Just what is the point of the current curriculum in schools?

Conrad Wolfram gave a talk at TED in Oxford earlier this year. it's just been posted on the TED site. And wow, does it pose some big questions. If you are a maths teacher, you will likely form an immediate view of what he is saying. I don't think there is any middle ground here. You will either agree with him or you won't.

But there are bigger questions here too than just those pertaining to maths. The way in which we very likely approach many subjects in the school curriculum, for example. And the point about exams ... I think I've made this point several times in the past.

I've shown WolframAlpha to Year 12 students about to embark on their IB extended essay research over the past 12 months. What I find truly scary is not so much that they haven't seen WolframAlpha before, but that many of them still don't even know that there are search engines other than Google. And even scarier, that Google even has an advanced search tab, and worse, you can look through Google Books or Scholar.

The whole point of using computers for powerful things ... not trivial things ... comes out in Conrad's talk. (He makes reference to an online tutorial showing how to manually solve a problem.)

So, this is I think one of the better TED talks I've seen. It asks some serious questions. It hints at a solution. I wonder if you agree? I rate this talk up there with those of Hans Rosling and Ken Robinson, both of whom I have featured on this blog in the past.

So - take 17 minutes of your valuable time and have a look.

Stephen Wolfram: Computing a theory of everything | Video on TED.com

In my inbox this morning was the usual TED update - and I noticed that Stephen Wolfram was speaking on "Computing a Theory of Everything". I've not heard him speak before, but I have used (at a very low level) his Mathematica software when it first came out in the early 90's. And I have used and actively promoted use of the Wolfram|Alpha search engine he released last year.

I'll need to rewatch this talk at least a few more times to get a better understanding of some of what he said. But a couple of immediate observations ...

1. He's very, very, very smart.
2. He has ideas that are difficult to explain to a lay person (from a physics view point anyway), but he understands that - that's the reason he is investing so much time and money into exploring if the universe is computational. And that's why Wolfram|Alpha is such an awesome tool. The thought that a human language interface (like Wolfram|Alpha uses) might be available to create hitherto extremely complex models of "everything" is mind boggling.

The first part of his talk I found a bit slow - but once past the first 5 or 6 minutes and he gets onto Wolfram|Alpha - then it gets interesting.

The talk is below - watch one of the best brains around in the physics/mathematics space and see if you are inspired to learn more. If so, head to this link for a 13 minute overview by Stephen on what Wolfram|Alpha can do for you right now. Any teacher or student at secondary level can use this.