Open course ware

no one could figure out what a math lab was as in a laboratory have Erlenmeyer flasks and things where are the flasks where's the equipment in a in mathematics my contention is that this lab follows the scientific method students take many courses most of them have a set syllabus it's organized it goes from a beginning through definitions and theorems to an end they're asked to solve problems which are well posed and have a have an expected answer this course is completely different because here the questions are not well posed they have to decide what part of this question they're going to focus on they have to decide where the exciting mathematics is going to be it's actually very hard to get beyond the smooth outer shell of a problem we rarely give ourselves a specific target and aim only at that target it's very easy just to you know write down the statement of the problem and some equations that you know which of elevant and then just sit and ...

SARAH HANSEN: Could you tell us a little bit about the history and development of 18.065, this new course? GILBERT STRANG: Yes, OK. So this was my adventure into the subject of deep learning. So that's a special part of machine learning, a highly important part. It's in the newspaper all the time. And students are graduating knowing about the deep learning and getting good jobs. And it's really amazing. So and then the other beautiful part is that it depends so heavily on linear algebra. SARAH HANSEN: You've been known to say, "I certainly learned that projects are far better than exams. Students ask their own questions and write their own programs. From now on, projects." GILBERT STRANG: That's right. Yeah. Sort of late to learn this because with the 18.06 linear algebra, totally conventional course with maybe three exams during the semester and a final exam. And maybe that's appropriate. But it's changing. And then with this new cou...