Basic Maths: A Lost Art

If you put your hand to your ear, the rustle of waking pedants can be heard.............

.

Oh dear ... What a very disappointing comment ^^^

MichaelG.

This is about maths. Pedantry is critical.

I think maths could be the most difficult of all subjects to teach because so much of it has no obvious application at the time. I made the mistake of assuming there was no point in learning anything unless silly boy me saw purpose in it. It was a mistake because much of GCSE maths is foundation material, and its purpose only emerges much later if your career takes you that way.

Also poor education system, it can't tell what Nigel and Dave aged 14 are going to do in later life. Anything between Wastrel and Nobel Prize Winner! Probably we both did work needing only a moderate command of numbers, though I found it good to know powerful mathematical tools existed even if I didn't understand them. (Most of us drive cars without understanding how they work: try designing an engine from scratch.)

Statistics were certainly in my O-Level curriculum, and my children studied it too. I'd be amazed if it wasn't taught today. Just as well - I used simple statistics a lot at work.

Forty years after leaving school I discovered what matrices are for. Best way to rotate and transform digital graphics by far, and for all sorts of signal analysis and statistical work. In normal life, it's unusual to have to operate on blocks of numbers, though anyone who has used a spreadsheet will have an inkling.

Part of the power of mathematics as a language is its absolute rigour. What some see as pedantry, is actually an aid to clarity. I do maths on the forum because it allows others to understand what I mean. Either to nail down a fact, or so they can see and correct my mistakes. Engineers use maths to avoid guesswork and to have their mistakes corrected.

Maths is wonderful. Wish I understood more!

Dave

Edited By SillyOldDuffer on 21/11/2020 13:59:32

Nice one, at least I wasn't being vulgar.

Martin

When I was in senior school I wasn't the best pupil and it irritated my form teacher when I was top of class , generally I OK with maths but not keen on algebra

H

No known Nobel Prize winners in my ex-pupils, but plenty of wastrels judging by the court reports in the local paper. Such others as I know of have generally turned out OK, and one actually apologised for being such an ******** in school!

Some outcomes one simply can't foresee, like the murderer (and his murderee), both ex-pupils of mine, or the go-getting, award-winning Army Cadet of the Year, who killed himself by imbedding his sports car half way up a wall on his way back from home leave.

I think that overall they're probably just a cross-section of society, like we were.

And on the topic of pedants, I was thinking of having a T-shirt printed with PEDANT AND PROUD! across the chest, but was afraid of running into the local vigilantes who didn't pay attention in English lessons.

George B.

Spare a thought for those of us who suffer with dyscalcula, not everyone is a mathematical genius.

Mark P.

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I did ... when I linked a brief, but very clear, explanation of Mean / Median / Mode for Nigel

Only to be insulted by Bill Pudney

MichaelG.

A friend in his late seventies has been making a living from electronics all his working life beginning, he assures me, with carrying TV sets into customers houses when they were delivered and set up for you through analogue, digital, microcomputer and now the PIC based systems he designs for industry. He is still working as a design and development engineer.

But like you he has never been able to get his head round algebra, so he remembers three versions of Ohm's law as he cannot convert from V=IxR to I=V/R and R=V/I

Can't figure out where this thread is leading!

Howard

I am sorry if my comment upset anyone, it was intended as humour. I consider myself both competent ( but not great!) at maths and a pedant.

To avoid upsetting anyone who has a thin skin, or is of a gentile constitution, I shall just offer my best wishes for the upcoming festive season. Stay safe and virus free

cheers

Bill Pudney