This is dumb. Just because you don't use logarithms doesn't mean you never use deduction or process of elimination. Math is not solely about the numbers. The process is far more beneficial in many disciplines.
You're also technically using them if you merely play games. Edit: You also use cos when making or viewing a jpg, so the author of the meme did in-fact use at least cos on that day.
It's also a day without using anything he learned in art, or geography, or chemistry, or English literature, or history, or pretty much anything he studied in school after age 10. Why does math get singled out?
Because math is abstract and difficult to relate to. We should be taught practical applications of the abstract concepts, and the exam questions should be more practical.
yeah i think most of us were taught by people who didn't "understand" math either, so we don't really get what it is that we're doing, we just memorize the process to get the numbers to match, which isnt fun at all. I had a very difficult time in school with math.
When i was reintroduced to math functions as an electrician (and an adult) and the numbersoup actually described tactile, real world connections i had a much more fun time learning them.
The biggest thing I learned from math was training yourself to think and problem solve. To always want to learn the next level of whatever you were learning, whether it's math English or whatever.
I don't think I've ever used much math knowledge in my life ... but it gave me the ability and enthusiasm of wanting to always want to solve a problem no matter how complex it was.
The reason why they're abstract and difficult to relate to is because we're all being taught maths backwards.
In science, a phenomenon is observed and then maths is used to create a set of equations describe it's behaviour. Then using the equations, other experiments can be designed to prove other hypothesises. This is known as the experimentalist approach to science.
Engineering is the same but less research and more application focused. For example, I need to design a wooden shelf that is A inches/meters long and supports B lb/kg of weight. How do I do that? Using trigonometry and Newtonian physics to work out the dimensions.
Finance is often used for basic algebra and calculus.
However, it is not always helpful to work in the material when using mathematics and the abstract is preferred. This is usually only useful for the theoretical approach in science, in theoretical mathematics, or at the cutting edge of engineering disciplines.
If we were taught by being presented with a problem first, I think it would make it easier to make the leap into the abstract when required for other applications. And on top of this, it would make it much easier for the majority who only ever need to use mathematics as a tool.
I think it's because some types of math are kind of all or nothing, either you know it or you don't. If you recall half of what you learned in history you have some usable knowledge.
I literally, 30 seconds ago, used sin^-1() to calculate the angle for a roof I need to make for my indoor greenhouse, so the asshole cats don't fall through the cheap plastic
I had a maths teacher who upon being asked, whats the point in maths? Or whenever he heard I'm not going to use this in the rest of my life! Would break into a ten minute speech.
You have to study maths because what it is at it's core is just doing the same thing over and over again with slight variations. -more waffle I can't remember- and after school you will go off to some job where you do the same thing over and over again where you will spend the next 60 years of your life. And then you die.
If you ever have to cut a bit of wood to act as a diagonal brace it's pretty useful to whip out the old tan. So I've used this every time I built a gate.
That's four times in the last decade, so not exactly daily but I'm glad I knew how to do it or my gates would have sucked.
I was trying to figure out a problem the other day and realized that if I still remembered how to implement some sort of mathematical concept I learned back in high school I would've been able to do it. Made me want to call up a friend and say something like "it finally happened!"
I always yearned to understand a practical reason to learn calculus. My teacher at college was a German woman that spoke English with a thick accent.
Her joy for the course seemed self-evident, but she failed to ever share a real-world reason or application for what we were trying to learn.
45 years later,I still haven’t used what I “learned”, or ever came to understand why we did.
I always yearned to understand a practical reason to learn calculus.
I use my understanding of second and third derivatives and the risks and how they affect the likelihood of black swan events - to choose (strongly influence) who loses when playing a game of "Liars Dice". So there is that, I guess.
On a more serious note, lots of things in personal finance are a bit easier to understand with a functional understanding of derivatives and integrals. It's not critical, but it makes stuff like the compounding time effect of interest more accessible, I think.
Edit: If I could change one thing about pubic schools, I think everyone should get a chance to take stats or probability for free. It helps so much with so many areas of life.
Calculus is how I think about physics, and specifically used in almost every way I physically interact with the world. When thinking about whether to accelerate to pass someone, be it walking or driving, that's calculus.
It's the highest level of that math that comes intuitively to me, and I suspect that's why I think in it. I suspect smarter people than me go through life intuitively thinking of everything in higher forms of math.
If you listened to music, your phone used them about a billion times. ... well, not exactly since more efficient algorithms than full perfect computation exist, but...
Same for GPS, cell signal processing, camera functions... They're all over the place. Taking that picture required it.
Like I said: more efficient algorithms have been figured out. That doesn't mean those equations are magically meaningless or not involved conceptually. Trigonometry is everywhere, doing important things.