A Coloring Book about Group Theory(coloring-book.co)
coloring-book.co
A Coloring Book about Group Theory
http://www.coloring-book.co
53 comments
Showed this to my wife (a math/physics high school teacher). She loved it! Not sure if she will use this in her STEAM club, but it is possible. Thanks for the link!
It's great to hear that from you! I'd really like to get this in the hands of HS students. Please have your wife reach out to me! [email protected]
Ha! As it they would allow kids these days to even so much as look at a book that's not specifically designed to help them pass their standardized tests.
Happily not all teachers teach to the tests. STEAM (Science Technology Engineering Art Math) is all about trying to stoke interest in these paths. She's holding her first event today.
FWIW: I've seen districts where parents don't care, and she's student taught in some of these. It is terrible, as the kids aren't there to learn, the teachers are stressed out and unhappy, and the parents don't give a damn. The place where she is now is a college prep school. Hard core academic criteria to graduate, not just passing tests. Strong incentives from parents to kids to work hard, though not all do.
FWIW: I've seen districts where parents don't care, and she's student taught in some of these. It is terrible, as the kids aren't there to learn, the teachers are stressed out and unhappy, and the parents don't give a damn. The place where she is now is a college prep school. Hard core academic criteria to graduate, not just passing tests. Strong incentives from parents to kids to work hard, though not all do.
STEAM club -- this is an activity outside of the normal curriculum.
Not sure why it got flag-killed. I vouched it.
(The flagging system is in serious need of review or overhaul. At the very least, users should be required to provide a reason, which is then made publicly visible as anonymous comments.)
(The flagging system is in serious need of review or overhaul. At the very least, users should be required to provide a reason, which is then made publicly visible as anonymous comments.)
Nah, it's working fine. You vouched it. That's democracy, and one of my all-time favorite features of the site.
Mods also override flags and rollback the submission time on certain stories, particularly when they're substantive or offer new information.
FWIW, I couldn't figure out how to use this site. I tried scrolling down and clicking around and nothing was happening. Eventually I spotted the "next page" link at the very bottom, but I imagine some of the flags came due to similar reasons.
Mods also override flags and rollback the submission time on certain stories, particularly when they're substantive or offer new information.
FWIW, I couldn't figure out how to use this site. I tried scrolling down and clicking around and nothing was happening. Eventually I spotted the "next page" link at the very bottom, but I imagine some of the flags came due to similar reasons.
No, the problem is that if I had not vouched it when I did, it would probably have fallen off the front page and never seen by most of the readers. Timing makes a huge difference and that's why the feature is broken and regularly abused.
In any case, page usability has never been a valid reason for flagging a site. Flags are usually reserved for sites that are grossly off-topic, sleazy, etc. Which again makes me wish flag reasons were a thing.
In any case, page usability has never been a valid reason for flagging a site. Flags are usually reserved for sites that are grossly off-topic, sleazy, etc. Which again makes me wish flag reasons were a thing.
The mods will take care of cases like that, especially if you email them. The total amount of time on the front page will end up fair one way or the other.
I didn't mean to imply that it was flagged for usability. I was saying I didn't even notice there was more to the site at all. People may have thought it was just a splash screen.
It's more than a bit presumptuous to say we know better than the mods. Unlike downvoting (which is just straight-up broken at this point), the flagging/vouch system is primarily to aid the mods in their duties. If it made more work for them, they'd have to overhaul it. But it alleviates work, so it's working fine.
Also, you did vouch it. Which is just another way of saying that the current system worked.
I didn't mean to imply that it was flagged for usability. I was saying I didn't even notice there was more to the site at all. People may have thought it was just a splash screen.
It's more than a bit presumptuous to say we know better than the mods. Unlike downvoting (which is just straight-up broken at this point), the flagging/vouch system is primarily to aid the mods in their duties. If it made more work for them, they'd have to overhaul it. But it alleviates work, so it's working fine.
Also, you did vouch it. Which is just another way of saying that the current system worked.
Agree. I've decided to go mostly readonly and this is one of the reasons.
I now read HN mostly through either @hnrobot at Telegram or http://hckrnews.com/
Both those will let me see everything I find interesting that has been posted while nit having to worry about checking twice an hour to catch interesting stories before they are flagged to death.
I now read HN mostly through either @hnrobot at Telegram or http://hckrnews.com/
Both those will let me see everything I find interesting that has been posted while nit having to worry about checking twice an hour to catch interesting stories before they are flagged to death.
hckrnews is good. I like the linear nature. But look at the actual articles that are currently dead.
Their silly CSS makes it impossible to copy-paste and filter by [dead], but suffice to say the headlines aren't flattering. The system seems to be working quite well.
The idea that a massive amount of quality is slipping through the cracks due to flagging is suspect at best. Anyone who spends significant time on /new will know just how much cruft is caught by flags. You just don't see how well it's working because wading through /new is tedious (to put it very mildly).
Their silly CSS makes it impossible to copy-paste and filter by [dead], but suffice to say the headlines aren't flattering. The system seems to be working quite well.
The idea that a massive amount of quality is slipping through the cracks due to flagging is suspect at best. Anyone who spends significant time on /new will know just how much cruft is caught by flags. You just don't see how well it's working because wading through /new is tedious (to put it very mildly).
Not about group theory per se, but a nice illustration of some translations, rotations and reflections applied to 2D shapes, which have group-theoretic descriptions (that we can learn about in some other book).
(I'm the author)
I've really been struggling with how to frame it! It has group theory concepts but is really about symmetry and other parts of math. I'm looking for ideas of how to talk about it and frame it -- please share your thoughts!
The small animation when changing page makes me dizzy and almost sick. Might want to remove that and allow regular scroll. The "pages" are not even full height, you still need to scroll anyway.
(author here) Thanks for the feedback. The idea was to mimic flipping through the pages of a book.
wait, is the thing in the shapes & symmetry page a dragonfly? Don't dragonflies have a thinner body and longer more separated wings? https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/ef/Me...
Google reverse image search finds this http://designingflicks.com/images/leopard-moth-svg-1.png which says "Leopard Moth" in the image path, and it does look more like a moth: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_leopard_moth
Why do sites still hijack the back button?
A “book on group theory” with no reference to the Sylow theorems, Lagrange's theorem or Cayley's theorem?
Maybe this should be called “a book that illustrates gadgets that happen to have group structure”.
Maybe this should be called “a book that illustrates gadgets that happen to have group structure”.
According to the author the book is still work in progress, it would be more productive to raise an issue or make a PR on github.
https://github.com/aberke/coloring-book
https://github.com/aberke/coloring-book
I hope this doesn't sound too negative, but if not a single one of these topics is even mentioned in an outline, I wouldn't have much hope that opening an issue (let alone making a PR) would make a difference.
This would be like asking the Nano developers how they plan to support Emacs-Lisp macros.
In other words, adjusting the title (to prevent wrong expectations) would be more productive than expanding the scope far beyond what the author(s) had in mind.
This would be like asking the Nano developers how they plan to support Emacs-Lisp macros.
In other words, adjusting the title (to prevent wrong expectations) would be more productive than expanding the scope far beyond what the author(s) had in mind.
The problem is that the author of the book and the previous comment are talking about different books with a different scope, because each one has a different idea of what "group theory" means, it depends a lot of your background.
This book is about symmetry and group definitions, but it has no or very little details about generic properties of groups.
The previous comment is about a book that no one has written, that is a coloring book for students of a math major in the university, probably in the 2nd or 3rd year. In this (unwritten) book the idea is to study the general theorems about groups, and in each case give some visual examples to color and apply the theorem.
This book is about symmetry and group definitions, but it has no or very little details about generic properties of groups.
The previous comment is about a book that no one has written, that is a coloring book for students of a math major in the university, probably in the 2nd or 3rd year. In this (unwritten) book the idea is to study the general theorems about groups, and in each case give some visual examples to color and apply the theorem.
Only one of those is group theory.
As a mathematician, I agree. But when you talk with people that work in the applications, they usually have weird definitions.
In particular, in this book they don't use $Z_2$ that is the usual notation in math (at least here). They use $C_2$ that is more usual in physics. And for the selection of the groups I guess the author has some interest in crystallography.
In particular, in this book they don't use $Z_2$ that is the usual notation in math (at least here). They use $C_2$ that is more usual in physics. And for the selection of the groups I guess the author has some interest in crystallography.
Yes the motivation was crystallography and giving a small amount of group theory background was about providing the groundwork for talking about it.
I'd really like ideas for how to better frame what this book is!
The title and how I talk about it can also be considered a work in progress. Please do share your ideas :)
This is awesome. I've never really understood group theory before, but this helps a lot
This is awesome, but can't I just buy the thing?
It's still a work in progress so it's not yet published, but it will be by the end of the year! Thanks for asking!
Until then you can print the PDF for free or play online: http://coloring-book.co/book.pdf
Are you the author? This is a great idea - I've been thinking about doing this with graph theory.
Here's an example:
https://plus.google.com/+AlexKudlick/posts/MWNRWTRATgA
I've been building tools lately; for now, a graph editor.
Hit me up if you're interested in talking about tools for creating this sort of content, I'd be interested to know more about your approach.
My email is in my profile.
Here's an example:
https://plus.google.com/+AlexKudlick/posts/MWNRWTRATgA
I've been building tools lately; for now, a graph editor.
Hit me up if you're interested in talking about tools for creating this sort of content, I'd be interested to know more about your approach.
My email is in my profile.
My kids enjoyed this: http://jdh.hamkins.org/math-for-eight-year-olds/
Great! Let's chat. [email protected]
It would be nice if there were a color pallet and a fill tool, so you could color in the digital version, then watch the animations with the colors.
HN should really tag some posts with (WIP).
Which would be the most HN tag ever.
link suffocated? Github has the code but no pdf? https://github.com/aberke/coloring-book?files=1
edit: btw, raphael.js looks good, I wanted to animate trees for a long time.
edit: btw, raphael.js looks good, I wanted to animate trees for a long time.
Warning: on Chrome, anyway, this is a clicktrap from which you cannot back-navigate out.
Not free, but related + possibly complementary: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11745486
Any prerequisites? Age or education? Can this be given to high school kids?
Try reading it. Definitely accessible to HS kids if not younger.
And they won't learn any group theory from it.
Why do you think that?
The basic ideas of group theory are definitely accessible to grade schoolers, and even the fancier parts of an undergraduate group theory course (Sylow theorems, etc.) are accessible to high school students who go through the work.
I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend Nathan Carter’s lovely book Visual Group Theory to any bright 15 year old. But for a (say) 10-year-old, just learning about the symmetries of shapes and tilings is plenty of useful and interesting math.
The basic ideas of group theory are definitely accessible to grade schoolers, and even the fancier parts of an undergraduate group theory course (Sylow theorems, etc.) are accessible to high school students who go through the work.
I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend Nathan Carter’s lovely book Visual Group Theory to any bright 15 year old. But for a (say) 10-year-old, just learning about the symmetries of shapes and tilings is plenty of useful and interesting math.
The Sylow theorems are by no means “fancy”. If you don't understand them, then you don't know group theory, plain and simple.
Now, we can debate the merits of exposing children to groups before they can understand group theory. But learning group theory means learning (0) the axiomatic definitions of group, subgroup, coset, etc. (1) the main theorems in group theory and their proofs.
Now, we can debate the merits of exposing children to groups before they can understand group theory. But learning group theory means learning (0) the axiomatic definitions of group, subgroup, coset, etc. (1) the main theorems in group theory and their proofs.
some of those things are on the book's Theory Reference page, which is linked to be some of the underlined concepts in the book: http://www.coloring-book.co/#!/theory-reference