I am dysnumeric. When people around me begin talking about mathematics that’s more complex than arithmetic, they lose me within five minutes. I can do simple algebra and geometry, if you give me a pencil and paper, but not in my head. For trigonometry, I’d need a refresher course before I could do anything with it. Calculus and more advanced math? Fuggedaboutit! It’s like a foreign language.
I stumbled across this thread tonight about infinities. Set theory and all that, which is actually taught in grade-school math courses nowadays. And it’s like reading Russian by the tenth post. I just do not speak that language. It’s a great wave of meaning that’s crashing over me and conveying exactly NO information in the crashing.
It’s kind of a semi-secret source of shame to me…I can remember reading something from The Notebooks of Lazarus Long, the collection of aphorisms that’s tucked in between the chapters of Time Enough For Love. In one of them, Heinlein says something to the effect that any man who cannot perform advanced mathematic calculations is not a human being. That stung and the sting from it has followed me for almost 20 years. The only courses I’ve ever flunked because I simply could not understand the subject matter were calculus courses. Three times in my college career I took calculus, each time hoping to break that wall that I couldn’t get through…and each time disappointed.
So who else is dysnumeric? Make me feel not so stupid, please…
I’ve never been mathmatically-inclined. I hate math. I just don’t get it.
Basic arithmetic and simple geometry are okay, but even basic algebra is beyond me.
Just yesterday, danceswithcats just sent me a video clip of a guy who can square numbers (three and four digit numbers) in his head in seconds, faster than the people on stage with him who had calculators.
I was completely lost.
I can hold my own with basic math and some algebra but anything more advanced and I’m lost. I dread when I have to take college algebra. Luckily, it’s not required for this degree.
I prefer a calculator to do most anything. Like the majority above, I can do the basics, but not much after that. I grew up with calculators in all of my classrooms, so I didn’t memorize multiplication tables or anything. I also flip numbers around like people with dyslexia flip letters.
This is called dyscalculia. Transposing or reversing numbers in a sequence is one symptom – it can also manifest as inability with physical sequences (dance routines, etc).
In many cases, the dyscalculic individual can understand conceptual math, but makes numerous, obvious arithmatical errors.
I have a mild case myself. I enjoyed calculus the most of any math I ever took. It had the least adding!
Throughout high school, I consistently topped the grade in English and came LAST in mathematics. That is, I beat the brainiac English class and lost out to the “special” maths class of Cletuses. Every year. So I guess I qualify.
A shame really, because I am attracted to the beauty of mathematics, especially things like algebra.
Ironically, my job involves the adding up of twenty or thirty two digit numbers, and I am the only person who shuns the calculator because it’s quicker to do it in my head. But those calculator folks leave me for dead when it comes to anything beyond simple addition.
I hated mathematics in school. I’d see the numbers and things, and they’d almost literally swim on the page. My brain shut down to them.
I also did really well in English and hopelessly at Maths (I did, however, manage to get School Certificate Maths, which is something!)
I cannot handle any mathematics more advanced than arithmetic. Like the OP says, Algebra and Calculus et al might as well be in Russian. With Swahili subtitles.
Do I feel this has been a disadvantage to me in any way, shape, or form? No, I don’t. In the same way that not being able to read Etruscan has had zero effect on my everyday life, I’ve never come across a situation where I needed Algebra or Calculus.
All I can say is that I hope whoever invented the pocket calculator got a Knighthood or something similar.
That’s what I have. If you’re giving me a phone number, give it to me one digit at a time, because otherwise I’ll fuck it up. I understand math just fine – 87th %ile on the GRE, three decades ago – but I can’t do it in my head, and even with a paper and pencil I need to go slow and double check everything.
I’m severely math-challenged, but have learned that insisting I’m “too pretty for math” sounds a lot better than, “Wait, you want me to do WHAT with those numbers?!” :smack:
Yes. I am constantly confusing numbers, transposing them, looking at them and not seeing obvious things and patterns that other people can. I make the stupidest, simplest math errors all the time. Sometimes variables in letter form can do the same thing and induce a near state of panic for me.
I made it through calculus, and a year each of chemistry and physics, but taking exams was sheer terror. Part of the reason was time constraints that exams had. I found out (thanks to some very understanding physics professors) that if I was allowed a longer time to take exams, I took more time to think things through and did better on the exams.
I’m another person who can’t handle numbers in my head. I actually did okay with math, got A’s through the second year of Calculus, which is all that my major required.
On the other hand: I cannot remember telephone numbers for the life of me. I have to laboriously convert them to strings of letter-sounds using a system I found in a memory book, then turn the string of letter-sounds into a phrase – and THAT I can easily remember.
All through high school I had the padlocks on both my gym and book lockers just locked uselessly around the handle – I just KNEW I’d never recall the combination under any kind of time stress.
I can’t mentally ‘use’ numbers in a lot of ways. Like, oh, say there was a hole in fence that was 3’ by 5’ and I wanted some plywood to cover it up. And someone said to me, well, I’ve got a 4’ X 8’ piece left over you can have. I would not immediately know if that would serve – I’d have to write the numbers down and visually compare them before I could tell.
I really enjoyed math in school especially it’s application in stuff like physics, it just made sense. Unfortunately I was horrible at math! I could never figure out with all these rules (geometry, algebra, trig, calc) why couldn’t I get it? I was always afraid I’d screw something up. I did pass Calc 1 in college, I really have no clue how cause I’d been failing up until the final.
I’m one of those that gets antsy when I have to leave a tip and wonder if I’ll do the math right…cause I mean everyone else in the world must know math other than me, right? I’m trying to get over my mathphobia but…o well
I must say every other subject in school, I excelled at it’s just math and numbers…we don’t get along and I get easily confused!
I had problems with combo locks too - I’d freak out over numbers! :eek:
I was actually quite good in math in high school (after being bad in it in junior high – it went from my worst subject to my best). But I’ve never been able to calculate things in my head. Given time and no pressure, I can manage it, but it’s difficult. Give me a pencil and paper, though, and it’s a snap.
