Poll: Lack of basic mathmatical skills

excalipoor

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Jan 16, 2011
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Division and multiplication are equal in priority, as are addition and subtraction. Forget all about those silly mnemonics.

I design RPGs for kicks, which includes making loads of formulas. It's not rocket science or anything, but doing it wrong makes things not work.
 

loc978

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Sep 18, 2010
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I don't use even basic algebra on a daily basis, however I do remember most of my mathematics schooling up through trigonometry... but I don't judge people for not remembering the order of operations (which is what it was called in my day. No pansy little acronyms for me).

It's the lack of basic arithmetic that I find disturbing. Even Dirty Harry needed to use that stuff.
 

Bat Vader

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Mar 11, 2009
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I can do pretty easy algebra but when I have to start figuring out the longer answers with the letters and the parenthesis my mind tends to go blank. Considering I am a dishwasher at a retirement home math isn't that important where I work.

Math has never been my strong suit. It doesn't help that none of my teachers really took the time to educate me on the subject. Sure, they would help me figure out an answer to a problem but they would never actually help me to understand the problem.

Reading is my strong suit. Give me a thousand page book and I will have it done within a few days and will memorize the characters, the plot, and whatever else I feel was important in the book.
 

VladG

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Aug 24, 2010
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DoPo said:
Well, division is multiplication by the reciprocal. I'm not entirely sure when the order of the two would matter that much. I'm pretty sure you can switch subtraction/addition around and it would still give you the same result.
You can, simply view subtraction as addition with a negative number.

OT

I'm very comfortable with these basics, and I find it strange that some people can make it through school without being. Even forgetting them seems half impossible, and I've forgotten so much math it's silly, but these are just too fundamental. I mean this is like 2nd-3rd grade stuff and EVERYTHING you do afterwards uses these rules to some extent.

Here I think it's pretty much impossible to get past 4th grade without knowing this stuff.

I've often though people get those strings of operations wrong because they don't pay attention (and they do play on that), not because they don't know how to do them.
 

twistedmic

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Sep 8, 2009
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I can do simple and slightly advanced math (up to percentages, fractions long division and multiplication) but not anything from algebra onwards.
Most of it I can do in my head, I can easily figure out how much a ten percent discount will knock off my purchases and what I'd have to pay in sales tax (nine percent where I live) without busting out a calculator or pen and paper. And I can calculate what my gross pay (before taxes) using pen and paper.
 

Xdeser2

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Aug 11, 2012
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I understand that Math is an extremly important subject, and is required for an advanced, intellectual society to continue to grow, and innovate.

But Fucking hell, Algebra 2 is my Kryptonite 0_o
 

MorganL4

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May 1, 2008
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Its actually kind of sad, I was never bad at math, I'm still not, I don't claim to be the fastest at it or best, for that matter. However, I have just finished a 2 year degree in IT and am working on making that a 4 year degree, and so my math skills since 2010 have been focused on the numbers 1 and 0. I have reached the point where translating 10101101110011 into binary or hex, is a no brainier, but doing problems that involve the 10 base ( normal math) system have started to make me pause, and I have to actually have to stop and think before solving something like 43x61. I can still do it, but it takes longer than it did back in Jr High or High School.
 

Aaron Sylvester

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Jul 1, 2012
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Network Engineer here, almost never use anything more than the most basic math (+-x/).

I chose to pursue math to study both Calculus and Statistics back in school, but in hindsight it was a MASSIVE waste of time and effort. My english literature classes were drastically more relevant and helpful to my job as a Engineer, my punctuation/grammar are almost flawless and I can at least use some fancy words.

For most occupations, anything further than on-the-fly calculations (add/sub/mul/div) is a MASSIVE waste of time.

Even while doing my Engineering degree (IT Network major) I was required to do a maths paper which covered shit like advanced trig, algebra and calculus. Oh GOD.
At one point I almost felt like walking up to my program director at one point and yelling "why the fuck do I have to do this? I'M 100% sure I'll never use this rubbish in my whole career, I have to waste hours and hours solving these stupid problems dealing with imaginary numbers and solving for X, hours which I could instead be spending learning about firewalls/routers or playing some fucking Skyrim?".
I suppose the same could be said about my electronics paper, nothing I learned about transistors/capacitors/resistors apply to my field, but hey atleast we got to explode shit and the math made some applicable sense.

And FYI to those "unsure" whether their job will involve math or not, it is fairly easy to learn. You just need to work hard, it's quite satisfying when your brain finally "clicks" and understands the theory/method. You can reach university-level Calc/Stats in just a few months if you try, it's just a matter of understanding and practicing lots of problems (and I mean LOTS).
 

Mikeyfell

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Aug 24, 2010
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Woot for engineers!

I can do differential calculus in my head, but I can't add or subtract without using my fingers or multiply or divide without paper and pencil... or a calculator... I'm dumb... but really good at math.
 

Rednog

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I went up to and finished Calculus 2.
And all I have to say is...it was a huge fucking waste of time.
I honestly don't think I could even begin to try and use any of it since the last higher math class I took was 6+ years ago.
Seriously a significant chunk of us will never use anything past the basics in day to day life. Hell even though math comes up regularly in my job (I work in a clinical lab) it's all stat based and computers do the calculations for you. My only job is to know how to interpret the results computer spits out in the form of graphs/data.
 

Loonyyy

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Jul 10, 2009
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Convoluted maths is really not the same as a lack of skill. It's an exercise in patience, trying to spot the size twelve multiplication or minus sign in the middle of a dozen additions. It's a trick, that's all. Writing things in stupid ways to confuse people is stupid. I remember someone showed that sort of thing to one of my maths professors. He was just flabbergasted. He said something along the lines of "It doesn't matter whether or not people can answer it, you look stupid for asking it like that." It's like writing in 1337speak.
 

PatrickXD

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Aug 13, 2009
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I'm pretty good at maths, and I won't let a B grade at A level tell me otherwise! I need maths for the course I'm going to study at uni, which has a strong engineering aspect to it.
 

Rabid Toilet

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Mar 23, 2008
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Mikeyfell said:
Woot for engineers!

I can do differential calculus in my head, but I can't add or subtract without using my fingers or multiply or divide without paper and pencil... or a calculator... I'm dumb... but really good at math.
I'm an engineer and pretty darn good at math, and I still need to bust out the calculator for basic arithmetic sometimes.

It's not very often that I get a problem where I'm asked to do something simple like 9*27. It's always 3.592*12.735 or 34^(2/9). I guess I'm just out of practice, so I always plug the simple stuff into a calculator just to be sure I did it right, while doing all the hard calculus stuff in my head or by hand.
 

tensorproduct

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Jun 30, 2011
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barbzilla said:
Lately I have been noticing a disturbing trend on Facebook. People post simple math problems, and others will post the answer. The issue being that usually 60% or more of the people commenting get these problems wrong.

The order of Operations dictates what order you should follow when calculating a string of basic function math (I.E. 1+5*5-7/1*9). Many people on Facebook are doing the problem from left to right, and this is just not the correct way to do math. When you get a multiple function math problem you follow the Order of Operations to ensure you end up at an accurate number.

The Order of Operations is P.E.M.D.A.S.
Parenthesis
Exponents
Multiplication
Division
Addition
Subtraction

An easy way to remember the order is with the phrase Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally (I thought everyone was taught this in elementary school). By doing your math in this order you will ensure an accurate result, and we can all rest a bit easier knowing that our country will at least be able to balance their checkbooks.

To encourage discussion what is your highest level of Mathematical knowledge, and how do you use it in your job/hobby/every day life?
I use maths so often, and have done for so long, that order of operations is deeply ingrained into my brain. I don't remember ever learning a mnemonic for the order of operations, I was just drilled with so many problems and examples that it became second nature.

The thing is, when you go on a bit further it becomes obvious how arbitrary this notation is. Evaluating the expression (1 + 3 * 2 ^ 4 - 5) could conceivably lead to answers of 4091 (evaluating left to right), 2.5 (evaluating right to left), or 44 (PEMDAS).

Trying to write a computer program that can evaluate arbitrary arithmetic expressions reveals just how much human intuition goes into applying what seems like a simple series of rules. It's far from impossible, but difficult enough that many computer scientists will use prefix notation. This is harder to parse for people, but far easier for a computer as it contains far fewer ambiguities. The formula above would be written in Lisp as (- (+ 1 (* 3 (^ 2 4))) 5). Evaluating between each parenthesis pair leads to consistent, easily verifiable results.

PEMDAS is essentially a linguistic convention. So long as we all use the same convention, we will all get consistent results. I wonder if some of the people who struggle with learning and applying it simply have a problem with the arbitrariness of the whole thing. If they come up with a consistent model of how to apply the operations, then they are 99% there, they will just need to learn to use the same notation as everybody else.
 

Rabid Toilet

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Mar 23, 2008
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Rednog said:
I went up to and finished Calculus 2.
And all I have to say is...it was a huge fucking waste of time.
I honestly don't think I could even begin to try and use any of it since the last higher math class I took was 6+ years ago.
Seriously a significant chunk of us will never use anything past the basics in day to day life. Hell even though math comes up regularly in my job (I work in a clinical lab) it's all stat based and computers do the calculations for you. My only job is to know how to interpret the results computer spits out in the form of graphs/data.
If you're working with graphs, I'd say calculus would actually be helpful. Sure, you wouldn't need to be able to actually do the math, but knowing the basic concepts of differential and integral calculus would help you interpret the data.

A lot of calculus has to do with graphs and data, and understanding the basics of it helps you understand what's going on behind all the numbers.
 

mrhappy1489

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May 12, 2011
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The Heavenator said:
T0ad 0f Truth said:
Don't give up! Even Einstein was pretty shit at the maths :)
Expect that's a myth, Einstein was very good at math. To quote him when he was shown an article making those claims: ?I never failed in mathematics, before I was fifteen I had mastered differential and integral calculus.?
Who's dumb enough to believe that, he was a physicist, maths is a large percentage of what he would be doing, he could not have been bad at it.
 

seule

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Jul 21, 2008
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In my 3rd year of a mathematics degree with education. There's a lot of fun to be had in math, sadly most people teaching it seem to pass on their hatred of it to their students, which is sad :(
 

madwarper

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Mar 17, 2011
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poiumty said:
DoPo said:
Well, division is multiplication by the reciprocal. I'm not entirely sure when the order of the two would matter that much. I'm pretty sure you can switch subtraction/addition around and it would still give you the same result.
Not at all. 7/1*9 can either be 7*9 or 7/9 which are totally different.
No, it can't. The difference is that you tried to add Parenthesis/Brackets to the equation that didn't exist in the original notation.

7/1*9 =/= 7/(1*9)