we're in today. (Laughter) (Applause) Not only -- thank you -- not only that ... but if it's taught properly, it can be a lot of fun. I mean, probability and statistics, it's the mathematics of games and gambling. It's analyzing trends. It's predicting the future. Look, the world has changed from analog to digital. And it's time for our mathematics curriculum to change from analog to digital, from the more classical, continuous mathematics, to the more modern, discrete mathematics -- the mathematics of uncertainty, of randomness, of data -- that being probability and statistics.
Ja mislim da ako bi nasi studenti, ako bi nasi srednjoskolci, ako bi svi gradjani u SAD, znali o verovatnoci i statistici, mi ne bi bili u ovoj ekonomskoj krizi u kojoj smo danas. Ne samo -- hvala -- ne samo to ... [ali] ako bi se predavalo na pravi nacin, moze da bude vrlo zabavno. Mislim, verovatnoca i statistika je matematika igara i kockanja, analiziranja trendova pa i predvidjanja buducnosti. Pazite ovako ... svet se promenio od analognog ka digitalnom. I vreme je da se i nas program matematike promeni od analognog ka digitalnom. Sa dosadasnje klasicne kontinualne matematike, na moderniju, diskretnu matematiku. Matematiku neodredjenosti, slucajnosti, podataka -- a sve je to Verovatnoca i statistika.
In summary, instead of our students learning about the techniques of calculus, I think it would be far more significant if all of them knew what two standard deviations from the mean means. And I mean it. Thank you very much. (Applause)
Kao zakljucak, umesto da studenti uce o izvodima i integralima, mislim da bi bilo mnogo vaznije kad bi svi znali sta znaci odstupanje od dve standarne devijacije od srednje vrednosti. Hvala puno. (Aplauz)