Category Theory as an educational tool in The Guardian / Observer

Category Theory as an educational tool in The Guardian / Observer

[Bob Coecke]

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Hi all,


We would like to point to an article in the Guardian / Observer earlier this week that was about the educational benefits of category theory, as compellingly demonstrated by an experiment that we just did:

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2023/dec/16/physicist-bob-coecke-its-easier-to-convince-kids-than-adults-about-quantum-mechanics<https://protect-au.mimecast.com/s/urNHCGv0Z6fQMyr7FK2coJ?domain=theguardian.com>


The word “category theory” only occurs twice, but it all concerns monoidal string diagrams, with structures like dagger compact closure and dagger Frobenius algebras.


Concretely, what we did was teach 60 fairly averagely chosen 15-17 yr old secondary school students categorical quantum mechanics using the book “Quantum in Pictures” by Stefano Gogioso and myself.  The only maths pre-requisite for that book is knowing how angles add up.  We have video lectures of the book that we will release soon, and also recorded some worked-out exercises that we also will release  soonish.  With these resources we created an on-line course that follows the template of a typical Oxford post-grad course, but without the benefits of in person teaching.


We then subjected the students to an exam exclusively consisting of Oxford post-grad quantum exam questions.


The result: 80% passed and almost 40% got distinctions.


Here is a statement by Oxford Uni about the experiment:


https://www.cs.ox.ac.uk/news/2280-full.html<https://protect-au.mimecast.com/s/_yQdCJyBZ6tDY4kJuGzR4O?domain=cs.ox.ac.uk>


and here is an extensive blog post I wrote about it, providing some additional context:


https://medium.com/quantinuum/everyone-can-learn-quantum-now-even-at-a-cutting-edge-level-and-we-have-the-test-scores-to-prove-49e7fdc5c509<https://protect-au.mimecast.com/s/pyADCK1DOrCGnAQos3wKw3?domain=medium.com>


All our best wishes for the new year!



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Re: Category Theory as an educational tool in The Guardian / Observer

[Joshua Meyers]

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Wow, this is a great example of how category theory can help with STEM education!

I want to learn quantum mechanics.  Should I read Quantum in Pictures, Picturing Quantum Processes, or something else?  For context, I know a bunch of math (focus on category theory), as far as physics I've done classical mechanics and thermo/stat mech, and I also did a chem minor in undergrad (general, orgo, biochem) so I am familiar with how Pauling interpreted quantum for organic chemists.  So far in my intention to learn quantum I've been following up finally on a several-years-old recommendation of John Baez to read Emilio Segre's From X-Rays to Quarks, in order to get a grounding in the empirical experiments which forced physicists to abandon the classical model.

Really glad to see this experiment you've done,

Best,
Joshua

On Fri, Dec 22, 2023 at 8:26 AM Bob Coecke <Bob.Coecke@quantinuum.com<mailto:Bob.Coecke@quantinuum.com>> wrote:

Hi all,


We would like to point to an article in the Guardian / Observer earlier this week that was about the educational benefits of category theory, as compellingly demonstrated by an experiment that we just did:

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2023/dec/16/physicist-bob-coecke-its-easier-to-convince-kids-than-adults-about-quantum-mechanics<https://protect-au.mimecast.com/s/I3eKCgZ05Jf72gowCNkC6D?domain=theguardian.com>


The word “category theory” only occurs twice, but it all concerns monoidal string diagrams, with structures like dagger compact closure and dagger Frobenius algebras.


Concretely, what we did was teach 60 fairly averagely chosen 15-17 yr old secondary school students categorical quantum mechanics using the book “Quantum in Pictures” by Stefano Gogioso and myself.  The only maths pre-requisite for that book is knowing how angles add up.  We have video lectures of the book that we will release soon, and also recorded some worked-out exercises that we also will release  soonish.  With these resources we created an on-line course that follows the template of a typical Oxford post-grad course, but without the benefits of in person teaching.


We then subjected the students to an exam exclusively consisting of Oxford post-grad quantum exam questions.


The result: 80% passed and almost 40% got distinctions.


Here is a statement by Oxford Uni about the experiment:


https://www.cs.ox.ac.uk/news/2280-full.html<https://protect-au.mimecast.com/s/URprCjZ12Rfvq6BGCRxdEC?domain=cs.ox.ac.uk>


and here is an extensive blog post I wrote about it, providing some additional context:


https://medium.com/quantinuum/everyone-can-learn-quantum-now-even-at-a-cutting-edge-level-and-we-have-the-test-scores-to-prove-49e7fdc5c509<https://protect-au.mimecast.com/s/6z25Ck815RCpQLKXUQ6-yR?domain=medium.com>


All our best wishes for the new year!



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Re: [EXT] Re: Category Theory as an educational tool in The Guardian / Observer

[Bob Coecke]

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Hi Joshua and others, here's the difference:

  *   Quantum in Pictures only requires knowing how angles add up, that's it, but goes pretty cutting-edge in current developments in quantum computing, covers 2022 Nobel Prize etc.  If you already know Hilbert space quantum, it would be a good and highly non-trivial exercise to try to figure out how the string-diagrams/monoidal categories relate to the usual formalism.
  *   Picturing Quantum Processes also starts from string-diagrams, presented in a more formal way, and Hilbert space is derived from them, so you get both formalisms.  It also explicitly explains the relationship to category theory and other disciplines.

Cheers, Bob.
________________________________
From: Joshua Meyers <meygerjos@gmail.com>
Sent: 22 December 2023 13:38
To: Bob Coecke <Bob.Coecke@quantinuum.com>
Cc: categories@mq.edu.au <categories@mq.edu.au>
Subject: [EXT] Re: Category Theory as an educational tool in The Guardian / Observer


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Wow, this is a great example of how category theory can help with STEM education!

I want to learn quantum mechanics.  Should I read Quantum in Pictures, Picturing Quantum Processes, or something else?  For context, I know a bunch of math (focus on category theory), as far as physics I've done classical mechanics and thermo/stat mech, and I also did a chem minor in undergrad (general, orgo, biochem) so I am familiar with how Pauling interpreted quantum for organic chemists.  So far in my intention to learn quantum I've been following up finally on a several-years-old recommendation of John Baez to read Emilio Segre's From X-Rays to Quarks, in order to get a grounding in the empirical experiments which forced physicists to abandon the classical model.

Really glad to see this experiment you've done,

Best,
Joshua

On Fri, Dec 22, 2023 at 8:26 AM Bob Coecke <Bob.Coecke@quantinuum.com<mailto:Bob.Coecke@quantinuum.com>> wrote:

Hi all,


We would like to point to an article in the Guardian / Observer earlier this week that was about the educational benefits of category theory, as compellingly demonstrated by an experiment that we just did:

https://protect-au.mimecast.com/s/D8CGC1WLjws9yojyhL4swE?domain=theguardian.com<https://protect-au.mimecast.com/s/D8CGC1WLjws9yojyhL4swE?domain=theguardian.com>


The word “category theory” only occurs twice, but it all concerns monoidal string diagrams, with structures like dagger compact closure and dagger Frobenius algebras.


Concretely, what we did was teach 60 fairly averagely chosen 15-17 yr old secondary school students categorical quantum mechanics using the book “Quantum in Pictures” by Stefano Gogioso and myself.  The only maths pre-requisite for that book is knowing how angles add up.  We have video lectures of the book that we will release soon, and also recorded some worked-out exercises that we also will release  soonish.  With these resources we created an on-line course that follows the template of a typical Oxford post-grad course, but without the benefits of in person teaching.


We then subjected the students to an exam exclusively consisting of Oxford post-grad quantum exam questions.


The result: 80% passed and almost 40% got distinctions.


Here is a statement by Oxford Uni about the experiment:


https://protect-au.mimecast.com/s/cdFyC2xMRkU9qXxqh1OzEV?domain=cs.ox.ac.uk<https://protect-au.mimecast.com/s/cdFyC2xMRkU9qXxqh1OzEV?domain=cs.ox.ac.uk>


and here is an extensive blog post I wrote about it, providing some additional context:


https://protect-au.mimecast.com/s/V-WZC3QNl1SE1l81s2_0QI?domain=medium.com<https://protect-au.mimecast.com/s/V-WZC3QNl1SE1l81s2_0QI?domain=medium.com>


All our best wishes for the new year!



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