Comments on: It’s fun to hate math

By: Kabaxi

Kabaxi — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 02:58:05 +0000

You can use algebra to guide laser’s to a target – and possibly the target is highly radioactive… I suppose the only things most people want to guide their hands towards is… Okay you know.

By: zac

zac — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 00:58:22 +0000

Thanks for your enthusiasm, Darren! You’re so right – we are consumers (and users) of math every day.

By: darren

darren — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 00:00:38 +0000

Praveen,
Televisions, cars, trains, airplanes, satellites, spaceships/rockets, sound systems, movie cameras, cell phones, mp3’s, dvd’s, computers, electronic musical instruments, electronic circuits, vacuum tubes and the transistor (ughh yeah, your life would be completely different with out those), bulldozers, the design of buildings, chemistry, physics (the laws of our freakin’ universe that is), medical machines such as cat scans and mri’s which make heavy use of physics and chemistry, carbon dating, gps, the splitting of the freakin’ atom, optimization problems (how companies do not waste money), the internet… all of these would not be possible without knowledge of mathematics. Also, all major advances in technology seem to be correspond to advances in mathematics (the industrial revolution came after the theory of calculus,differential equations, complex numbers, and alongside with abstract and linear algebra. If you believe math is not important, than you obviously have not done any “advanced” mathematics. Math is probably the most important thing I can think of.

By: Praveen

Praveen — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 02:28:10 +0000

I am talking about the very same nation, though this is true (surely) everywhere. I was insinuating that you don’t need to know math to be prosperous. You need progress, and common sense and computer codes and calculators. Math is a dead subject. You need to know how to make the best of the given opportunities. After all, how useful was Einstein’s general relativity theory, or the fact that Fermat’s last theorem has now been proved?

By: zac

zac — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 02:08:01 +0000

Hi Praveen and thanks for your input.

And which ‘great nation’ are you talking about, exactly? Not that one that has sent us all into the economic abyss, I hope?

By: Praveen

Praveen — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 00:30:54 +0000

Math is for idiots. You don’t have to know math to do anything in the real world. I can run very high quality computer models and read the data that they give.

Math education is not needed, and we see that because the world goes round, and this is a great nation.

By: Aaliyah

Aaliyah — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 09:09:16 +0000

Math never came easy for me and I suppose that is because of how it was being taught to me. What made sense to the one teaching me did not exactly make sense to me.

It actually took just one teacher to make it work, as far as more advanced math, and now I am a million times better simply because she told me, “If you know the “why” you can do this.”

So I figured out the why and it was just simply understanding each and every step of a problem without short-cuts. I figured the short-cuts could come later when I had actually understood the information in it’s longer form.

She was right. I still work most of my problems out in their longer forms simply because it works better for me.

I thank my teacher for taking the time to help me understand the math instead of making me feel “stupid” because I did not know how to do it. I passed her courses with straight A’s and found that I actually could do math.

Good thing since Pharmacy is one of those fields where math is used in my regular life. )

By: zac

zac — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 07:00:55 +0000

Thanks for your passionate comment, Cookie_Juran.

There are maybe 2 main reasons why students are required to learn algebra:

1) So they can solve real problems later
2) So they can understand what people are talking about, when they use expressions like “I have twice as many nickels as dimes in my pocket.” (But how often do people really say that stuff?)

Perhaps this is what we should do. We should make collections of real things that real people write and say.

Those real things need to be understood by Joe Citizen – either in the newspaper, on TV, in a magazine, etc.

Then we use those statements as a basis for text books. Then you are less likely to get “poorly worded application problems” that are written by text book writers. (Actually, I suspect you would end up with even more poorly worded real application problems, but we would need to see.)

I have a particular interest in this topic. You may like to see the Apples and Oranges Puzzle in an early IntMath Newsletter (it’s point #4 in that mail).

Good luck with your studies.

By: Cookie_Juran

Cookie_Juran — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 01:08:37 +0000

I think that mathematics becomes difficult when the all dreaded application problems are taught. I detest the way most are worded and they are just out right confusing. I also see that some teachers have little patience for teaching thier subject to those that are not ‘gifted’ at math and do not automatically get it at first. The top educators and textbook writters need to develop a BETTER system of teaching these very important algebra concepts (I personally do NOT CARE how many more dimes than nickles I have in my pocket if I have x amount of dollars and y amount of quarters…come on now).
Get off of trying to baffle children, and adults- (as I am learning math at the age of 38, finally in college…and yes, I FORGOTT ALOT). Teach them and me in a sensible manner instead of relying on memorization and shoving 50 poorly worded application problems on them to make them and I feel stupid.

By: zac

zac — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 01:52:05 +0000

Thanks, Rar, for your enthusiastic response.

I’m wondering if there are different levels of math being talked about here.

One level is “automatic” – for most people, this is addition and multiplication and concepts like “8 is bigger than 4″. But for people in technical areas, the “automatic” level of math starts to include trigonometry, logarithms, calculus and so on.

Another other level is “I recognise that from school but I don’t remember how it works”. For most people, this is the algebra, trigonometry and logarithms that were learned for an exam and then promptly forgotten.

So when the good doctor says that he does not use math, perhaps his “automatic” level of math is quite a bit higher than the most people’s and he is using math without being all that conscious of it.

It’s no wonder kids have developed such a negative attitude towards math.

This is the key issue, of course. And I agree with you that role models (including parents) have a big influence on students’ attitudes to math.