Transforming Mathematics Education: Insights from Dr. Craig Hane
Today, I have the distinct privilege of engaging in a profound discussion with Dr. Craig Hane, a transformative figure in mathematics education. Dr. Haney, an esteemed educator with a PhD in algebraic numeric theory, has devoted his career to dismantling the barriers that obstruct the comprehension of mathematics for students and professionals alike. His mission is to revolutionize the pedagogical approach to mathematics, advocating for the utilization of modern technological tools, such as scientific calculators and resources like Wolfram Alpha, to enhance learning experiences. Throughout our conversation, we delve into the intricacies of practical math, exploring how a simplified, application-oriented curriculum can significantly improve student engagement and success. Dr. Hane’s insights highlight the need to adapt educational methodologies to better prepare individuals for the complexities of contemporary life, ultimately fostering a brighter future for generations to come.
The conversation navigates Dr. Hane's personal journey, revealing the challenges he faced in his early education and the pivotal moments that shaped his career. He recounts instances where he was deemed inadequate in mathematics, only to later excel through the guidance of exceptional mentors. This narrative serves as a testament to the critical role of encouragement and effective teaching in developing mathematical proficiency. Dr. Hane's commitment to demystifying mathematics is further reflected in his innovative teaching methods, which prioritize practical applications and real-world relevance over theoretical abstractions. He posits that by equipping students with the necessary tools and knowledge, we can significantly diminish the anxiety often associated with mathematics, thereby fostering a generation of confident individuals capable of tackling diverse challenges.
Takeaways:
- Dr. Craig Hane emphasizes the importance of practical math skills in education, advocating for teaching methods that enhance understanding rather than relying on outdated manual tools.
- He shares his personal journey from struggling with math to earning a PhD, demonstrating how self-belief can lead to remarkable achievements.
- The podcast discusses the necessity of integrating modern technology, such as calculators and software like Wolfram Alpha, into math education to facilitate learning and reduce anxiety.
- Dr. Hane critiques current public school math curricula, arguing that they often include irrelevant material that does not prepare students for real-world applications of mathematics.
Links referenced in this episode:
Transcript
My guest today, Dr.
Speaker A:Craig Haney, also known as Dr.
Speaker A:Dao, is a math educator and innovator dedicated to transforming how math is taught and learned.
Speaker A:With a PhD in algebraic numeric theory and decades of teaching and business experience, Dr.
Speaker A:Dell empowers students and professionals alike to demystify math, like scientific calculators and Wolfram Alpha, his mission is to break down math barriers and inspire listeners to invest in yourself for a brighter future.
Speaker A:Welcome, Dr.
Speaker A:Dale, to the podcast.
Speaker A:Well, Craig, it's so good to have you on the podcast.
Speaker A:How you doing today, my friend?
Speaker B:Great.
Speaker B:My pleasure, Keith.
Speaker A:Looking forward to this conversation.
Speaker A:Our names are almost the same.
Speaker A:They're a little bit different.
Speaker A:I have a Y, which makes mine a little bit more Irish, so we'll go with it.
Speaker B:There we go.
Speaker A:So, Craig, I like to ask my guests this question.
Speaker A:What's the best piece of advice you ever received?
Speaker B:When I was 10 years old, my Sunday school teacher, Theron York, taught me all sorts of things from the New Testament.
Speaker B:But the best piece advice was Craig, whatever you believe, really believe, is what will happen to you in your life.
Speaker A:Interesting.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker B:He said, now it's not what you desire is what you believe.
Speaker B:It's.
Speaker B:And it's very hard to form your beliefs.
Speaker B:It's easy to want something right.
Speaker B:Believing is hard, and I learned to do that.
Speaker B:And it's happened all my life.
Speaker B:And I've had maybe all sorts of things happen to me that I believed would happen that were highly improbable.
Speaker B:And they.
Speaker A:Wow, that's really cool.
Speaker A:I love that.
Speaker A:I'm curious, a person of your stature and accomplishment, who are some people in your life who have served as mentors for you along the way?
Speaker B:Many.
Speaker B:I have a whole set of wisdom tools that I now offer my students, and I got them from many people.
Speaker B:The wisest woman when I was young was my Aunt Inis.
Speaker B:Very wise woman, very happy woman.
Speaker B:Not educated in any way you think of being educated, but very wise.
Speaker B:There's a huge difference between intelligence and wisdom.
Speaker B:She had wisdom.
Speaker B:Her.
Speaker B:Her.
Speaker B:Her husband, Uncle Jeff Davis, taught me to count using Cheerios when I was five years old.
Speaker B:And when I was entered into a school when I was five years old, I was the only kid that had been taught to count.
Speaker B:And my teacher had me help my fellow students.
Speaker B:I was five years old, and that was the beginning of my learning and teaching math career.
Speaker B:And then it went off from there.
Speaker B:And I could tell you lots of examples of people that gave me great advice that saved my life.
Speaker B:I could give you lots of Examples.
Speaker A:That's amazing.
Speaker A:Let's talk about your background, because we, as we got before we got on the podcast, you talked about how you got into discovering that you weren't good at math according to your teachers, to getting a PhD in math.
Speaker A:So tell us kind of that journey of that story, how you got there.
Speaker B:Well, it's in detail in my book how and why Public School Math is destroying the USA.
Speaker B:If you go to my website, craighane.com you get a free PDF copy.
Speaker A:Cool.
Speaker B:Then you'll know all about it.
Speaker B:C R A I G H A N E dot com.
Speaker B:Now, my uncle, Jack Davis, who was a barber and a builder, taught me to count.
Speaker B:Taught me to count.
Speaker B:Then he taught me practical math that he wasn't a math teacher, he was a builder.
Speaker B:And up through the eighth grade, I always knew more math than my teacher did because he taught me practical things.
Speaker B:Then when I took algebra my freshman year in high school, I didn't like it.
Speaker B:I didn't do well in it.
Speaker B:And my principal told me, well, you'll never go to college because you didn't do good in algebra.
Speaker B:And, well, I'm dumb.
Speaker B:I don't know.
Speaker B:My sophomore year, I had a great teacher.
Speaker B:Ms.
Speaker B:O' Hare taught me geometry.
Speaker B:I loved, did great in geometry.
Speaker B:Then I had algebra again my junior year, didn't like it again, Craig, you're not going to college.
Speaker B:My senior year, I was in a town, fortunately, that had a school there, DePaul University, Greencastle, Indiana.
Speaker B:And my geometry teacher said, craig, your senior year, why don't you go to DePaul and take college algebra and see how you do there?
Speaker B:She knew that the high school algebra teacher was not any good.
Speaker B:She couldn't say it.
Speaker B:So I went to DePaul and they made a mistake.
Speaker B:They put me in with sophomores, not freshmen at DePaul.
Speaker B:Dr.
Speaker B:Clint Gast was my teacher, but he was a good teacher and I got an A.
Speaker B:He became my mentor and I went on from there.
Speaker B:And he got me into best liberal arts college in the United States at that time in Ohio.
Speaker B:I, with math and English major, taught high school for a year, came back, taught at DePaul.
Speaker B:I was 22 years old.
Speaker B:I taught math at DePaul.
Speaker B:I taught their most advanced courses because I learned them at Orbital.
Speaker B:Then I went ahead and got a PhD in math.
Speaker B:And then I taught.
Speaker B:I was a professor for seven years.
Speaker B:Then I went out and started and just applied math to all sorts of things.
Speaker B:And I can sit here all day and tell you about all sorts of things I applied math to.
Speaker B:Are you a NASCAR fan?
Speaker A:I watched nascar, all right.
Speaker B:Out of many businesses, I did with math, Practical math lets you do all sorts of things.
Speaker B: I developed something in the: Speaker B:And my number one customer was Austrian Racing in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Speaker B:And they had a racer named Dame Marcus.
Speaker B:And he wasn't winning races.
Speaker B:They fired him.
Speaker B:I'm down there talking to him, Roland Wolak, who's the general manager, And I said, I hear you fired your driver.
Speaker B:And he said, yeah.
Speaker B:He said, we got the best racing engine because of your Dynamurine.
Speaker B:We got the best racing engines, and he's just not that good at driving.
Speaker B:So we've hired his new driver.
Speaker B:He's a wild guy, and he's older and no one else would hire him.
Speaker B:We've hired, and we're going to give him a chance.
Speaker B:And he says he's there.
Speaker B:Back him up.
Speaker B:He said, I want you to meet Craig Hayne.
Speaker B:He's the guy that we built the Dyna Marine that we got, makes our engines the best engine.
Speaker B:You're going to have the best racing engine in nascar, but you got to go out and be the best driver.
Speaker B:Craig, I want you to meet our new driver, Dale Earnhardt.
Speaker B:I knew Dale before he ran his first NASCAR race, and then he won five races that year.
Speaker B:End of the year, then he run Rookie of the Year.
Speaker B:They were in Grand National.
Speaker B:I quit making the Dyna Brain when I went to produce it.
Speaker B: r chip that went into it, the: Speaker B:So then I went and did other things.
Speaker B:And then I've applied math to many other things.
Speaker B:I could sit here if you had several hours.
Speaker B:I could tell you lots of stories.
Speaker A:Wow, that's really cool.
Speaker A:As someone who's passionate about breaking down the barriers of math and education, what are some of the key things you said that our public schools are doing to make math harder on our students?
Speaker B:Three or four things.
Speaker B:Number one, they're still teaching the old manual tools that no one would use it anymore.
Speaker B:So the first thing I do with a teenager is I teach them to use a scientific calculator Schools let them use.
Speaker B:They don't teach them.
Speaker B:There's only about 16 things on this calculator you need to know to do practical math.
Speaker B:So I teach them that.
Speaker B:They learn it in a couple of weeks, and it turns their psychology around.
Speaker B:It gets their psychology right.
Speaker B:The bottom line is, if you If a student is afraid of math, doesn't like math, he's not gonna learn math.
Speaker B:So this turns the psychology around.
Speaker B:It's almost like playing a game.
Speaker B:And, well, that was easy.
Speaker B:Then I teach them practical algebra.
Speaker B:Ten lessons.
Speaker B:That's all.
Speaker B:That's all you need for practical algebra.
Speaker B:In high school, they teach all kinds of things you'll never use in algebra.
Speaker B:Some is manual tools you'll never use, and some is theory.
Speaker B:Now, algebra is a tool you apply to some.
Speaker B:Then I teach them practical geometry.
Speaker B:19 lessons.
Speaker B:How long is something?
Speaker B:What is the area?
Speaker B:What's the volume?
Speaker B:And they love it.
Speaker B:Now, you can't do angles adequately with that.
Speaker B:So then I teach trigonometry.
Speaker B:Seven lessons.
Speaker B:They go through all that practical algebra, geometry in one semester.
Speaker B:And at that point, they know more math than 95% of all the adults in the United States.
Speaker B:They know more math than you do.
Speaker A:So explain to me what you mean by practical algebra, because I know people may not understand that term, so kind of break that down for us.
Speaker B:Well, in any technical subject, I had a company for 25 years where we taught technicians, hydraulics, pneumatics, electrical rigging, on and on.
Speaker B:In any technical subject, you need what I call practical math.
Speaker B:That is how to.
Speaker B:How long is something, what's the area, what's the volume, what are the angles?
Speaker B:And to do that, you need to use arithmetic and algebra.
Speaker B:Well, the calculator makes the arithmetic very easy.
Speaker B:There's a $10 calculator, by the way.
Speaker B:If you'd had this calculator during the Manhattan Project in the early 40s, you.
Speaker B:If you'd had one and no one been more than a million dollars.
Speaker A:Wow.
Speaker B:Because you can do things with it you cannot do manually, and you can do it so much faster and easier.
Speaker B:So forget the manual tools.
Speaker B:Use the tool.
Speaker B:Then in.
Speaker B:In high school today, the math educators, our math curriculum, start over 100 years ago, have a whole year of algebra, and they put all kinds of stuff in it you'll never use.
Speaker B:For example, you took algebra in high school, didn't you?
Speaker B:Didn't you?
Speaker A:I did.
Speaker B:All right.
Speaker B:Do you remember the quadratic formula?
Speaker A:No.
Speaker B:You don't even remember.
Speaker B:Well, they taught it to you.
Speaker B:Yeah, but have you ever used it?
Speaker B:And the answer is no, you haven't.
Speaker A:No.
Speaker B:So I don't teach that.
Speaker B:The square root of two.
Speaker B:What kind of number.
Speaker B:Square root of two.
Speaker B:It's.
Speaker B:What kind of a number is the square root of 2?
Speaker B:The answer is it's an irrational number.
Speaker B:You can't express it.
Speaker B:As a fraction.
Speaker B:That's in the algebra classes they teach.
Speaker B:That's theory.
Speaker B:Nobody cares about that except theoretical mathematicians.
Speaker B:Now, the algebra they teach in high school today, the first year of algebra, 90% of it is stuff you'll never use.
Speaker B:It's either too much theory you'll never use, or it's tools you'll never use.
Speaker B:I teach just what you need, and it's easy what you need.
Speaker B:The stuff that I teach is buried in that year course.
Speaker B:But for everything you need, there's nine things you don't need.
Speaker B:And they're hard to learn.
Speaker B:And people give up.
Speaker B:Then they grade on the horrible curve.
Speaker B:Math is something you don't understand it or you don't.
Speaker B:So if somebody does it.
Speaker B:If somebody tells me, well, I took algebra and I got a B, well, okay, obviously there's a lot of things you don't understand.
Speaker B:You got a C or a D.
Speaker B:I'll tell you.
Speaker B:Probably didn't learn anything that I call the horrible.
Speaker B:I explained that in my book.
Speaker B:If you want to really understand it, just get my book, go to my website, read the book.
Speaker B:In part four, I have four chapters that I explain to you what's wrong with high school math in detail, and I'll debate it with anybody.
Speaker A:I'm curious.
Speaker A:Yeah, I'm curious because you talk about using calculators, and I remember when I was in school, calculators.
Speaker A: This is back in the: Speaker A:But the calculators were a big.
Speaker A:No, no, we couldn't, we couldn't bring them to school because they said that was kind of cheating.
Speaker B:Yeah, they want you to learn the manual, too, Right?
Speaker B:I know.
Speaker B:Well, that's, that's, that's the problem.
Speaker B:You're.
Speaker B:You're doing a problem.
Speaker B:You're out there.
Speaker B:Okay, I got 357, and I got to multiply it times 92.
Speaker B:Well, there's a manual way to do that.
Speaker B: : Speaker B:44.
Speaker B:That's the calculator.
Speaker B:How long would it take you to do it manually?
Speaker B:And it's error prone.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:And that's just multiplication.
Speaker B:Long division is even worse.
Speaker A:Oh, yes.
Speaker B:And then taking a square root even worse than that.
Speaker B:There's manual ways of doing it.
Speaker B:I taught that.
Speaker B:I was teaching math back before calculators came out.
Speaker B:Do you know when the first scientific calculator came out?
Speaker A:1970.
Speaker B:Something 72.
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker B:Hewlett Packard 35.
Speaker B:HP 35.
Speaker B:Do you know how much it cost in today's dollars?
Speaker A:I know.
Speaker A:Back then it was like almost $100?
Speaker B:No, no, it was $395.
Speaker A:Oh, was it?
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker B:And today's dollar that was $2,500.
Speaker B:I was a professor at an engineering school in Indiana called Rose Hulman Institute of Technology.
Speaker B:At that time, I was teaching the advanced theory.
Speaker B:I was teaching the theory you need for quantum theory and theoretical physics.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker B:But my fellow professors were all teaching slide rules, log tables, trig tables.
Speaker B:That calculator came out.
Speaker B:One of the.
Speaker B:Some of the students had them now today dollars.
Speaker B: It was $: Speaker B:395.
Speaker B:Then I.
Speaker B:I got one for the student, looked at it, and when I spent 30 minutes on it, I go, oh, my God.
Speaker B:Slide rules are obsolete.
Speaker B:Trig tables and log tables are obsolete.
Speaker B:You're going to use a calculator.
Speaker B:And I told my fellow math professor that.
Speaker B:And they.
Speaker B:Oh, they freaked out because that was what they taught.
Speaker B:And it was almost 10 years before they quit using slide rules.
Speaker B:Now, Hewlett package.
Speaker B:What?
Speaker B:They're going to sell 10,000 of them just to engineers, right?
Speaker B:They sold.
Speaker B:They sold 100,000 of them.
Speaker B:Oh, my God.
Speaker B:So they lowered the price to 195.
Speaker B:In the meantime, Texas Citrus came out and made an even better one for under a hundred dollars.
Speaker B:That's probably about the time you came on.
Speaker A:Yeah, that's the one.
Speaker A:I remember the ti.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:And then they got better and better.
Speaker B:This calculator today cost about $10.
Speaker B:It's better than any of those original calculators.
Speaker B:It's the best little scientific calculator that I know of.
Speaker B:It does fractions, for example.
Speaker B:That's one thing that makes it good.
Speaker B:There's a lot of other things.
Speaker B:By the way, half the things on this calculator you'll never use, right?
Speaker B:I don't teach them.
Speaker B:I only teach what you're going to use.
Speaker B:There's a key on here called the hype key.
Speaker B:Hyp.
Speaker B:You don't know what it is and you would never use it if I taught it.
Speaker B:It's called.
Speaker B:It's for hyperbolic trig functions.
Speaker B:Don't use those.
Speaker B:Use regular trig function, which is on here, too.
Speaker B:And I teach you what you do use, and the students love it.
Speaker B:It takes most students to learn how to use this calculator for practical math.
Speaker B:About two weeks.
Speaker B:The way I teach it, I have tutorial videos off Amazon Web Services and notes and exercises.
Speaker B:Because you really learn by doing math.
Speaker B:You don't learn by just listening to somebody talk about it.
Speaker B:You have to do it and then quizzes to Be.
Speaker B:And then you climb the ladder and I explain all that in the book.
Speaker B:And then you go.
Speaker B:And then once you've learned to use the calculator, now all your arithmetic will be done with a calculator.
Speaker B:Then you can learn practical algebra, 10 lessons.
Speaker B:Practical geometry, 19 lessons.
Speaker B:Practical trick, seven lessons in about one semester.
Speaker B:And you'll know more math.
Speaker B:Now you'll know what you need for technical school.
Speaker B:You don't you.
Speaker B:Now, if you're going into college, you need some more math for the sat.
Speaker B:And I then.
Speaker B:So I then I have a tier three for that.
Speaker B:The first is tier one and two, then tier three.
Speaker B:And that's a lot of stuff you'll never use.
Speaker B:But you need it for the sat.
Speaker B:If you're going to go.
Speaker B:If you're going to take it, still, just use a calculator.
Speaker B:Now, let's say you do good on the sat.
Speaker B:Are you ready for science engineering at a good school like MIT or Purdue?
Speaker B:No.
Speaker B:Now you need all those subject I just talked about in a much deeper level.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:When you do them manually, they're very difficult.
Speaker B: s a new tool that came out in: Speaker B:It's called Wolfram Alpha.
Speaker A:I haven't heard of that.
Speaker B:And I explain it in this book.
Speaker B: Came out in: Speaker B:And it now makes the math you need for science and engineering all the way through calculus and differential equations, which I teach at the high school level.
Speaker B:It now takes it from a difficulty level of eight down to a difficulty level of two.
Speaker A:Wow.
Speaker B:It does for STEM math.
Speaker B:They call it STEM Science, Technology, Engineering, Math.
Speaker B:It does for STEM Math what the calculator does for practical math.
Speaker B:No one teaches it.
Speaker B:It's not in any textbooks.
Speaker B:That's one reason why they're destroying usa.
Speaker B:People that might want to go into science can't get through the math and they quit because of the way it's taught.
Speaker B:It's kind of like if you want to learn music and I made you spend a year studying Gregorian chance before you could study anything else, you might get discouraged and drop out of music.
Speaker A:Yeah, I would.
Speaker A:I love Gregorian chant, but.
Speaker B:Well, pick one you don't like, right?
Speaker B:We all have things we like, things we don't like.
Speaker B:But anyway, math is very easy today.
Speaker B:Now when it's taught properly and there's no one doing it.
Speaker B:I thought someone else would be doing it, but now I started this about 10 years ago and I've trained hundreds of students now, mostly homeschool students, but any teenager can do it and take it.
Speaker B:And then it will also make the math they're taking in their school probably easier for them.
Speaker B:Although I don't teach a lot of the stuff that they're teaching in the regular school.
Speaker A:So I have a question for you.
Speaker A:You talk about the SAT and the act.
Speaker A:Do they allow students now to bring calculators for the SAT and ACT?
Speaker B:You can bring the TI30XA.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker B:But you can't bring a cell phone.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker B:Can't bring a smartphone.
Speaker B:You know why you get on a smartphone?
Speaker B:Go Wolframalpha and it'll answer all the questions.
Speaker A:Okay?
Speaker B:If you know how to ask.
Speaker B:Wolfram Alpha is a tool.
Speaker B:You gotta know.
Speaker B:You gotta.
Speaker B:Here's the math.
Speaker B:There's two things about math.
Speaker B:There's concepts and there's tools.
Speaker B:The concepts of math are very easy.
Speaker B:Calculus, very easy concepts.
Speaker B:I can teach you.
Speaker B:I can teach you the concepts of calculus in three hours.
Speaker B:Actually, I do it with.
Speaker B:I've got three videos I do it on that are free on my website.
Speaker B:I have a video library.
Speaker B:I have three videos that will teach you the concepts of calculus in about an hour.
Speaker B:The concepts.
Speaker B:Now the tools to apply the concepts.
Speaker B:The old manual tools are very difficult, but with Wolfram Alpha, once you understand the concepts, you know how to ask the question, bingo, bango, solved.
Speaker A:So why, why have we not evolved in our school systems to address the math disparity?
Speaker A:As you know the math gap there.
Speaker A:By teaching the tools, you're talking about very simple.
Speaker B:Money, honey.
Speaker B:Oh, money.
Speaker B:If you are.
Speaker B:If you're a math educator and you're writing the textbooks and making up the tests, every high school math textbook today is obsolete.
Speaker B:But it's a billion dollar industry.
Speaker B:So are you going to write a book?
Speaker B:The wipes, nobody's done it.
Speaker B:They don't want to change.
Speaker B:And so they just.
Speaker B:And they make the textbooks this thick.
Speaker B:I use.
Speaker B:The best high school math textbook was ever written was by the greatest teacher in the 20th century, a guy named Simmons.
Speaker B:And he wrote the greatest topology book, which you used to use that for quantum theory and Hilbert spaces.
Speaker B:Then he wrote the greatest differential equation book ever read.
Speaker B:Then he wrote the greatest calculus book.
Speaker B:Then he wrote one called Pre Calculus Mathematics in a Nutshell.
Speaker B:Algebra, geometry and trick.
Speaker B:119 pages, less than $20.
Speaker B:Wow.
Speaker B: I came out in: Speaker B:I was no longer a professor then.
Speaker B:I was now doing business.
Speaker B:But I kind of follow what was going on.
Speaker B:So I bought 20 of these books, and I gave them to various people.
Speaker B:So go start using this in your skills.
Speaker B:Nobody ever adopted it.
Speaker B:It's still in print.
Speaker B:I still use it in tier 3 and tier 4.
Speaker B:119 pages.
Speaker B:And he tells exactly the kind of thing I am about the stuff you shouldn't teach.
Speaker B:What you should.
Speaker B:It's a really good book.
Speaker B:I gave that book to my youngest son when he was in the eighth grade, and he went through it on his own.
Speaker B:And he won a scholarship to the best engineering school in Indiana, eighth grade, because of that book.
Speaker A:What's the name of the book again, for those who may want to look it up?
Speaker B:Pre Calculus Mathematics in a nutshell by Dr.
Speaker B:George Simmons.
Speaker B:And it's about $20.
Speaker A:Wow.
Speaker B:No school used it.
Speaker B:I never heard of a school that used it.
Speaker B:I mean, there may be one I don't know about, but they use the algebra books that are 300 books or 200, expensive, big thick books, and they're loaded with stuff I just told you about.
Speaker B:You'll never use.
Speaker B:Both theory and practical tool.
Speaker B:And I could give you lots of examples we can see here for the next hour.
Speaker B:And I could give you example after example after example of stuff they're teaching that you'll never use.
Speaker B:And it's hard to.
Speaker B:It's hard stuff.
Speaker A:So give us a couple examples.
Speaker A:For those who are listening to this podcast, I'm sure a lot of people going, oh, wow, now I understand why math was so hard.
Speaker A:But give us some examples of things that they teach you that you'll never use.
Speaker B:You take a polynomial with integer coefficients of degree n, let's say 6, and you can take the leading coefficient and the last coefficient, factor it into primes, and make all the rational numbers you can make out of those prime numbers.
Speaker B:And if this polynomial has a rational root, it'll be one of those numbers.
Speaker B:So then you test it against all those numbers.
Speaker B:Now, all this takes a lot of time and effort and it's error prone.
Speaker B:And that's one way to find out the root of a high degree polynomial, because otherwise there's no algorithm to do it.
Speaker B:The problem is no polynomial ever run in the real world has rational roots.
Speaker B:So who gives a damn?
Speaker B:It's a valueless.
Speaker B:It works, but it's valueless and it's hard to learn.
Speaker B:The square root of an integer is irrational unless it's a perfect square.
Speaker B:And I can prove that to you.
Speaker B:It's called reductive auto absurdum proof.
Speaker B:The Pythagoreans discovered it.
Speaker B:The simplest one Is you take a right triangle where the legs are 1 and 1 and the hypotenuse is the square root of 2.
Speaker B:Thaggerian theorem.
Speaker B:And they discovered that it was not a rational number.
Speaker B:And it so upset them.
Speaker B:The guy that discovered it, they threw him out of a boat and drowned him, they said.
Speaker B:But what they did do, they retreated from numbers.
Speaker B:It just did geometry.
Speaker B:And then archimedes came along 200 years later and started using numbers.
Speaker B:And he did things that.
Speaker B:Well, give you an example.
Speaker B:In Euclidean geometry, you take a circle, and it's got a diameter.
Speaker B:If you divide the circle, the.
Speaker B:The length of the circle by the diameter, that's a number.
Speaker B:Do you know the name of the number?
Speaker A:No.
Speaker B:It's called PI.
Speaker B:You ever hear PI?
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker B:That's circumference divided by diameter.
Speaker B:Now, what's the area of a circle?
Speaker B:Euclid didn't know.
Speaker B:They couldn't figure it out.
Speaker B:Archimedes did.
Speaker B:And it turns out if you take the circumference and divide it by two and the diameter and divide it by two and multiply them, that's the area of a circle.
Speaker B:And Archimedes proved it, and he used techniques that are precursors to modern calculus.
Speaker B: s didn't come along until the: Speaker B:And the reason we have modern science is because of what is called the fundamental theorem of calculus.
Speaker B:That allows you to take a curve that has area under it and calculate the area under that curve very easily.
Speaker B:The curve is.
Speaker B:There's a formula for it called a function.
Speaker B:Then you got to find another function whose derivative is this curve, and then you evaluate it.
Speaker B:Finding that other function is extremely difficult.
Speaker B:That flunks more kids out of engineering school.
Speaker B:They call it an antiderivative.
Speaker B:That flunks more kids out of engineering school than anything else.
Speaker B:When I taught engineering school, that was.
Speaker B:It's called integral calculus today.
Speaker B:Wolfram Alpha makes it easy.
Speaker B:Done.
Speaker B:You give it to function.
Speaker B:Boom.
Speaker B:And by the way, some functions do not have an anti derivative in terms of other ordinary functions.
Speaker B:You have to have what's called a special function to involve infinite series.
Speaker B:Wolframa does all that automatically.
Speaker A:Wow.
Speaker A:So as you think about where our math education is today, where do you see the future of it going with technology playing.
Speaker B:Playing a big role in it trying math.
Speaker B:What I do, my program or something equally good.
Speaker B:There's no.
Speaker B:There's no one else out there doing it.
Speaker B:But I've got the only program today that I love.
Speaker B:I tell people, if you know of another program that does what mine does, I'll give you a thousand dollars.
Speaker A:All right.
Speaker B:I want to know about it.
Speaker B:And I think I would know.
Speaker A:Yeah, you would.
Speaker B:I'm not too worried about losing my thousand dollar, but, you know, no big deal.
Speaker A:So tell us about your program a little bit more.
Speaker B:Well, in order to make it affordable, what I've done, if I have created what I call the Triad Math army and the Triad Math Tribe.
Speaker B:They're two, they're similar.
Speaker B:And mostly I go after adults that have children.
Speaker B:So if you join the army, it's $30 a month and you have access to all the math everything.
Speaker B:And it's $30 a month and you can train it and you can put all your children into that program.
Speaker B:It's all just for $30.
Speaker B:If you hired a tutor that could do what I do.
Speaker B:If you like to hire someone like me that could do it, it would cost you thousands of dollars per month to do it.
Speaker B:And you're getting it for $30 a month.
Speaker B:Me Tutorial videos off Amazon Web Services.
Speaker B:Notes, notebooks.
Speaker B:I used to have to print them out from PDF copies, but I found a printer that would print these notebooks.
Speaker B:This is the sample of one.
Speaker B:I found a printer that'll print this book for just a few dollars and send it to you.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker B:Guess who the.
Speaker B:Guess who the printer is.
Speaker B:It'll do that.
Speaker B:Guess who I use as my printer.
Speaker A:Who?
Speaker B:Amazon.
Speaker A:Oh.
Speaker B:And there's no one else that'll do it that I know of.
Speaker B:It's amazing what it do.
Speaker B:Amazon Princess book.
Speaker B:You can go buy the book at Amazon for $4.80.
Speaker B:Amazon will sell me these books $4.80 in retail.
Speaker B:You're an Amazon prime customer, right?
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:You go to Amazon, you buy 480 plus state tax, whatever your state taxes, I would attack.
Speaker B:And it comes to you shipping free and everything.
Speaker B:And you get it in two days.
Speaker B:One book.
Speaker B:It's unbelievable.
Speaker B:I couldn't believe it when I found out they would do that.
Speaker B:Couple of years ago when I found out to do that.
Speaker B:So I use Amazon.
Speaker B:The tutorial videos come off Amazon web service.
Speaker B:So this, that's me.
Speaker B:It's called Kitchen table Math.
Speaker B:You don't see my picture.
Speaker B:You just see me working the math that you're.
Speaker B:That's in your notebook so you can add to it and then do exercise.
Speaker B:I'm just teaching how to do things concepts and then how to do things.
Speaker B:All my life I've had a pretty interesting life.
Speaker B:And I've had a lot of problems in my life.
Speaker B:Like everybody does ups and downs.
Speaker B:I've lost lots of businesses.
Speaker B:Succeed for a while, then they fail.
Speaker B:Succeed, then they fail.
Speaker B:I told you about the Dynamurine, right?
Speaker B:I got lots of other stories like that.
Speaker B:I've made millions of dollars thanks to math, but I also invested and lost millions of dollars.
Speaker B:I'm an adventurer, right?
Speaker B:I've been up the Amazon River, I swum with the Indians.
Speaker B:Okay?
Speaker B:I could tell you all that in one of my businesses I had a motorhome and I go around the country doing training on site training in technology and technical subjects.
Speaker B:I've been to every state in the union.
Speaker B:I've taught out on Vancouver island, all big.
Speaker B:If it wasn't for math, none of that would have happened.
Speaker B:Practical math.
Speaker B:Okay, so that's.
Speaker B:You're going to enroll your son in that and I'll be surprised if very quickly he doesn't like math.
Speaker B:You're going to have to go buy him a calculator and you're going to go to Amazon and buy him the book.
Speaker B:You could print out the PDFs, but I recommend go to Amazon and buy them and away it goes.
Speaker B:And, and then, or then start saying so then.
Speaker B:So then people say, what else besides Matt?
Speaker B:I said, well, I was very blessed in my life to have a lot of what I call wisdom tools.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:Here's what I define a wisdom tool to be.
Speaker B:You take actions and every action you take has consequences.
Speaker B:That's just like gravity.
Speaker B:That's taking action has consequences.
Speaker B:Some consequences are good, some are bad.
Speaker B:Depends on your definition.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:Some are short term, some are long term.
Speaker B:What often happens is you do something, it has a good short term consequence and a bad long term.
Speaker B:Well, a wisdom tool will let you understand what will be the consequences of an action and then you can decide what actions you want to take to get the consequences you desire.
Speaker B:And if you think long term, it'll be different than if you just think short term.
Speaker B:And I tell that story again in here.
Speaker B:I acquired those wisdom tools over the years from many, many sources.
Speaker B:Some from the Bible, but a lot of them from other wise people.
Speaker B:And I got about two dozen wisdom tools that you also have access to.
Speaker B:And all it is, to me, it's a video explaining a wisdom tool that I learned.
Speaker A:That's amazing.
Speaker A:So, Craig, I'd like to ask my guest this question because this has been a fascinating conversation and I, and I've learned so much from it.
Speaker A:What do you want your legacy to be?
Speaker B:Well, the most important thing in my life, of course, is my family and I've had a fabulous family.
Speaker B:I'll soon celebrate.
Speaker B:You know how old I am?
Speaker A:I would say 55.
Speaker B:How old?
Speaker A:55.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:You're teasing.
Speaker B:You're teasing.
Speaker B:Of course.
Speaker A:I guess 60 or 60 or 67.
Speaker B:Get your calculator out.
Speaker B:I remember Pearl harbor.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker B:I'm 86 years old.
Speaker A:Oh, wow.
Speaker B: ,: Speaker B:Pearl Harbor.
Speaker B:Now I'm 86 years old, and I don't have any aches or pains, and I don't take medicine, and I'm active.
Speaker B:I could do two or three podcasts like this a day.
Speaker B:When I'm doing these podcasts, one of my wisdom tools is get in a state of flow.
Speaker B:When I'm doing a podcast with you with a like this, I'm in a state of flow.
Speaker B:There's a book called Flow by six Heck Mahaly.
Speaker B:And I explained that you want to try to get that you want to do things.
Speaker B:You're intrinsically motivated versus extrinsically.
Speaker B:You want financial freedom.
Speaker B:You want to know how to deal with difficult people.
Speaker B:On and on and on.
Speaker B:I learned all these from mostly from other people.
Speaker B:And you had good habits and bad habits.
Speaker B:We all do.
Speaker B:Okay, Legacy.
Speaker B:Well, the most important thing is I have a wonderful family.
Speaker B:I have three children.
Speaker B:They've been fabulous, successful.
Speaker B:I won't get into the details of it, but they've done great.
Speaker B:And I have grandchildren that I think are going to do great.
Speaker B:They're doing great so far.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:But not counting my family, I want my leg.
Speaker B:What I would like my legacy to be as I achieve my mission with tried math.
Speaker B:My mission for tried math is to train any young adult or teenager the math they need to live an optimal life that they want to live.
Speaker B:And that's millions of people.
Speaker B:And if we do that, that will probably.
Speaker B:First of all, we have all the new AI tools coming out.
Speaker B:You got to know basic math, then you learn AI tools.
Speaker B:If we do that, our economy will get much, much, much stronger.
Speaker B:If Donald Trump's right and we bring all these manufactured companies back to the United States, who the heck's going to work them, right?
Speaker B:If you don't.
Speaker B:If you don't know practical math, they won't hire you.
Speaker B:And most of our young people today.
Speaker B:You talk to Charlie Kirk.
Speaker B:Most of our young people today haven't got the skill sets, but with the practical math, then they can get the skill set easily.
Speaker B:One of my.
Speaker B:One of my wisdom tools is should you go to college or not?
Speaker B:And Most kids shouldn't.
Speaker B:They could go into a technical field, make 50, $100,000 a year if they know how to go about it with no debt.
Speaker B:Now there's some that should go to college.
Speaker B:And then I tell you, if you're going to go to college, I teach you how to do it with no debt.
Speaker B:That's one of my wisdom tools.
Speaker B:Got lots of wisdom tools.
Speaker B:Okay, what I want my, the ultimate mission, if we do all that, is to stop war.
Speaker B:Because believe me, if we don't stop war, we're going to destroy ourselves.
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker B:We've had to threat a nuclear war for many, many, many decades, but we got many worse things today than nuclear.
Speaker B:And if we don't stop war, this thing is going on in Gaza and Ukraine and on and on.
Speaker B:And now we're having the trade war with China and blah, blah.
Speaker B:If we don't stop the wars.
Speaker B:And just think of all the misery that creates.
Speaker B:Think of the billions of people today that are miserable.
Speaker B:We call it a war.
Speaker B:And the truth of the matter is the United States, I hate to say it, it's a warmongering country.
Speaker B:Look at the wars we've got ourselves into and all the people that have died and then what came out of them, let's don't get into anyway.
Speaker B:So my mission is, is to educate enough people that we get a great enough economy and society that we can stop war.
Speaker B:And that would be my legacy.
Speaker A:That's awesome.
Speaker A:Where can people find you and find the materials you have and connect with you on social media?
Speaker B:Craighane.com c r a I g h a n e dot.com is my website.
Speaker B:I don't get on social media.
Speaker B:I don't use Facebook, I don't use X, I don't use Instagram.
Speaker B:I'm on them technically, but I don't LinkedIn.
Speaker B:I don't use any of that.
Speaker B:But if they go to my website, my email address is there, my phone number.
Speaker B:Well, I tell them, you send me your phone number, I'll put you in my contact list, then you can call me.
Speaker B:I do a lot of Zoom meetings.
Speaker B:I love Zoom.
Speaker B:And what I do is I record the Zoom meetings and I make an unlisted YouTube video.
Speaker B:So I got a record of it.
Speaker B:I hope you'll give me a recording of this meeting we're having.
Speaker A:Oh, definitely.
Speaker B:And, and then there's, there's tabs on my website that take you to different web pages.
Speaker B:So for example, one of the tabs, if you want to improve your life, it takes you to The Triad Math Army.
Speaker B:And then there's another tab that takes you to a different one.
Speaker B:And I've got.
Speaker B:And then you also on my website, I've got other coming.
Speaker B:I send you to like Workforce Math.
Speaker B:And today I'm doing a.
Speaker B:Something that some of your people might want to do.
Speaker B:I'm just starting now.
Speaker B:We're going to do what I call practical math Workforce Math workshops, camps where kids can enroll in and online and for 10 weeks they go through all this just working an hour or so a day at their own and, and get through the math.
Speaker B:Especially kids that are going to school and they.
Speaker B:And you know, well, I hate math.
Speaker B:I don't want any more math.
Speaker B:Well, they love this.
Speaker B:So.
Speaker B:So anyway, that would be my, that would be my legacy if I had my choice.
Speaker A:Well, Craig, thanks so much for taking the time and really I think this was a, a fruitful conversation and I'm so thankful what you do to make math not so daunting for people.
Speaker A:And thank you for taking the time to be on the podcast.
Speaker B:Well, by the way, it's more than just being not daunting.
Speaker B:They love it.
Speaker A:Yeah, I love it would be great.
Speaker B:They like it.
Speaker B:Well, anything is until you, until you get to certain.
Speaker B:Sports aren't much fun when you first get started.
Speaker A:No, not really.
Speaker B:I get you into, I get you succeeding in Mass so quickly that you begin to enjoy it.
Speaker B:You become intrinsically motivated to do it.
Speaker B:You're not just doing it to get a grade, you're doing it.
Speaker B:Oh boy.
Speaker B:I can see the value of this.
Speaker B:I can see why this is going to help me in my life.
Speaker B:And it's fun and it's easy.
Speaker B:It's easy when it's done properly.
Speaker A:Well, that's what we want.
Speaker A:So thank you again, Craig, for being adding great content for us today.
Speaker B:Thank you, Keith.
Speaker B:Thank you.
