Is Algebra necessary?

General Discussion
441

I like this thread. Most people don’t do shit in this thread and talk as if they know what we need. I’m sorry, nobody posting here is changing the world with their algebra knowledge, and you know what? That’s okay. For the every day person; those skills aren’t necessary. I see the value, but I don’t see the necessity. For everything thinking China and India are filled with so many “Intelligent” individuals, what are you basing this off of? Stereotypes? Because I know people from China, who live in China, and they aren’t exactly superior in intelligence. Have you seen Indian people? The one’s I’ve encountered haven’t been too bright. Like with any ethnicity you’re going to have a majority of “dullards” then you will have people if “intellect.”

Economists and people who deal with money directly are the reasons other countries are on the rise. The value of education is the value for every day people. Your average engineer isn’t changing the world. He’s just keeping it going.

That’s what people don’t understand. Very few actually control what happens. You and I don’t. We just keep the world going. We hope to change the world. If we don’t, someone will. Your obtained knowledge doesn’t change that you’re doing nothing. Neither am I, regardless of how intelligent or dumb we may be.

I like what was stated before how some kids can’t even fucking READ. READING is the most fundamental skill and we have people who can barely do that. I was astounded to find out that most kids in my high school had some problem with reading at some point. This is a school that is nationally recognized as a school of excellence.I thought everyone else was like me and was able to pick things up and comprehend what I was reading on paper. Most people can’t. It’s ridiculous.

442

Speak for yourself.

443

I was taking darts off a dartboard one time when a friend of mine threw one at the wall and scared me.

He was still closer to the bullseye than whatever the hell that wall of text was supposed to say.

444

maybe you should stick to being a full time dumb shit.

445

So you criticize other people for talking as if they know what people should do … and then follow it up by talking as if you know what people should do. That’s textbook hypocrisy.

I’m beginning to see why you are doing nothing.

446

I’ve taken and passed Algebra 101 & 102, and Statistics. Since then my skills have rusted and i can’t do any of that anymore. However, its for a reason as the majority of that crap simply is not needed for every day life.

I know the term “every day life” seems to be thrown around a lot in this thread but its for good reason lol.

One would be hard pressed to find themselves in a situation that absolutely hinges on their ability to create & plug-in an Algebra equation. Otherwise there are other, simplified ways of doing stuff.

447

So becasue its not used every day, nor is it usually encountered it should not be teached.

Good bye

Anatomy, Biology, Chemistry, Physics, non Arithmetic math, English, HIstory, Logic, Ethics

448

It’s not that I disagree with you, but you’re 100% wrong on this. As much as I’m liking Algebra right now, the education system can be very flawed.

Something like this

Spoiler

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-yQcdOz0FOCY/T-wliuT4LaI/AAAAAAAAAo8/TXAUp3ebSR4/s1600/climb%20that%20tree%20education.jpg

449

^ That picture doesn’t really apply to standardized testing…

All students are capable of completing a test and all students are capable of passing a test… all a teacher has to do is teach students how to pass a test…

It’s sad that it has to be that way but still…

450

Oh, it’s not? Fuck.

451

I’m on it. The source is from my wife, so I have to bug her while I search for it later today. She’s a big advocate for public education and this is her thing, especially the retarded kids part.

452

Never said it should not be teached. Just that is it not of much use in everyday circumstances.

Farewell :sunglasses:

453

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

454

It isn’t that it you can’t use it, just people don’t ever see the situations they can use it.

455

never said you did. I just extended your logic to everything else to show you how bad said logic is.

456

This idea has already been mentioned several times, but I will mention it again…

I got this particular example from http://scientopia.org/blogs/goodmath/

My wife and I bought our first house back in 1997. Two years later, the interest rate had gone down by a substantial amount, so we wanted to refinance. We had a choice between two refinance plans: one had an interest rate 1/4% lower, but required pre-paying of 2% of the principal in a special lump interest payment. Which mortgage should we have taken?

The answer is, it depends on how long we planned to own the house. The idea is that we needed to figure out when the amount of money saved by the lower interest rate would exceed the 2% pre-payment.

How do you figure that out?

Well, the amortization equation describing the mortgage is:

http://www.texify.com/img/\LARGE\!m%20%3D%20p%20\frac{i(i%2B1)^2}{(i%2B1)^n%20-%201}.gif

Where:

m is the monthly payment on the mortgage.
p is the amount of money being borrowed on the loan.
i is the interest rate per payment period.
n is the number of payments.

Using that equation, we can see the monthly payment. If we calculate that for both mortgages, we get two values, m_1 and m_2. Now, how many months before it pays off? If D is the amount of the pre-payment to get the lower interest rate, then

http://www.texify.com/img/\LARGE\!D%20%3D%20k(m_2%20-%20m_1).gif

, where k is the number of months - so it would take

http://www.texify.com/img/\LARGE\!k%3D\frac{D}{m_2%20-%20m_1}.gif

months. It happened that for us, k worked out to around 60 - that is, about 5 years. We did make the pre-payment. (And that was a mistake; we didn’t stay in that house as long as we’d planned.)

Yes, they weren’t in the house for as long as they had originally planned, but that doesn’t mean that everybody else who used this equation won’t save money in the long run.

Another obvious one is gas. If m is the mileage your vehicle gets per gallon, then there is a simple relation between the price of a gallon of gas and the distance you want to travel d.

d = mx

where x is the number of gallons of gas you buy. It should be obvious then that the number of gallons you should buy is d/m

If gas prices unexpectedly shoot up 30 cents before you got a chance to get gas for that weekend trip, why would you buy more than d/m gallons of gas when it takes less than 5 seconds to divide two numbers into a calculator? You’d be paying more than you would need to.

If you’re cooking food and you want to make enough for x number of people, you set up proportions on each of the corresponding ingredients and solve for the proportionate amount.

I really don’t beleive that the “common” person won’t find algebra to be useful in every day life as much as the “common” person simply doesn’t understand algebra beyond “a bunch of examples I memorized for a test I had to pass.” If that is what you did, or if that is how it was taught to you, then you really got the short end of the stick on that one. It’s like trying to understand the concept of a forest by memorizing the position of each individual tree. As soon as you encounter another forest, you won’t recognize it as a forest because it’s not exactly like the tree structure you memorized. Getting an A in algebra class is meaningless if you walk away from that class not being able to apply the material. If that is what you did to get by, then it is no wonder to me that you are saying the things you are saying.

457

Any time you need add something up, you’re using algebra without even knowing it.

A = B + C.

End thread.

458

It’s funny to think, if I’m not mistaken our current recession is due to people taking out loans on houses that they couldn’t afford and then getting forclosed. Basic math skills would have allowed them to realize this, algebra could have saved America!

459

It isn’t the only reason for our recession, but yes it was a major force in causing the economies demise.

Funny how simple math could have helped a lot of people stay out of default.

460

Well, it might have something to do with the banks giving the loans out, knowing full well what would happen, but whatever. Those poor, stupid people are always taking advantage of banks and ruining our economies.

I’m no expert and would love to be educated more on this though. I know it’s not so black and white.