Visual Formula
This book makes use of a computer game that provides you with a way to experience math as an ongoing conversation. This program is called Visual Formula. The inventor of Visual Formula is an engineer who decided one day to see if it might be possible to create a simple, straightforward way that people seeking to learn math could approach creating an equation in the same way that they might paint colors on a canvas.
A successful conversation involves continuation and extension of the conversation. As mentioned previously, if you speak with people who have told you that they decided to discontinue the study of math, they often recount an episode in which they say they encountered a problem they could not solve.
Their account of encountering this problem is usually accompanied by a story about how they took a test. After encountering the problem, they felt wholly convinced that they could not or should not go on. The test told them what they could not do. Officially halted in this way, their conversation with math ended.
Extending a conversation involves finding topics at hand that you feel inclined to explore. You do not fear them. If you do fear them, your fear does not prove overwhelming. The topics might prove challenging, but you always have a way back to what you have already explored. You can try again and again, viewing the new topic in different ways.
In contrast, you can also listen to people recall how they became lost. They ventured one day into a new area, found everything strange, and panicked. Inevitably, a few days later a teacher administered a test. The test took them back into the strange place that provoked the panic. Trauma resulted. The conversation ended.
Visual Formula is something like a friend who can enter the picture at important junctures. It allows you to place the problem in a controlled context. It allows you to explore. If you go into a strange place, it all but provides a panic button. You can start over. You can see where you have been. The problem is no longer an event meant to teach you what you cannot do. The problem is an occasion for confirming what you can do. If a problem is strange, you have at hand a tool with which to make it familiar.