one divided by none just isn't fucking done

The BBQ Pit
1

Okay listen up family.

You smoke, your poor and you can’t seem to get your shit together to get your own running car. You’re my family and I love you, but you made some really god damn bad decisions in life. But it’s you’re life, just as my life is mine. I don’t smoke, I have a car, and I’m trying to make something of myself.

However you’re making that last item a royal bitch sometimes. See what I’m working towards requires math. Which isn’t coming easy which means I need to study on the weekends when I have time, not run your car-less selves all over creation.

I don’t mind helping you out. I enjoy it, but I need time for my stuff too.

While I’m at it. What the hell is up with up math? It just seems to be an endless serious of steps with not one god damn logical explanation why this or that works. Both algebra classes have been series of steps. Seldom do I get thrown a bone and explained why something works. I need those explanations, otherwise it just blends into a mind numbing ball of steps that don’t mean anything.

It’s like trying to learn to drive from someone who doesn’t tell why you should stop for a red light, just gives you tables for deceleration rates at specific distances for stopping.

I’m tired and cranky and I don’t think I’ll be getting to sleep until after 2 am, 3 hours from now.

What really pisses me off too is the way it’s presented. Occasionally the clouds part and I see an intuitive glimpse into how algebra works and it’s elegant and wonderful. Then I get drug back to the fog of arcane voodoo steps written in what sub vocalizes to a monotone Ben Stein voice.

Why can’t this stuff be written with passion and personality? Even the sentences seem designed to depersonalize and sterilize what hints to be a beautiful thing. Why would you plaster over marble?

It would make my decade if just once I read a sentence in my algebra textbook that did not include the word “thus”, but did include the phrase “here’s where it gets really cool”, or even better “I don’t mean to gush about this function but”. The math logic won’t be anymore wrong if you add word play, or even enjoy it, honest.

I’d like to sleep tonight. So back to the algebraic plaster dungeon of Ben Stein I go.

2

If you haven’t yet discovered the Khan Academy I suggest you check it out.

3

I have worked in industrial testing laboratories, done paperwork on Space Shuttles and stealth bombers, I have installed home theater systems, and done delivery work for a radio station. I have farmed soybeans and driven a big diesel truck. I have gelded hogs and marched in civil rights demonstrations. I have worked pro bono for the ACLU, and restored graves for Mormon pioneers.
I can assure everyone, to an absolute moral certainty, their is NO SUCH THING AS ALGEBRA IN REAL LIFE !

Thank you.

:eek:

4

Tao, set limits. It’s a pain, and can be hard to do, but you have to do it. I can’t come over till 4 on saturday, just can’t do it, no, I don’t have to justify my reasons why.

Heyoka 13 that is not consistent with my experience. I use algebraic equations, usually simple ones but occasionally bigger, on a regular basis at work and am glad to have the ability.

5

I use algebra all the time. I have $80. It’s $10 at the door, $6 a drink, two drink minimum and $25 a lap dance.

10+6b+25c=100
10+6x2+25c=100
22+25c=100
25c=78

I get three lap dances and have $3 left over!

6

I have marched in a band during football halftime and I have wired a house. I have pumped out flooded basements and assembled and entire roomful of Ikea furniture. I have painted abstract painting in acrylic pigment on glass and been an acolyte at church. I have made iron pyrite in a soup can over a campfire from iron filings and sulfur powder. I have replaced the battery in a Tom Tom GPS, and given my cat a pedicure.

And I still insist, in real life, there ain’t no such thin’ as algebra.

It is my opinion, and it is very true.:smiley:

7

But I ain’t never seen . . . .

an elephant fly!

8

Maybe not in real life, but I found algebra to be very helpful when playing D&D. The DM’s formula for determining just when death occurred, for instance, had several variables as well as a few constants.

The DM was an engineer, and he considered -10 to be too simplistic.

9

Those Space Shuttles and stealth bombers weren’t designed without a shitload of tougher differential equations than I know how to pin down, even if you weren’t involved at a high enough level to be aware of them. Besides, how would we ever prove that x[sup]n[/sup] - x is divisible by n if n is prime, if it weren’t for algebra?

10

This statement holds true if, and only if, engineers don’t have a real life when they’re working. Because algebra is a rather important tool in engineering calculations

Now, thinking that over, there may just be something to it… :dubious:

11

I agree that math is usually taught horribly. However, I don’t know what you want, precisely: More applications or more theory? Since others have provided applications, I’ll go into theory.

Algebra is the study of structure; in particular, the structure of operations and relations. The algebra you’re apparently learning now is the study of the structure of real number arithmetic. This is powerful to the extent it allows you to derive statements that are true for all real numbers. You can find aesthetic beauty in the notion of axiomatic truth, and you can use it to move on in the mathematical world. The usual progression from algebra is to calculus (of a specific kind), which is, depending on how you look at it, either the study of the behavior of functions or the study of variation (differential calculus) and accumulation (integral calculus), bound together by an elegant fundamental theorem. This is the very soul of Newtonian physics.

You don’t need to go into calculus (very far), even though calculus is usually where a college decides to teach undergrads how to think mathematically and create proofs and so on. There’s plenty of mathematics beyond algebra other than calculus, such as formal logic, graph theory, combinatorics, and set theory. They’re all practically useful, depending on what you do, but they’re also fun.

Heyoka13: In real life, there ain’t no such thing as a verb, either. All language, math and English included, is abstract to some degree in order to be useful.

12

No tip? Tightwad.

13

You aren’t just learning “math”, you are learning a whole new language AND a whole new way of thinking about problems. Of course it’s hard.

This is true. We don’t see the hours, days and weeks of drudgery an artist puts into his works, we get to see the final beauty and maybe say “I could have done that!” With math, the beauty is there, the artwork exists, you just have to do the drudgery of learning how to see it, like building a work of art in your mind. Plus, being good at math doesn’t mean you’re a stimulating teacher, sadly.

14

How did you get the dancers to freelance for you in the parking lot? And you dropped two dollars somewhere.

15

My high school calculus teacher was fond of saying, “My students never fail calculus. (pause) They fail algebra first.”

Meaning, of course, that calculus is impossible without algebra. And although I know there was an undercurrent of humor in those “There’s no algebra in real life” comments, we couldn’t have this exchange of ideas right now, in this way, without the support of people who knew higher maths designing the hardware and applications that are making it happen.

I was a math major for two years before I switched my major to CS, and I don’t feel any of those classes were a mistake. I wish I had mastered partial differential equations, not because my future career ended up needing that skill, but because I am firmly convinced that partial differential equations separate us from the other primates.

That, and the feces throwing thing.

16

Bravo. May I use this as my signature?

17

I’ll give up the ability to do one or another, but I aint giving up both!

18

Of course!

19

Yay~

20

As a nurse who formerly worked in a dementia ward (and had to take math upgrading to go to nursing school) it works on so many levels.