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Now that we have a new thread, in order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a complete and thorough read before posting! NOTE: When providing a source, please provide a very brief summary on what it's about and what purpose it adds to the discussion. The supporting statement should clearly explain why the subject is relevant and needs to be discussed. Please follow this rule especially for tweets.
Your supporting statement should always come BEFORE you provide the source.If you have any questions, comments, concern, or feedback regarding the USPMT, then please use this thread: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/website-feedback/510156-us-politics-thread |
On June 24 2018 03:14 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On June 24 2018 03:06 micronesia wrote:
The cheap shot at the American education system was not warranted. If Kwark thinks Americans are bad at math because of their education system I'll happily enter a math-off with him. Regardless, please don't let the derail continue. The DofEd is perfectly capable of defending itself without you. With time and effort I'm sure that one day they will achieve a perfect 1% in basic literacy and numeracy among the American public.
Are we attempting to have a legitimate conversation about math education in the United States, or are we just poking fun at the occasional math error?
Asking for a friend.
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We can't have a legitimate conversation about math education in the US because it will be seen as a cheap shot at the American education system that isn't not warranted by at least 1% person.
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It's scary how many people I've gone out with that aced calculus but struggle to calculate a tip. I was recently out with a material engineer grad that actually just gave up trying and used an app. Something tells me the frequency of our math issues go deeper than just the education. Decimals into percentages and fractions are notorious areas. "I don't do fractions" is something I heard every year in math class from 3rd grade till high school.
In other news, it looks like BBQ Becky has a new friend, Permit Patty
I swear I see some story about a kid selling stuff in their front yard so their family member isn't left to die by the US healthcare system, or raise money for cops or whatever and it's celebrated. Black kid in the Bay sells some water, better get the police here ASAP!
She sells weed for dogs (and people) for a living btw. She is the epitome of what's wrong with commercial cannabis.
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I hope to god that the owner of the Red Hen comes out and says Sarah Sanders’ actions are contrary to her sincerely held religious beliefs.
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On June 24 2018 05:29 GreenHorizons wrote:
It's scary how many people I've gone out with that aced calculus but struggle to calculate a tip. I was recently out with a material engineer grad that actually just gave up trying and used an app. Something tells me the frequency of our math issues go deeper than just the education. Decimals into percentages and fractions are notorious areas. "I don't do fractions" is something I heard every year in math class from 3rd grade till high school.
But to be honest, 15% of something is not the easiest calculation to do in your head. You can't just divide by something like if it were 20% or 10%, instead you basically need to divide by 100 (ok, easy), and then multiply by 15, and that, while possible, still takes some effort. Someone who is in any sort of STEM field should be able to do that at least roughly with a bit of rounding, though.
With regards to fractions, i also notice this a lot. This is definitively not a uniquely american problem, nor is it a new one. The big difficulty is that you need to actually understand how fractions work for them to become useful, and you can often just dodge having to learn that by using a calculator. Furthermore, fractions are often not seen as "actual" numbers, so even if fractions lead to an easier calculation, the students still find it necessary to convert the result into a decimal. At which point it is often easier for them to just do decimal calculations at the start. This is enhanced by the fact that a lot of adults don't use fractions for anything noteworthy, and that calculators often default to giving a decimal as an answer. (Modern ones don't do this as much, though). So for a lot of students, fractions are this very artificial thing that is only used in math in school. And they think that a rounded decimal is a much better answer then an exact fraction, because fractions to them are not actual numbers and thus can never be the result of a calculation.
And they can get away with never learning to use fractions because outside of the explicit education in fractions, teachers usually don't care if they get the correct answer as a decimal or as a fraction. This, however, leads to great problems once the students have to do fractional calculations with variables involved. The operations are exactly the same as when doing fractions involving numbers, but if the students never learned to do those, they basically stand no chance. Also, fractions are very useful when multiplying them, but students need to actually be able to understand how to use them correctly for this to be useful, so if they missed out on that, they just do stuff in a much harder way (or let their calculator do it instead)
With regards to the decimal into percentage problem, you can see the case where something is widely used, but often poorly understood. Percentages are something that people use daily, but often don't actually understand what it means. Once you understand what the percent sign means (1/100) and what the decimal point means, those problems evaporate. But since they are often used without understanding, people get into problems because to them changing from decimal to percentage is just a completely arbitrary operation, and arbitrary stuff that you don't use often is easily misremembered.
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On June 24 2018 06:13 Simberto wrote:Show nested quote +On June 24 2018 05:29 GreenHorizons wrote:
It's scary how many people I've gone out with that aced calculus but struggle to calculate a tip. I was recently out with a material engineer grad that actually just gave up trying and used an app. Something tells me the frequency of our math issues go deeper than just the education. Decimals into percentages and fractions are notorious areas. "I don't do fractions" is something I heard every year in math class from 3rd grade till high school.
But to be honest, 15% of something is not the easiest calculation to do in your head. You can't just divide by something like if it were 20% or 10%, instead you basically need to divide by 100 (ok, easy), and then multiply by 15, and that, while possible, still takes some effort. Someone who is in any sort of STEM field should be able to do that at least roughly with a bit of rounding, though. With regards to fractions, i also notice this a lot. This is definitively not a uniquely american problem, nor is it a new one. The big difficulty is that you need to actually understand how fractions work for them to become useful, and you can often just dodge having to learn that by using a calculator. Furthermore, fractions are often not seen as "actual" numbers, so even if fractions lead to an easier calculation, the students still find it necessary to convert the result into a decimal. At which point it is often easier for them to just do decimal calculations at the start. This is enhanced by the fact that a lot of adults don't use fractions for anything noteworthy, and that calculators often default to giving a decimal as an answer. (Modern ones don't do this as much, though). So for a lot of students, fractions are this very artificial thing that is only used in math in school. And they think that a rounded decimal is a much better answer then an exact fraction, because fractions to them are not actual numbers and thus can never be the result of a calculation. And they can get away with never learning to use fractions because outside of the explicit education in fractions, teachers usually don't care if they get the correct answer as a decimal or as a fraction. This, however, leads to great problems once the students have to do fractional calculations with variables involved. The operations are exactly the same as when doing fractions involving numbers, but if the students never learned to do those, they basically stand no chance. Also, fractions are very useful when multiplying them, but students need to actually be able to understand how to use them correctly for this to be useful, so if they missed out on that, they just do stuff in a much harder way (or let their calculator do it instead) With regards to the decimal into percentage problem, you can see the case where something is widely used, but often poorly understood. Percentages are something that people use daily, but often don't actually understand what it means. Once you understand what the percent sign means (1/100) and what the decimal point means, those problems evaporate. But since they are often used without understanding, people get into problems because to them changing from decimal to percentage is just a completely arbitrary operation, and arbitrary stuff that you don't use often is easily misremembered.
I just find out what 10% is and add half of that.
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United States42262 Posts
On June 24 2018 04:25 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Show nested quote +On June 24 2018 03:14 KwarK wrote:On June 24 2018 03:06 micronesia wrote:
The cheap shot at the American education system was not warranted. If Kwark thinks Americans are bad at math because of their education system I'll happily enter a math-off with him. Regardless, please don't let the derail continue. The DofEd is perfectly capable of defending itself without you. With time and effort I'm sure that one day they will achieve a perfect 1% in basic literacy and numeracy among the American public. Are we attempting to have a legitimate conversation about math education in the United States, or are we just poking fun at the occasional math error? Asking for a friend.
No. I suspect that math education in the US is much like education in the rest of the world. Hugely variable on region, economic circumstances, background, and just plain luck. I was not attempting to make a broad argument about the US education system as a whole based upon a single datapoint of a guy posting on team liquid. If anyone thought that was my intention, and that the argument required refuting, well, that just shows how dire the state of education in the US is.
/s (included for my colonial readers)
Apologies for any confusion. I assumed the inherent absurdity of my post would make the tone clear to all readers.
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i think you can get a good math education any where that has internet access.
On June 24 2018 05:29 GreenHorizons wrote:
It's scary how many people I've gone out with that aced calculus but struggle to calculate a tip. I was recently out with a material engineer grad that actually just gave up trying and used an app. Something tells me the frequency of our math issues go deeper than just the education.
calculating a tip is arithmetic. so anyone knows how to compute 10% of something. do that. then cut whatever that # is in half. add those 2 #s together. there is ur 15% tip.
from age 14 to 19 i worked a great many retail jobs. retailers want their employees lousy at basic arithmetic so its easier to catch them stealing. the elite level retail rip off artists i met through my 6 year retail career were all great at basic arithmetic. Fedex-Kinkos was an absolute gold mine. Doing colour prints for guys. Charging B/W prices in the cash register... while simultaneously telling the customer the colour price. Then pocketing the difference.
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United States42262 Posts
On June 24 2018 06:16 JimmyJRaynor wrote:
i think you can get a good math education any where that has internet access.
This is true and really cool. The democratization of knowledge is probably the best thing to come out of the internet. YouTube videos on literally everything.
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On June 24 2018 06:21 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On June 24 2018 06:16 JimmyJRaynor wrote:
i think you can get a good math education any where that has internet access. This is true and really cool. The democratization of knowledge is probably the best thing to come out of the internet. YouTube videos on literally everything. It requires actively wanting to learn, which is a problem for many suffering from a education deficit in the first place.
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Yes, you can get a good anything education anywhere that has internet access. But actively seeking out that education is something only few people do. There is a difference between the theoretically possible education that someone actively interested in it seeks out, and the average education in the population which is based mostly on semi-actively participating in school. A good education system tries to also maximize the second instead of going "Well, if you really wanted, you could have learned this on the internet"
Futhermore, learning stuff on the internet has big disadvantages when compared to learning at school, mostly that you need to curate the stuff which you want to learn for yourself. Which is pretty hard, because usually to actually be able to identify a) the stuff you actually need to know, and b) the places which are best capable of teaching that information without leaving out crucial details and giving only a superficial understanding or cognitively overloading the students, you need to understand both the subject and your students pretty well. Teachers and education boards try their best at this curation, and while they sometimes fail, it is still a lot harder to actually effectively learn a subject from the internet.
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United States42262 Posts
I needed to use a new accounting tool last week and hadn’t been trained on it, and nor had anyone else in the office. I immediately found a YouTube video of a guy talking me through how to do the exact thing I needed to do on the obscure tool, step by step. What I learned was worth thousands of dollars imo, back in the day that would have been restricted to a guild, and even a decade ago it would have been training seminars etc.
We’re most the way to being able to download skills like the Matrix. If someone asks “can you do this?” for a vast majority of things I can reply “no, but I will be able to soon”.
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On June 23 2018 18:41 Howie_Dewitt wrote:Show nested quote +On June 23 2018 14:49 Introvert wrote:On June 23 2018 14:06 Aquanim wrote:
Introvert, can you clarify whether you are claiming "immigration" or "illegal immigration" is a factor in Democrat strategy? I'm sensing some confusion between the two. When they all get amnesty it won't matter. On June 23 2018 14:06 GreenHorizons wrote:On June 23 2018 13:48 Introvert wrote:On June 23 2018 13:24 GreenHorizons wrote:On June 23 2018 13:18 Introvert wrote:On June 23 2018 13:12 GreenHorizons wrote:
I for one have a long list of laws I think should be ignored, and view many of the laws themselves as an affront to justice. Ignoring them is the righteous thing to do imo.
Also I'm nbever sure if people who make the "but the law" argument are sincere or using it rhetorically. I mean laws get ignored all day every day countless times. It's the reason the freeways aren't just lines of people waiting for tickets.
On the "more Dem voters" that only makes sense in people's heads. First you have to abandon any hope that these traditionally conservative people can be won by the conservative party, After that the numbers just don't add up.
If Democrats imagine their immigration policy as any way a ploy to turn "illegal immigrants" into Dem voters they are failing miserably at both getting immigrants into the country and getting their votes and they always have been.
I honestly don't get how after about 30 seconds people don't realize how foolish the "Dems do it for more illegal immigrant voters" argument is? There's a lot here, but don't forget that an illegal alien who had a kid gives birth to a citizen. That alone increases the numbers. You do agree that immigration is part of Democratic national strategy? With less illegal immigrants and lower birthrates, we're on a decline of these voters over a decade. I mean they are failing so miserably at it being a remotely productive vote source you may be right that it is part of the Democratic national strategy. It's just a horribly ineffective strategy if it were working and it's not even working. Plus the whole conservatives abandoning any hope at winning those kids you describe as if it's not because conservative politics are garbo rather than the kid being part of an elaborate multi-generational vote getting conspiracy. The whole thing sounds completely ridiculous to me after any thinking about it. Every time this comes up I feel like I should just sense that there's gas-lighting going on and just leave it. It's talked about endlessly: things like "when will Texas/NC/Georgia/CO/etc. turn blue?" Whole papers are written would and will happen given demographic changes in the next election cycle and beyond. I don't generally bookmark things in this thread, but we've had people talk gleefully about how the GOP can't win for much longer, etc. The in-house discussion on immigration between conservatives is... complex to say the least. For the purpose of this thread we don't have to get that far, we can stick the outrageous position of Democrats on things like Trump's super generous DACA offer that was rejected as bigoted by people like Nancy Pelosi, or how apparently Congress doesn't have to step in to stop Nazism. I'm supposed to play dumb. "babies can't vote!" No, but the WILL be able to, and if the Democrats succeed in mass amnesty, they'll take that 60-40 split every time. 60% of 12 million is a lot better than 60% of 0. I mean for someone who seems in tune with Democrat strategy (and highly critical) I'm surprised you don't see this. Plansix's absurd retort is less newsworthy. I mean, wasn't Sanders less keen on immigration (being the kinda left-wing nationalist he is), but had to back down? Unless I'm supposed to believe that all this talk of immigration and how it hurts the GOP and helps the Democrats is some sort of weird, friendly banter? And of course, we finally have the (in)action of Congressional democrats. Massive amnesty, with as little enforcement as possible. To think that the Democratic party doesn't want sustained immigration because of votes is naive to the point of absurdity. Democrats say and do a lot of stupid things. Thinking Demographics are going to carry them to victory is one of them. I mean the GOP is an increasingly white party, but it turns out white women sided with Republicans despite Trump being the most openly appalling person (specifically his behavior toward women) they've ever been asked to vote for. Given the choice between the most politically established white woman to ever run and the most disgusting, lying, piece of talking hot garbage and white women picked the pile of hot garbage. If Democrats think Republicans treating a group like trash is enough to make them vote Democrat they've got another thing coming. Additionally, legal immigrants tend to poll in favor of more strict enforcement. So you have half of Democrats already on your side, legal immigrants, and Republicans. But 20 years from now Democrats may get a majority of the kids of the illegal immigrants if they even vote. This whole thing sounds absolutely absurd and foolish on top of just not even working. I mean turning away all those potential "anchor babies" wasn't very helpful of Obama (who's notably left of his party [see the fights with Hillary]) to this conspiracy for votes. Finally I don't believe for a second in the "mass amnesty" boogieman. Democrats (the politicians) don't actually want that and wouldn't use political capital on it even if they did. They much more prefer the looming threat of peril to motivate the people who can already vote. Democrats go just as far out of their way sometimes to prevent people from voting. They've even dramatically reduced voter registration drives on college campuses out of fear the people they're registering are to their left and would vote Sanders or not at all. Democrats love this fight, and all they have to do to keep it going is be slightly less inhumane than Republicans and then they can wait for the votes to roll in to stave off the more horrific future offered by Republicans. That's how you have half of Democrats wanting to lock up what are essentially refugees. Ok, now I see your perspective a little better. Listen, the debate about immigrants and that they aren't all far left bernie-bros or whatever is one of those in-house discussions I was talking about. There are all sorts of things to be said for future immigrants becoming wealthy and more assimilated (thus trending GOP) or having such large and sustained waves of immigration that assimilation and integration are slow and/or incomplete (prob indicating continued Democrat voter trends). But in either case it's clear that the strategy of the Democrat party is one of importing more voters. I think the Democrat party isn't as scared of losing leverage, the leverage they would gain from millions more voters is enormous. I think what stopped them when they had all those votes in 2009 (and what stopped amnesty when Bush tried it) is that amnesty without security is unpopular. it's unpopular among native born, and, as you mentioned, among foreign born citizens it doesn't fare as well as one might assume. The simple fact is that the immediate electoral backlash to their ideas would be devastating. It's also why they didn't pass any gun control in 2009-2010. They need enough cover. And they can afford to wait because they think it will work out (they still think and write this way). The American people, as I said, are simply not in favor of amnesty without security. Also, moving towards nationalized healthcare has been THE left-wing dream for decades. That's what they wanted to do with their new found power. They got punished for that, too. I'm not sure if my view is more or less cynical than yours, but it's certainly true that, even as the status quo goes on today, they see themselves as benefiting from it, even if they can only use the immigrants as props (think "concentration camps"). Edit: and so we are this point today, where the progressive activists are louder and louder about immigration, and how illegal immigrants should get all sorts of perks, that border control is bad, etc, etc. The upper floors of the party must decide what is worse... refusing the acknowledge the activists in their own party, or moving too far to the left on this issue? I think that many of the correctly see that moving too far on this issue puts Trump closer to the "average American" (a phrase I hate) than they are. However, it would appear that the future 2020 contenders already know what they think, for the most part. I would hope that the Democrats simply want to import more people from other countries to increase our population and keep our country younger (in terms of average age) and more productive to concentrate and solidify the economic power of the United States when its most competitive rival's population dwarfs its own. Surely, some of them must know that immigrants are a net benefit to the people in this country in the long run. However, the levels of ineptitude and obliviousness that the Democratic establishment has shown leads me to believe that they may actually view immigrants as essentially guaranteed Democratic party voters. As much as I dislike the Republican party, it's very difficult to not see the Democratic establishment as willing to take the side of immigrants for some nebulous political power play. However, introvert, you seem to have skipped over GH's point that the Democrats will do the minimum in securing the votes of immigrants because they believe that the immigrants are likely to vote for them anyway. It's just like why they throw some empty platitudes towards African-Americans, without actually letting them speak up through traditional routes. They can do that because the Republican party's view on race is so atrocious that all the blacks can do in the short term is to vote Democrat, which hurts a bit less. They vote 90% Dem or some ridiculous number because they're forced to by your party's positions. In other words, I agree with your conclusion, but the idea that they want amnesty is misguided due to your observation of Democrats pandering to immigrants. I think that they only care about immigrants enough to do what they are doing now, and amnesty is more than they feel obligated to give to immigrants for becoming their voters through the elimination of the Republican party as a safe voting option for them. TL,DR: they don't actually care enough about the immigrants to want amnesty for real. Edit: the Dem establishment never ceases to provide me with new disappointing choices that they make.
What the Democrats (or any party) do for constituencies after they have their vote is different. But you need their votes first.
On June 23 2018 20:25 Liquid`Drone wrote:Show nested quote +On June 23 2018 13:18 Introvert wrote:On June 23 2018 13:12 GreenHorizons wrote:
I for one have a long list of laws I think should be ignored, and view many of the laws themselves as an affront to justice. Ignoring them is the righteous thing to do imo.
Also I'm nbever sure if people who make the "but the law" argument are sincere or using it rhetorically. I mean laws get ignored all day every day countless times. It's the reason the freeways aren't just lines of people waiting for tickets.
On the "more Dem voters" that only makes sense in people's heads. First you have to abandon any hope that these traditionally conservative people can be won by the conservative party, After that the numbers just don't add up.
If Democrats imagine their immigration policy as any way a ploy to turn "illegal immigrants" into Dem voters they are failing miserably at both getting immigrants into the country and getting their votes and they always have been.
I honestly don't get how after about 30 seconds people don't realize how foolish the "Dems do it for more illegal immigrant voters" argument is? There's a lot here, but don't forget that an illegal alien who had a kid gives birth to a citizen. That alone increases the numbers. You do agree that immigration is part of Democratic national strategy? Yeah sorry, I think you're normally perfectly reasonable (even though I disagree with your opinions) but to me this is 'kinda deranged conspiracy' theory. Democrats do not want more immigrants because of political gains 20 years from now, the reasoning is 100% grounded in the combination of the belief that accepting immigrants/asylum seekers is the morally right thing to do coupled with the experience that their lives are not affected in any significantly detrimental way. I think the anti-elitist anti-immigration argument has some validity to it. (Basically, elites live in areas where they are exposed to cultural (and even economic) benefits of immigration without being negatively influenced by locally increased crime rates/ghettofication, poorer people see their neighborhood rapidly change in a way that is not entirely positive. At least in Europe this seems to be the case for most countries with significant immigration). But the 'importing voters' argument isn't grounded in reality. I've had a lot of political contact with a lot of leftists, including more 'clandestine' topics, like how to 'frame the message', 'which opinions we should voice in public' (people who consider themselves communists not being willing to state that publicly, for example). Never, not once, ever, has anyone been even remotely close to arguing that we should accept more immigrants because it's politically beneficial on a long term scale. (And immigrants vote for leftist parties in Norway, too, even if it's less polarized than in the US). It's 100% an invented motivation. I've seen you make this argument several times before and really wish you'd realize that you're just wrong here. People saying that 'states are gonna turn blue' aren't saying 'this is why we support immigration', they're simply attempting to predict future voting results based on demographic changes. It's a piece of political analysis, not a political argument.
I'm going to be a little short here so that you can pick any specific part of what I say and focus down on that, if you wish.
First, I'm not sure where people are pulling "20 year master plan" from. The Democrats have moved left on this issue over the past two decades, and moving especially fast over the last 10 years. I hope that much is obvious. I do acknowledge Democrats didn't always used to be this way, not all of them. I've been talking about what they say today i.e., the years and/or days surrounding this one. There's a lot of history here, from the NIA of 1965 to the 1986 Reagan amnesty, but I didn't make reference to either of those two things.
Don't even go all the way and say that Democrats want to "import voters" just adopt the line used by those having the debate on the left: that the combination of a left-moving base and the rise of activist immigration groups are pushing the party that way. But don't say they aren't considering it electorally.
Or, you could even concede that the status quo benefits one party at the expense of the other and how useful that fact is in explaining the behavior of Congressional Democrats.
Today there is a lot of talk among Democrats about their "coalition." How they moved away from the blue collar Ohio voter and towards the urban areas and minorities. I think many lefties you would talk to actually believe the things they say. Do realize here I'm primarily indicting the top ranks of a political party. As I've already said, the opinion of the citizenry is fairly consistent: a pathway to citizenship for those with more roots here, a more merit based immigration system, and control of the border.
I'm more understanding of Europeans who think this couldn't possibly be the case. It's far less understandable for Americans who keep track of politics, who talk about changing demographics, who constantly wonder if a growing Hispanic population is going to flip a state, to pretend that a political party doesn't consider its electoral future when debating its stance on immigration. It used to divide both parties, not any more.
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Does anyone know a good place to learn maths online?
I've always had good mental arithmetic, but I can't even do math at the level of your average 16 year old. Its frustrating cos I want to learn physics but all the maths puts me off.
Sorry for the OT post.
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On June 24 2018 06:34 KwarK wrote:
I needed to use a new accounting tool last week and hadn’t been trained on it, and nor had anyone else in the office. I immediately found a YouTube video of a guy talking me through how to do the exact thing I needed to do on the obscure tool, step by step. What I learned was worth thousands of dollars imo, back in the day that would have been restricted to a guild, and even a decade ago it would have been training seminars etc.
We’re most the way to being able to download skills like the Matrix. If someone asks “can you do this?” for a vast majority of things I can reply “no, but I will be able to soon”.
I've been able to maintain 2+ million dollars worth of 1994 Foxpro For DOS 2.6 applications for my clients due to the amazing people in the Foxpro community who've put their knowledge out there for anyone who can log into levelextreme.com
That happens to be the #1 resource for Foxpro and Visual Foxpro.
one of these applications generates $5 million per week in invoices for medical patients. its not going any where. a big reason i landed this customer is that i swallowed hard.. held my breath and agreed to maintain this 20 year old database application.
in 2000 it would have been impossible for someone to maintain a piece of software made in 1980 unless they had specific experience in that era.
For example, anything made for the MPE-XL Operating System running on an HP 3000. I could not touch that with a 10 foot pole. I'd never even dare try. Whereas, I was pumping out Foxpro and Visual Foxpro executables after a couple of days.
extremely fascinating how being a knowledge worker has evolved in the past 20 years.
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On June 24 2018 06:38 Jockmcplop wrote:
Does anyone know a good place to learn maths online?
I've always had good mental arithmetic, but I can't even do math at the level of your average 16 year old. Its frustrating cos I want to learn physics but all the maths puts me off.
Sorry for the OT post.
Are you talking about learning maths to do physics, or learning maths to learn maths? There is a gigantic difference between the two. Physics maths is a lot more focused on solving problems in a specific subset of conditions that coincide with how stuff works in our real world. Maths maths is a lot more like solving very complex riddles, with a large focus on general cases and figuring out all possible problems with an approach. Physics maths is a lot more focused on solving a bunch of complicated integrals and usually doesn't care under what circumstances an approach works, as long as it works. Maths maths is a lot more focused on proving that stuff is true, while physics maths just uses the stuff that is proven to be true.
Edit: Or are you talking about school maths, which is a lot like physics maths, but easier and even less focused on understanding very precisely what what you are doing actually means.
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On June 24 2018 06:14 Gahlo wrote:Show nested quote +On June 24 2018 06:13 Simberto wrote:On June 24 2018 05:29 GreenHorizons wrote:
It's scary how many people I've gone out with that aced calculus but struggle to calculate a tip. I was recently out with a material engineer grad that actually just gave up trying and used an app. Something tells me the frequency of our math issues go deeper than just the education. Decimals into percentages and fractions are notorious areas. "I don't do fractions" is something I heard every year in math class from 3rd grade till high school.
But to be honest, 15% of something is not the easiest calculation to do in your head. You can't just divide by something like if it were 20% or 10%, instead you basically need to divide by 100 (ok, easy), and then multiply by 15, and that, while possible, still takes some effort. Someone who is in any sort of STEM field should be able to do that at least roughly with a bit of rounding, though. With regards to fractions, i also notice this a lot. This is definitively not a uniquely american problem, nor is it a new one. The big difficulty is that you need to actually understand how fractions work for them to become useful, and you can often just dodge having to learn that by using a calculator. Furthermore, fractions are often not seen as "actual" numbers, so even if fractions lead to an easier calculation, the students still find it necessary to convert the result into a decimal. At which point it is often easier for them to just do decimal calculations at the start. This is enhanced by the fact that a lot of adults don't use fractions for anything noteworthy, and that calculators often default to giving a decimal as an answer. (Modern ones don't do this as much, though). So for a lot of students, fractions are this very artificial thing that is only used in math in school. And they think that a rounded decimal is a much better answer then an exact fraction, because fractions to them are not actual numbers and thus can never be the result of a calculation. And they can get away with never learning to use fractions because outside of the explicit education in fractions, teachers usually don't care if they get the correct answer as a decimal or as a fraction. This, however, leads to great problems once the students have to do fractional calculations with variables involved. The operations are exactly the same as when doing fractions involving numbers, but if the students never learned to do those, they basically stand no chance. Also, fractions are very useful when multiplying them, but students need to actually be able to understand how to use them correctly for this to be useful, so if they missed out on that, they just do stuff in a much harder way (or let their calculator do it instead) With regards to the decimal into percentage problem, you can see the case where something is widely used, but often poorly understood. Percentages are something that people use daily, but often don't actually understand what it means. Once you understand what the percent sign means (1/100) and what the decimal point means, those problems evaporate. But since they are often used without understanding, people get into problems because to them changing from decimal to percentage is just a completely arbitrary operation, and arbitrary stuff that you don't use often is easily misremembered. I just find out what 10% is and add half of that.
It's wild that people do it any other way but more power to them lol.
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On June 24 2018 06:38 Jockmcplop wrote:
Does anyone know a good place to learn maths online?
I've always had good mental arithmetic, but I can't even do math at the level of your average 16 year old. Its frustrating cos I want to learn physics but all the maths puts me off.
Sorry for the OT post.
most education systems "teach" a series of memorized procedures and call these memorized procedures: "math". that is a crap way to learn math. the best way to learn math is to fully understand it.
you must truly understand every aspect of the math concepts and ideas at "Grade X" before ever moving on to "Grade (X+1)"
so if you do not understand grade 9 math completely. down to the core essence of its meaning. do not move on to grade 10. keep asking questions about the grade 9 material until it becomes almost axiomatic in your mind. then move on to grade 10 material.
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On June 24 2018 06:59 JimmyJRaynor wrote:Show nested quote +On June 24 2018 06:38 Jockmcplop wrote:
Does anyone know a good place to learn maths online?
I've always had good mental arithmetic, but I can't even do math at the level of your average 16 year old. Its frustrating cos I want to learn physics but all the maths puts me off.
Sorry for the OT post. most education systems "teach" a series of memorized procedures and call these memorized procedures: "math". that is a crap way to learn math. the best way to learn math is to fully understand it. you must truly understand every aspect of the math concepts and ideas at "Grade X" before ever moving on to "Grade (X+1)" so if you do not understand grade 9 math completely. down to the core essence of its meaning. do not move on to grade 10. keep asking questions about the grade 9 material until it becomes almost axiomatic in your mind. then move on to grade 10 material.
I understand this is a popular way of thinking, but I happen to disagree based on a personal anecdote. I had trouble understanding most of the maths I learned from High School and up, and only survived by memorizing formulas and procedures. I still did that up until and including the last year of College. Then I happen to come across a friend of mine who had taken up high school as an adult, and wanted me to help her with her maths. I immediately understood everything she was struggling to learn and even found it easy.
Just doing a bunch of maths naturally helps you learn and understand it over time, even if you have no real clue about what's going on while you're working on them.
But I'm not going to pretend everyone should learn like this, just as I don't expect your solution to be the one correct one. Everyone learns best in different ways.
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You can learn maths through memorization. It is in exhausting and tiresome process.
You can also learn maths through understanding. The first step is to realize that what is not important is to solve the problem ahead of you right now. What you need to do is try to understand it more thoroughly. Try to find the underlying patterns, not the specific use algorithm. The problem with doing that in school is that you have an exam every few weeks, and memorization helps you to deal with that exam in the short term, while making understanding harder in the long term.
The main thing necessary to understand maths is that if you feel the need to memorize a complex algorithm, you have probably missed the point of what people try to teach you.
A problem with this is that your brain tries to prevent you from doing that. Deep thinking and understanding use a lot of calories, so your brain tries to find an easy way to skimp on that thinking and save calories. Fight your brain. It is stupid. You save a lot of effort and energy in the long term if you don't learn maths through memorization, and it has the added benefit of not making you completely bored out of your mind and hating maths.
Edit: Also, skip excuses like "I am not a maths person" "No one in my family was good at maths" "I never liked maths anyways". Those are all ways of your brain to try to trick you into not spending calories on thinking.
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EPT
