Beckham: I can’t do six-year-old son’s homework
Didn’t they have an empire once… or something?
However:
Scientists discover how to ‘bend it like Beckham’ which states:
Beckham was instinctively applying some very sophisticated physics calculations in scoring that great goal
Calculations that take several minutes for super computers.
This is the scariest part:
Bear in mind this is the woman who recently admitted she’s never read a book. Including her own autobiography. And she’s the smart one.
Except that he wasn’t. Rather, he was picking the best fit from the innumerable practice shots he has taken in training. He wasn’t solving any differential equations in his head; he did what he did last time he tried to stick the ball in the net from a similar distance and angle. If he could do the math from a cold start he wouldn’t need to practice.
Part of what distinguishes the top-class sportsman from the rest of us, I’d guess, is the ability to get the nerves and muscles to do again what they did last time.
Wow, does he ever come across as the stereotypical “dumb jock” in that interview. It’s different from what they *teached *him in school?? Well, I guess something is indeed different from nothing.
(I should talk… my brain just completely froze on the phrase “different from” and I suddenly had no idea whether it should be that or “different than”!)
Yup - and Beckham would have been working in a shipyard, or something 
He’s just an Essex boy, using occassional bits of local dialect. Round these parts, it’d be “that’s what I was learned in school”.
He’s a footballer. At least we don’t have a president who [sub]<insert favourite dumb pres moment>[/sub] 
“acted in a B-movie with a chimpanzee… and was comprehensively out-acted by the chimp”
No, Becks would still have been a footballer when we had an empire - but he’d have earned fifty bob a week plus seven and six expenses, and thought himself lucky.
Out of curiosity, do you have a cite for that? I’m not saying it’s impossible… but bear in mind, ‘what he did last time he tried to stick the ball in the net from a similar distance and angle’ just pushes back the problem, it doesn’t solve it. I suppose it’s possible that he worked out, from trial and error, the best shots to make from virtually every position on the field… (and, though I’m no soccer expert, I believe that the position of defenders and the goalie are factors too - that’s why the ‘bending’ is so useful.)
He’s not doing the math in his head from scratch every time, no, I think you’re probably right about that. (Though even if he could, he’d still need to practice and train to get his muscles and nerves to do exactly what the math dictated.) But I really doubt that someone like that is working entirely off of practice, trial and error either. There’s some kind of decision-making that’s going on in his head when he’s about to make a kick, I believe, and at some level that does come down to physics calculation.
Of course, the fact that he can do that sort of thing instinctively on the field doesn’t mean that he knows the answer to six times nine, when it’s asked him in numbers. He’s devoted aspects of his brain to math in a different way than most of them, and that probably means they’re virtually useless without a soccer ball to work with.
(Apologies to Douglas Adams’ speculative essay “Music and fractal landscapes”, found in Dirk Gently, from which a lot of the ideas in this post were taken.)
Hey, why should I have to cite if you don’t? This is MPSIMS, not GD. 
I’m just touting the viewpoint that what’s actually going on in Beckham’s head is an unarticulated sense of feeling what it’s like to swing his leg and flex his ankle so as to put boot to ball with the same amount of impact, undercut and side-spin as the last hundred or so times he practiced sticking the ball into the net from a distance and angle that looked much like this, when he may well have had something standing in for a defensive wall and have been aiming for either one side of the goal or other according to where he pictured the 'keeper.
The mere fact that a robot would have to work it out with differential equations doesn’t mean that Beckham did; or, indeed, that a robot would have to if it were capable of spending hundreds of hours practicing, observing, and building a library of its efforts.
I don’t think I do any mathematics in my own head to compute the frequency of musical sounds or tempo; but I can hum the opening bars of Haydn’s trumpet concerto just before you start playback, and it’ll be at the same pitch and speed. That’s just because I’ve played and listened to a lot of music.
How to get rich:
- Find David Beckham.
- Ask him if he will give you two twenties for a ten.
- Repeat.
I’m willing to wager a cup of coffee (I’m buying if you’re in the neighborhood) that many an American athlete would come across the same way.
Sure, there are professional athelets who have graduated college with degrees in engineering or whathaveyou, but like someone upthread said–Beckham’s who he is because of his prowess at the game-which frankly I doubt has anything to do with math skills, even at a first grade level. It most likely has alot to do with proprioception, muscle memory and eye/foot coordination.
I think there is probably a fascinating discussion to be had about the natural physics of athletic ability (on a related note, I gave my son a book on the physics of Harry Potter for Christmas). My concern is that Beckham’s ego and “star” status (he’s a world class celebrity! :rolleyes: ) precludes any judgement on his part of just how stupid he sounds when he says stuff like this. And Posh, too, btw. Lord, give me Ginger or Sporty any day…
I can do that sort of thing too, but there are no unkown variables in doing so. When you are on the field of play during a game, you aren’t just doing what you have practiced, because it is impossible to practice for every situation. Some of what you do is from repetition in practice, and some is natural reaction to the current situation.
I don’t think he is knowingly doing any calculations, but I think it is possible that his brain is doing some sort of calculating before he makes his move.
It would be similar to a baseball player catching a fly ball in the outfield. How do they know where to go? Is it due to the fact that they have caught every possible hit? Wind conditions, air pressure, speed, height, and so on all play a role in where the ball goes. The pros can be in the right spot in a matter of seconds, just waiting in the spot where the ball eventually lands. They may not be knowingly calculating trig. functions in their head, but it would seem that it is happening in some fashion.
Er, no, I’m pretty sure no professional footballers have ever had an empire.
I’ll just add in that when I’m talking about ‘instinctively’ doing math, I’m talking about on a level where you aren’t consciously aware of any of the numbers or relations involved. You see what’s around you and react accordingly… possibly not even being aware of making any decision, but there is mental activity going on that’s not simply recalling from memory.
You probably don’t need to do instinctive math to hum Haydn’s trumpet concerto. Adams would have it that you do carry out instinctive math when you appreciate its beauty, and I think I agree with that.
And, Mal, sorry if I gave the impression that I was demanding or requiring a cite out of you - was just curious. Of course viewpoints and opinions are allowed here, and that’s all I was meaning to contribute myself.
You can tell that the World Cup’s coming up… all the tabloids have dusted off their ‘fake-sheik’ costumes and started their smear campaigns. First Sven was the target, now it’s Beckham.
Who cares if he can’t do his son’s maths homework, he kicks a ball for a living. If the UK ever faces any kind of maths-based national emergency we’ll just have to be sure not to pick him to sort it out.
Also, he’s man enough to talk about it - he knows he’s a bloody good footballer, and he’s happy to accept he’s not a genius. Are we supposed to believe he’s the only innumerate footballer?
Now I don’t feel bad about not remembering how to do the long division that they teach 10 year olds.
Beckham’s is not totally stupid - he was recently pleased to be able to finish a puzzle in only 2 months despite it saying 3 - 5 years on the box.
It really should be “different(ly) from”, since one thing differs from another; however, “different(ly) than” has become so well entrenched that it’s probably nearly standard now, if not actually standard.