# Math (and other) skills evaporate **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [June 10, 2010, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/math-and-other-skills-evaporate/542653 "2010-06-10T14:30:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2010, 10:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/math-and-other-skills-evaporate/542653/21 "2010-06-15T10:53:13Z")
> [@purple\_cow](#): > > It’s the choosing to rely on the technology even when you don’t need it that bothers me, because you lose the ability to work without it if you have to. If society collapses, i may need to learn how to butcher a hog, but that’s far less likely than my having to divide a bill into 3 portions at the restuarant when I forgot my calculator (not that I have one but for argument’s sake). I started college in 1986, for Chemical Engineering. It was common for students in my school to gripe about how students in related disciplines and in other schools would be learning modern analytical techniques and use modern machines starting on Year 2, while we didn’t study the techniques until Year 5 and were only allowed to look at the machine itself from afar (and this, if the technician was in a good mood). The school’s reasoning was “if you find yourself working for Unicef in the middle of the jungle, you should be able to analyze the water without a bleeping truckful’s worth of equipment and electrical generators. So, step one, this is a mechanical precision scale, it is older than your parents, and when your grandchildren come here to study we expect them to still use the same scale…” Having tutored people from those other related majors who defined a ketone as “a band at 1700 in the IR”(1), I can certainly see the school’s point! 1: three counts on which this is wrong - a ketone is, first, “a type of molecule” or “a family of molecules”, or “any molecule which” - defining it as “a band in the IR” is like thinking that a picture of some mocha-colored dude(2) is the President of the United States. The picture represents the President but is not the President. - that band in the IR does not only identify ketones, it does not identify them unequivocally. The same band is present in the IR spectrum of several different groups (any group which has a double bond between a carbon and an oxygen: ketones, aldehydes, acids, amides, esters). So the mocha-colored dude in the picture might be the right color and gender but the wrong guy, the picture might not even be of President Obama. - there are no units listed. Yes, I know that four figures means you’re talking in terms of frequency, the unit is cm[sup]-1[/sup], but you’re still supposed to mention it. Otherwise it looks like you’re just pulling numbers out of your armpit, instead of just parroting numbers. 2: no disrespect meant and all that. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2010, 11:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/math-and-other-skills-evaporate/542653/22 "2010-06-15T11:47:17Z")
> [@thirdwarning](#): > > [… **even sven** : The way you’re describing making change makes me wonder if we do it differently, or if you’re just seeing it differently. For me, counting up from the total to the amount tendered is more like adding. Makes me curious. > [@even\_sven](#): > > I’m just describing it wrong. > > If the change due is $.37, I’m going to automatically reach for a quarter, a dime and two pennies- going from smallest to biggest. I won’t even have to think about it. > > If the total is $4.37 and you pay with a five, I’m going to grab three pennies to bring it up to $4.40. Then I start adding nickels, dimes and quarters until I count up to five. > > The problem comes when I see that .37 and my brain is screaming “that’s a quarter a dime and two pennies!!!” Even if I know that’s not true, it’s still likely to trip me up enough to make me lose track of where I was. Ditto for **thirdwarning**. If you owed 4.37 and gave me a 5, I would pull 3 pennies, then a dime, then 2 quarters, and then a single. I add to the items cost until my change adds up to whatou gave me. If you gave me 5.02, I would mentally subtract the .02 from the item cost, and then start adding again. ---
**Author:** ![Nature\_s\_Call](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nature_s_call/32/19006_2.png) [@Nature\_s\_Call](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nature_s_Call)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2010, 1:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/math-and-other-skills-evaporate/542653/23 "2010-06-15T13:40:51Z")
> [@Boyo\_Jim](#): > > Ditto for **thirdwarning**. If you owed 4.37 and gave me a 5, I would pull 3 pennies, then a dime, then 2 quarters, and then a single. Then I’d give you the single back and say “You gave me too much change.” You would thank me for my honesty then buy me a coffee. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2010, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/math-and-other-skills-evaporate/542653/24 "2010-06-15T14:42:08Z")
Um, er, never mind. ---
**Author:** ![Tastes\_of\_Chocolate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tastes_of_chocolate/32/3232_2.png) [@Tastes\_of\_Chocolate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tastes_of_Chocolate)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2010, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/math-and-other-skills-evaporate/542653/25 "2010-06-15T22:23:23Z")
> [@Boyo\_Jim](#): > > If you gave me 5.02, I would mentally subtract the .02 from the item cost, and then start adding again. I don’t like carrying around change, so I’ll frequently do something like this. I’ve found that giving partial change (like giving pennies to round up to the nearest quarter) often totally screws up the person at the register. They apparently don’t even know how to tell the register that I gave them $5.02 and not $5.00. Have restaurants and stores given up on requiring balanced tills at the end of the night? ---
**Author:** ![lizardling](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f4b2a3/32.png) [@lizardling](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lizardling)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2010, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/math-and-other-skills-evaporate/542653/26 "2010-06-15T23:29:12Z")
I still remember the young girl who had to use the till to calculate the change for an ice cream from a single bill (I want to say it was a fiver). She was asking her manager to come unlock it so she could punch the buttons. The math consisted of subtracting 80 cents from 100. 8 + 2 = 10. All three of us just kind of stared at her (and chuckled a bit). I did get my twenty cents, though. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/math-and-other-skills-evaporate/542653.md?page=1)