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RE: Math Educations: who needs it, how much and when?
November 2, 2015 at 11:44 am
(This post was last modified: November 2, 2015 at 11:45 am by Alex K.)
(October 31, 2015 at 6:06 am)pocaracas Wrote: I once had a Quantum physics professor, at Uni, who wouldn't consider anything simpler than an integral to be a "calculation".
He could fill an entire blackboard with sums and multiplications and divisions, but none of it was "calculating" anything.
Eventually, the integral was in just the right format and then he'd "calculate" it.
The week after, we learned Dirac's notation and all the integrals got hidden.
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RE: Math Educations: who needs it, how much and when?
November 25, 2015 at 2:32 am
(July 23, 2014 at 4:42 pm)LastPoet Wrote: If set A belongs to the set of all sets that it doesn't belong, what is it?
Not sure if you are serious of not and I've forgotten most of set theory but I think the answer is set A is an/the empty set.
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RE: Math Educations: who needs it, how much and when?
November 25, 2015 at 2:51 am
I always had trouble with math in school. English and history were my strong points, had no problems there. Math and science were tough.
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RE: Math Educations: who needs it, how much and when?
November 25, 2015 at 6:12 am
(November 25, 2015 at 2:32 am)Omnibus E Plrus Nhilist Wrote: (July 23, 2014 at 4:42 pm)LastPoet Wrote: If set A belongs to the set of all sets that it doesn't belong, what is it?
Not sure if you are serious of not and I've forgotten most of set theory but I think the answer is set A is an/the empty set.
Sets of sets can quickly lead to consistency problems, but the way it is worded here, can't be *anything* as long as it doesn't contain itself as an element?
The fool hath said in his heart, There is a God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good.
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RE: Math Educations: who needs it, how much and when?
February 28, 2016 at 5:04 am
(July 23, 2014 at 2:08 pm)Whateverist the White Wrote: True confessions: I teach this stuff. I enjoy the subject. I like people .. including young ones. I've always said I like teaching math because it is the easiest subject in which to reach clarity and test for validity. I've even said I am covertly teaching critical thinking. But I sometimes wonder about the level of specificity of what is taught.
That's where my question comes from. Teaching middle school I'm charged with teaching kids what seems to many of them very complex and esoteric. So, for me, I sometimes wonder .. am I making everyone practice piano 2 hours a day just so those few who go on to become virtuosos will have received a proper start?
I was just looking at youtube videos of people complaining about the common core. (I start teaching that in a month so my jury is out.) Then I came to this TED talk in which someone with my job asks and offers an answer to my question. Thoughts?
http://youtu.be/xyowJZxrtbg
Not sure if I could possibly disagree with that guy more. He's acting like engineers are the only ones that need math. There's also this thing called statistics.
Want to become a nurse? You need to know stats. Want to become an accountant? Need to know probability and stats.
I am a math tutor. I once tutored a fireman who needed to pass a math class because he wanted to advance through the ranks and needed to be able to compile reports for his boss.
Also, the other three core subjects in high school are history, English, and science. If he wants to act like everyone is working a forklift for a living, then they don't need to know much about any of those three. The very little they need to know about science for their job won't be taught to them in a generalized high school science class and can be provided in their training quite easily.
Essentially his argument boils down to something like, "What's the danger in believing in a flat earth? I mean, less than 0.1% of the population actually needs to deal with the issues that a spherical earth presents that would not be present in a flat earth model. Therefore it's perfectly fine if the population generally believes in a flat earth."
Now I know he didn't say that, but he's saying that ignorance of an entire discipline is perfectly fine if the individual has no use for it. I, personally, believe that the population needs to be educated if we're going to move into the future.
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RE: Math Educations: who needs it, how much and when?
February 28, 2016 at 5:19 am
(This post was last modified: February 28, 2016 at 5:19 am by SteelCurtain.)
Jaysus, necro. 
"There remain four irreducible objections to religious faith: that it wholly misrepresents the origins of man and the cosmos, that because of this original error it manages to combine the maximum servility with the maximum of solipsism, that it is both the result and the cause of dangerous sexual repression, and that it is ultimately grounded on wish-thinking." ~Christopher Hitchens, god is not Great
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RE: Math Educations: who needs it, how much and when?
February 28, 2016 at 5:25 am
(February 28, 2016 at 5:19 am)SteelCurtain Wrote: Jaysus, necro.
Yeah but it's on the first page, c'mon.
Jesus is like Pinocchio. He's the bastard son of a carpenter. And a liar. And he wishes he was real.
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RE: Math Educations: who needs it, how much and when?
February 28, 2016 at 5:31 am
It's the mathematics forum. A significant percentage of the threads that have ever been created here are on the first page. Hardly and argument in your favor.
It's against the rules to necropost. If you wanted to discuss this, you should create a new thread.
"There remain four irreducible objections to religious faith: that it wholly misrepresents the origins of man and the cosmos, that because of this original error it manages to combine the maximum servility with the maximum of solipsism, that it is both the result and the cause of dangerous sexual repression, and that it is ultimately grounded on wish-thinking." ~Christopher Hitchens, god is not Great
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RE: Math Educations: who needs it, how much and when?
February 28, 2016 at 5:43 am
(This post was last modified: February 28, 2016 at 5:44 am by robvalue.)
I'll help people with any maths they are struggling with, if it's within my capability.
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RE: Math Educations: who needs it, how much and when?
February 28, 2016 at 6:16 pm
(This post was last modified: February 28, 2016 at 6:19 pm by Chas.)
(October 30, 2015 at 11:54 pm)Anomalocaris Wrote: (July 24, 2014 at 10:01 am)Nestor Wrote: In college I made halfway through Algebra before I quit going. Does that count for anything?
If you are still taking algebra in college, it is probably too late for you to ever make much use of math beyond arithmetics.
Ummmm, no. There is much, much more to algebra than what is offered in high schools.
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