The Rule of Three
“If you want something stuck in someone’s head put it in a sequence of three.” - Brian Clark
Humans are simple creatures. We like when things are presented in groups of three.
| Blood, sweat, and tears |
| Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness |
| Lions, tigers, and bears |
Background
What are you presenting — and what does everyone need to know before you dive in?
Lehman Brothers prove that we need good Calculus teachers.
- Investment banking firm
- Declared bankruptcy on September 15, 2008
Context can need context, just don't fall down a rabbit hole.
- Global financial crisis
- Massive stock market crash
- Result of predatory lending and subprime mortgages
Sometimes context is needed, but a rapid summary is more than enough for the presentation.
- Derivatives: The measure of how sensitive a function is to change
When we have to give context to a very broad subject, try to narrow it down as much as possible.
Risk Management: Controlling the chance of a bad financial outcome by using data and mathematics
Lehman Brothers Inc. made a dangerous bet because they looked at the chance of losing against how much money they could make, instead of looking at how quickly everything could go wrong.
Application
How is your idea put into action or your product used?
A good calculus teacher can teach anyone the skills Lehman Brothers needed in about a week.
When assessing risk, we typically look at:
| The chance that bad things happen |
| How bad things can go |
| How good things should go |
Lehman Brothers help us see that we should be just as worried about how sensitive things are to change.
Most students with a half semester of calculus can find the derivative of this function
But how many can say what we’ve actually measured with that derivative?
An alright calculus teacher gives the world an analyst who says the housing market is too big to fail
A good calculus teacher gives us the analysts in Margin Call
Implication
What does your idea/product mean to the world, the population, and the audience?
When instructors teach calculus, they rarely emphasize applied use and exploration.
Calculus students rarely consider how vital the class could be to their lives.