The Math wall.....

[hadit]

In calculus class most calculators won't help you, it's mostly integration, derivatives and proofs.

Once you get that done, all the calculator does is speed up the arithmetic.

That is true, and I should have specified that we were allowed to use them in the more advanced classes to avoid ruining an equation with a simple basic math error. By the time I got to college, they were pretty much everywhere.

 

[MarathonMike]

Yes you do!!

In China you don't do your math homework you go to bed without supper.

Oriental countries in general take math and education as seriously as American parents getting their kids into pro sports. LOL I'm kidding, sort of.

 

[BULLDOG]

I took mine in 1972.

you too? 1150/815

 

[ReinyDays]

Wow! Real brain buster there. Can't build a house without simple trig.

Even the scarecrow on Oz knew the Pythagorean formula...

And his head was full of straw.

Scary thing is that it really is just simple arithmetic, a few radicals, not even algebra really.

You can't calculate Pythagorean on your fingers ... or a tape measure ...

Carpenters use the 3-4-5 triangle, or the 5-12-13 triangle ... 30 feet down one wall, 40 feet down the other wall, should be exactly 50 feet between ... peasy easy ...

Roof angles are measured in rise/run ... as in a 4-12 roof is four foot rise over every twelve foot run ... what the egg-heads call the arctangent ... something that can be calculated on fingers and tape measures ... a very primitive form of unit vectors ...

Construction sites are dirty, wet and messy ... paper documents don't last the day, "devices" and calculators go bozo in the mud ... draw your floor plan on a cocktail napkin and I can build that house just counting on my fingers ... except for trusses ...

 

[MarathonMike]

In calculus class most calculators won't help you, it's mostly integration, derivatives and proofs.

Once you get that done, all the calculator does is speed up the arithmetic.

True, but what percentage of high school kids take calculus? Most of them struggle with single variable algebra.

 

[TimFitz]

Good, then maybe you can solve this problem. Why is it that after 60 years of football, the NFL is now suddenly giving players a 0 as their jersey number???!


There are FOUR basic operations... addition, subtraction, multiplying and division.


Doesn't surprise me. Several years back my old neighbor was expounding on his bright daughter, so I gave her an old slide rule I had to play with (she was about 14-15), but she could not grasp that a 2 - 3 could represent 2-3, 20-30, 2000-3000, or .002-.003. She did not get how the decimal point could move around, but that the relationships were all the same given the same base 10.


Lowering the standards is just like saying you've had them too high all these years.

That's OK, I had to show my niece how a record player works.

 

[justoffal]

OK, now for the dumb question: why not simply issue each employee their own basic solar calculator?

I mean, you can buy wristwatches and little wallet calculators now to do all the math you've described. The highest arithmetic you've mentioned so far are mere radicals.

I say: UP the math test.

• Ask applicants to convert from base10 to base2 or from base 2 to base16 in their heads.
• Throw in a Base2 addition and multiplication problem.
• Require the applicant to convert all decimal numbers to fractions.

Nothing beats the diameter of a valve being 4 and 78/315ths inches.

It's true....
It can all be done on a hand held

Management figures if you don't know the
Pencil and paper method also you're more likely to make mistakes.

But!! There is talk of lowering the standard.

 

[MarathonMike]

Forty percent of American high school students fail Algebra 1 and many more barely pass. That is pathetic.

Evidence of Struggle

• High Failure Rates: Algebra 1 is often cited as the most failed course in high school, and some estimates suggest that as many as 40% of students need to take it more than once to achieve a passing grade.

 

[kyzr]

Back when my boy was in school he did ok with math, up to a point.
He got to algebra. Now it had been a good thirty years since I did algebra in school, but I had used it over the years and had no issue with helping him with it.
He became very frustrated. I'd help him with his homework to solve equations and get the correct answers. His papers would be graded with all the correct answers being marked wrong because the methods of solution weren't the nonsense that the lesson plan required. Their methods were very round about and unnecessarily complicated.
We got Kahn Academy to help tutor. He was able to master what it and I taught him yet maintained a solid D because of the intransigence of the teacher and school system. He didn't even try higher level math after that.
So, he went off to trade school, he is a welder. Following the welding training he stuck around for pipe fitting. Lots of geometry. Because they taught a practical approach he not only grasped it, but he shone.
Long way around to the point. Modern education is cheating a lot of bright people out of opportunity to learn with it's nonsense.

This is a good example of why "Tiger Moms" are needed. To go to PTA meetings and demand fair grading. If the teachers are assholes, then go to the school board and complain, and get on the FBI "domestic terrorist watch list"

 

[Hellokitty]

The Chinese, Koreans, Japanese make kids learn loads of math. It can be an important skill. What they need to do is figure out who can, and then get them doing higher level math, while the others don't bother.

Completely agree. It's pointless to have kids who suck at math be forced to take nerd classes.
Also it doesn't help when schools come up with new ways to do the basics every few years.

 

[BULLDOG]

This is a good example of why "Tiger Moms" are needed. To go to PTA meetings and demand fair grading. If the teachers are assholes, then go to the school board and complain, and get on the FBI "domestic terrorist watch list"

You don't get on that list for speaking up at a school board meeting. You get on that list for threatening the school board members with violence.

 

[Winco]

Completely agree. It's pointless to have kids who suck at math be forced to take nerd classes.
Also it doesn't help when schools come up with new ways to do the basics every few years.

Can you provide an example of the “new ways” to do the basics.

 

[justoffal]

Forty percent of American high school students fail Algebra 1 and many more barely pass. That is pathetic.

Evidence of Struggle

• High Failure Rates: Algebra 1 is often cited as the most failed course in high school, and some estimates suggest that as many as 40% of students need to take it more than once to achieve a passing grade.

Algebra is probably the handiest quick tool in the math box for almost any application.

 

[Hellokitty]

Back when my boy was in school he did ok with math, up to a point.
He got to algebra. Now it had been a good thirty years since I did algebra in school, but I had used it over the years and had no issue with helping him with it.
He became very frustrated. I'd help him with his homework to solve equations and get the correct answers. His papers would be graded with all the correct answers being marked wrong because the methods of solution weren't the nonsense that the lesson plan required. Their methods were very round about and unnecessarily complicated.
We got Kahn Academy to help tutor. He was able to master what it and I taught him yet maintained a solid D because of the intransigence of the teacher and school system.
He didn't even try higher level math after that.
So, he went off to trade school, he is a welder. Following the welding training he stuck around for pipe fitting. Lots of geometry. Because they taught a practical approach he not only grasped it, but he shone.

Long way around to the point. Modern education is cheating a lot of bright people out of opportunity to learn with it's nonsense.

We had a similar experience in getting stuff wrong for not using "new math". Also had issue with getting questions wrong that were asking opinions.

 

[Unkotare]

The Chinese, Koreans, Japanese make kids learn loads of math. ...

And if it were taught here the way it is in many of those countries, American parents would raise a stink.

 

[Captain Caveman]

Very basic. Addition, subtraction, multiplication, division.....

We do a lot of area measurements and figuring for component sizes.

For instance what is the diameter of the safety valve that has 85 square inches of surface?

The standard shop math for this would be:

A = .7854D²

85 = .7854D²

A little basic algebra:

85/.7854 = D²

108.225 = D²

Sqrt 108.225 (10.403) = D

85/pi. Then take the sq root of that.

 

[d0gbreath]

Anyone here know the square root of -i? It's the correct answer to everything in the known universe. Stephen Hawking said that. I don't know the answer, but I'm working on it.

Maybe it was the square root of -1. Barbie was right.

 

[Winco]

We had a similar experience in getting stuff wrong for not using "new math". Also had issue with getting questions wrong that were asking opinions.

What is this New Math you mention?

 

[JWBooth]

Anyone here know the square root of -i? It's the correct answer to everything in the known universe. Stephen Hawking said that. I don't know the answer, but I'm working on it.

Maybe it was the square root of -1. Barbie was right.

42

 

[Admiral Rockwell Tory]

I took mine in 1972.

Man you are even more ancient than I am. I first took it in about 1975 or so.