Discussion Topic |
|
This thread has been locked |
whitemeat
Big Wall climber
San Luis Obispo, CA
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Feb 25, 2014 - 06:31pm PT
|
ok all you naysayers!!!!!!!!
I have finished the packet and have all correct answers!!!!!!!
think I am lying? ask me the hardest question on there and I will give you the answer, I also understand the stuff!!!!
PS: I did it on my own rather copy :)
|
|
whitemeat
Big Wall climber
San Luis Obispo, CA
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Feb 25, 2014 - 07:02pm PT
|
well moose,
that final is on thursday...
|
|
JLP
Social climber
The internet
|
|
|
Feb 25, 2014 - 07:58pm PT
|
Nice platitude JLP, but, uh, we were speaking in the context of math class; not rocket science. No, the context here is academia vs the real world - go learn to factor polynomials so you can be successful - go learn to think by solving math problems - or else you'll be boiling fries - it's a farce, a huge cultural myth - and for most people it's just plain wrong.
What makes it even funnier, as I mention, is that nobody actually uses this crap in the real world.
Reality is that most complex theories and equations came from trying to explain why some weird sh#t blew up in a lab somewhere. So they blew some more up and eventually fitted a few equations to it. Galileo, Newton, Bell, the stories are classics - reduced to mere numbers crammed down the throats of today's youth with near zero context.
Math teachers like you - frankly - are perpetuating a reality that does not exist in the real world - and for people like whitemeat, it all just may not sit well for this reason - a lie never does - and maybe he just doesn't know why yet.
The best engineers took their toys apart. The worst ones didn't. Etc.
|
|
rgold
Trad climber
Poughkeepsie, NY
|
|
|
Feb 25, 2014 - 09:19pm PT
|
ok all you naysayers!!!!!!!!
I have finished the packet and have all correct answers!!!!!!!
think I am lying? ask me the hardest question on there and I will give you the answer, I also understand the stuff!!!!
PS: I did it on my own rather copy :)
If all of a sudden you can do all the problems, it looks like you've been up to a wee bit o' trollin' WM. But no matter---well done.
I can't say what the hardest problems would be, but the ones involving the most advanced technique are the four requiring factoring a cubic; that would be 1, 2, 43, 44.
|
|
whitemeat
Big Wall climber
San Luis Obispo, CA
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Feb 25, 2014 - 09:31pm PT
|
rgold,
I aint no troll!!! I used that kahn thing, teacher, and students, and hours of work, now I get it!!!!
#1. 1, 2
#2. -2
#43. -2, 6 plus or minus the square root of 32 all over 2
#44. -4, 4 plus or minus the square root of 48 all over 2
bahahaha!!!!!
|
|
rgold
Trad climber
Poughkeepsie, NY
|
|
|
Feb 25, 2014 - 09:56pm PT
|
What makes it even funnier, as I mention, is that nobody actually uses this crap in the real world.
That is indeed a knee-slapper.
But even funnier is the fact that in typing that hilarity, displaying the results on your screen, sending it over the internet, and then having it displayed on all of our screens with all our different browsers and operating systems, this humorous tidbit used hundreds if not thousands of pages of pure and applied mathematics from contemporary results all the way back to Euclid in 300 BC.
A vast amount of purportedly useless stuff with a lineage going back through the ages was required to transmit and display the message of its own uselessness. Now we're talkin' real humor.
And speaking of factoring (which we recently were) every time you use a credit or debit card you are relying on mathematical results about factoring the product of two large prime numbers.
Just because you can't "see" mathematics at work doesn't mean it isn't there. Just sayin.
By the way, I for one am not arguing one way or another that any one individual "needs" to know this stuff, or that "success" in life requires the ability to, say, factor cubic polynomials.
|
|
TGT
Social climber
So Cal
|
|
|
Feb 25, 2014 - 10:12pm PT
|
The best engineers took their toys apart. The worst ones didn't. Etc.
LOL,
Yep!
and since we now live in a world where all the toys are virtual and cannot be touched, let alone, taken apart.
We're in trouble.
|
|
JLP
Social climber
The internet
|
|
|
Feb 25, 2014 - 10:12pm PT
|
rgold - you are also an academic. Feeling you need to explain the 101 to me given the content of my posts says a lot. Forest, trees.
|
|
rgold
Trad climber
Poughkeepsie, NY
|
|
|
Feb 25, 2014 - 11:47pm PT
|
rgold,
I aint no troll!!! I used that kahn thing, teacher, and students, and hours of work, now I get it!!!!
#1. 1, 2
#2. -2
#43. -2, 6 plus or minus the square root of 32 all over 2
#44. -4, 4 plus or minus the square root of 48 all over 2
bahahaha!!!!!
Well, then, even better!
Your answers are correct, but you didn't need me to tell you that. The results for #43 and #44 are not, however in the simplest possible form. This might matter for two reasons. (1) if your response is supposed to be written, your teacher might make deductions for not having simplified the result. (2) If the answers are multiple-choice, then it is likely that only the simplified results will appear as options, and you might not recognize that your answers are included (in another form) in the list of choices.
So: in #43, you need to write sqrt{32} as 4 sqrt{2} and then simplify the fractions you have. This yields 3 +/- 2 sqrt{2} as the answer. You'll have to do something analogous for #44 as well.
|
|
John M
climber
|
|
|
Feb 25, 2014 - 11:55pm PT
|
2x+4)(2x+5) for number 9 clint??? thanks for all the replies, I know number 47 and a couple others but not much, well math is really easy for me to learn I just forget it REALLY fast...
he gave the troll away here. Though it wasn't much of a troll. He knows how to do the work, or at least he did at one point, he has just forgotten and needed a refresher. I was that way in high school and university. Just talking about it sometimes brings back the memory. At least for me. though as I got older I found that what I hadn't committed to memory was lost without a whole lot of effort to bring it back.
whatever I knew of math is lost to me.
|
|
Clint Cummins
Trad climber
SF Bay area, CA
|
|
|
Feb 26, 2014 - 12:12am PT
|
Good work, Mickey.
|
|
Guangzhou
Trad climber
Asia, Indonesia, East Java
|
|
|
Feb 26, 2014 - 06:11am PT
|
Yes, plenty of software out there to help people with math. We even recommended a couple free internet sites here that will solve and give you step b step instructions.
On the other hand, I find it amusing when I see adult use their cellphone calculator to do some very simple math in stores or restaurant. Sometime, punching in the numbers takes longer than just doing thing in your head.
Will we use the quadratic formula or factor polynomials on a regular basis, probably not. I'm honest with students about how useful the material is. In my view, it's about being "math literate."
You can argue you've learned all the math you need by 6th grade if you want. Other will argue all you need is a 6th grade reading or writing level. Maybe it's true in some fields.
Somewhere above, I think it was John, mentioned a textbook use in Kentucky. I agree, heading to far in one direction or the other isn't good. Can't imagine being a student or teacher where everything was done through discovery learning.
The state of Education, berate it all you want. Education is an easy institute to bash for sure. I think the biggest problem with education is that politicians, press and even parent are constantly speaking ill of it. When kids, AKA students, keep hearing how bad education is, it's hard to take school serious.
I teach in Asia, I don't see a huge difference between Asian kids and western kids. I do see a lot more hours in programs outside of school in Asia than America. Asian student spent two, three sometimes four hours a day after school in cram School, jewkues or what ever other names they gie these "institutes."
As a math teacher, I hate parent conferences where the parents point out that "Math is the most important subject." I think you can get a very good education, liberal arts, where math is the most important.
Enough rambling for now.
Eman
|
|
RP3
Big Wall climber
Sonora
|
|
|
Feb 26, 2014 - 10:52am PT
|
This has been a fun thread to watch. Well done Mikey. Clint, Ed, et al. are fantastic teachers...
|
|
Darwin
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
|
|
|
Feb 26, 2014 - 11:06am PT
|
^^^^+1
|
|
wbw
Trad climber
'cross the great divide
|
|
|
Feb 26, 2014 - 11:33am PT
|
As a math teacher, I hate parent conferences where the parents point out that "Math is the most important subject." I think you can get a very good education, liberal arts, where math is the most important.
Totally agree with you on this Guang. I work in a community that has some very high-powered math people at CU, and at other various research institutions such as NOAA and NCAR. I constantly hear that "math is the most important subject", to which I reply "no, it is one of many important subjects." Personally I believe foreign language and music are often underemphasized, which is a real shame.
|
|
ydpl8s
Trad climber
Santa Monica, California
|
|
|
Feb 26, 2014 - 11:57am PT
|
I think one of the biggest problems with not understanding the math and just using today's "black box" approach is that you don't realize when you've punched a wrong button or used some software incorrectly, and then just trust the answers that come out.
I do a lot with signal analysis in my work, and I have seen people that have total faith in their pre-programed boxes happily basing results and interpreting artifacts that were generated using the software incorrectly.
If you understand how the stuff is calculated, often those artifacts stick out like a sore thumb.
|
|
TwistedCrank
climber
Bungwater Hollow, Ida-ho
|
|
|
Feb 26, 2014 - 12:24pm PT
|
If you're a PE (Perfessional Engineer), you get to use look-up tables and don't have to mess with the math anymore.
"Three years ago I coont even spell enjineer. No I are one."
|
|
JLP
Social climber
The internet
|
|
|
Feb 26, 2014 - 12:27pm PT
|
If you understand how the stuff is calculated, often those artifacts stick out like a sore thumb. IMO, an intuitive understanding the underlying physics trumps all software and measurement tools and equations.
In grade school, the underlying intuition building seems to stop at counting sticks and apples in 1st grade - then follows 11 years of mindless numerical procedures on conveniently contrived (~factorable) equations.
The only reason for these numerical procedures is that, unlike intuition building exercises, the numerical procedures are gradable. The kids need to be lined up and ranked on a totem pole for The Man.
and since we now live in a world where all the toys are virtual and cannot be touched, let alone, taken apart.
We're in trouble. I don't agree with this. A friend and his son together recently picked out a bunch of hardware on newegg and built a PC. The OS wasn't from a canned distribution, it was downloaded and built directly from kernel.org. Radio Shack in Boulder tells me they are near #1 in the country for Arduino kits. We also have Spark Fun in Gunbarrel - doing quite well. Our company helps sponsor science fairs, robot building contests, etc - also doing well and popular.
|
|
wbw
Trad climber
'cross the great divide
|
|
|
Feb 26, 2014 - 01:20pm PT
|
The only reason for these numerical procedures is that, unlike intuition building exercises, the numerical procedures are gradable. The kids need to be lined up and ranked on a totem pole for The Man.
You are just another jaded bore, JLP. Your comments on every thread seem to be those of a guy that hasn't gotten laid in a very long time. Sorry about that, buddy. It must be miserable.
Mathematical intuition-building is a lifelong pursuit. It may start at first grade, but it certainly doesn't end there. I've been lectured many times by parents of students who speak a lot more intelligently than you write, and who have some pretty amazing credentials in math. With a little conversing, most get the distinction between learning math vs. using it in a professional setting. Using math in your so-called real world where you don't get laid is very different than teaching it to developing minds.
You seem to think you're a math tough guy. I've got kids I teach that could run circles around you in the subject, and at least part of the reason is because of their school experience. I'd urge caution bragging about yourself in this subject in Boulder. Good math people are a dime a dozen in the area, and they are mostly far more articulate than you.
|
|
ydpl8s
Trad climber
Santa Monica, California
|
|
|
Feb 26, 2014 - 01:28pm PT
|
The math principals and the intuition go hand in hand. They are part of the same thought process that allows you to use the good ole "scientific method" to reason things out. Even if the answer isn't "intuitively obvious", you still know the right questions to ask, which will put you on the right track to figuring it out.
|
|
|
SuperTopo on the Web
|
Let us know!