 new mathematics or new math was a brief, dramatic change in the way mathematics was taught in american grade schools, and to a lesser extent in european countries, during the 1960s. the name is commonly given to a set of teaching practices introduced in the u.s. shortly after the sputnik crisis in order to boost science education and mathematical skill in the population so that the perceived intellectual threat of soviet engineers, reputedly highly skilled mathematicians, could be met. == overview == topics introduced in the new math include modular arithmetic, algebraic inequalities, matrices, symbolic logic, boolean algebra, and abstract algebra. these topics have been greatly de-emphasized or eliminated in us elementary school and high school curricula since the 1960s. philosopher and mathematician w.v. quine wrote that the "rarefied air" of cantorian set theory was not to be associated with the new math. according to quine, the new math involved merely..."the boolean algebra of classes, hence really the simple logic of general terms." == criticisms == parents and teachers who opposed the new math in the u.s. complained that the new curriculum was too far outside of students' ordinary experience and was not worth taking time away from more traditional topics, such as arithmetic. the material also put new demands on teachers, many of whom were required to teach material they did not fully understand. parents were concerned that they did not understand what their children were learning and could not help them with their studies. many of the parents took time out to try to understand the new math by attending their children's classes. in the end it was concluded that the experiment was not working, and new math fell out of favor before the end of the decade, though it continued to be taught for years thereafter in some school districts. new math found some later success in the form of enrichment programs for gifted students from the 1980s onward in project megsss.http://megsss.org/ in the algebra preface of his book precalculus mathematics in a nutshell, professor george f. simmons wrote that the new math produced students who had "heard of the commutative law, but did not know the multiplication table." in 1965, physicist richard feynman wrote in the essay "new textbooks for the 'new mathematics'":http://calteches.library.caltech.edu/2362/1/feynman.pdf :&
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