OT, but if we made kids learning math use log tables and slide rules for all their calculations I expect that they would engage their brains more and actually think about what they were doing, ie: form a strategy to solve a problem before they started calculating. Also I think that they would get a better "feel" for working numbers in general. I have no evidence, but I suspect that by abstracting away a lot of the "gruntwork" of calculating, we've really hampered people's development in math.

Unfortunately this adds quite a bit of overhead and would make everything take a lot more time. It might be worth it though.

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saulpw 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I'm working on this! https://magworld.pw

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smoothbraindev 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

This is really cool! After entering the software field, I felt uncomfortable not having a sense of relative size while working with digital storage units. Piece of mind was achieved after sitting down and mapping the units (Gb, Mb, etc) to common artifacts(audio file, plain text, database).

I've been planning forever to do something similar with length, duration, power, etc.

	▲	saulpw 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		That's basically what we're doing! I'd be curious if it helps you. Send me an email if you wind up listening to or reading anything from the site.

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helterskelter 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Looks interesting, I'll give this a listen and a read. :)

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Izkata 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> Also I think that they would get a better "feel" for working numbers in general.

This is called "number sense". I'm pretty sure we do have evidence under searches for that term, it was well-enough known as a concept when I was in school decades ago and is the reason we don't use calculators when first learning math.