The cake is a lie. Pi is forever.

maharetr:

naamahdarling:

jackpowerx:

scientiststhesis:

dr-archeville:

8bitstickmod:

nightguardmod:

songoharotto:

fabricated-amity:

my entire math life

This is basically the problem with the entire modern educational system.

Time to do unpopular opinion? Time to do unpopular opinion.

Balancing a checkbook is applied addition and subtraction, stuff of the third grade. Okay, yeah, it is a failure of the modern educational system if he hasn’t learned it by now.

Imaginary numbers interact with real numbers (1, 2, π, 1.5, etc) for complex numbers, and are useful if you want to get into engineering or science — you know, high paying jobs.

Remember Tomb Raider? How they make her turn? Quaternions, which use THREE sets of imaginary numbers.

Like how your cell phone gets reception? That requires resonance, the understanding of which can be aided by complex numbers.

And don’t even get me started in the more exotic physics like fluid dynamics or quantum mechanics. That is, the forefront of how planes fly and how computer chips work.

There’s this term, innumeracy, that is to math what illiteracy is to english. One thing that bugs me is when ignorance is paraded about, when one acts as if math is an optional knowledge. Doubly so when it’s the very thing holding them back.

The failure is not in teaching these things, but the lack of teaching about why we should care about these things.

Thank you maths side of tumblr

The failure is not in teaching these things, but the lack of teaching about why we should care about these things.

Come to think of it, that’s applicable to how a lot of subjects are taught.

But I’m afraid maths gets the worst of it, really. I mean, how often have you heard people complaining about history? Social sciences? Even chemistry, which is more specialised than maths? No, maths gets the worst of it by far, and everyone demonises it because no one ever tells them that maths is a language, and a quite difficult one at that, because it’s the language of the Universe (of god, if you will).

Not only that, but it’s also the only language that’s truly universal (we’re certain aliens will arrive at the same maths we have) and that can truly explain everything that’s in principle conceivable. Human language can describe the stuff we see, and some extrapolations we imagine; maths can describe everything that is, was, will be, has never been, and could ever be.

Everything is maths.

ALL OF THIS!!!!!!

I like a lot of this, though some of it is not so great. But this:

“No, maths gets the worst of it by far, and everyone demonises it because no one ever tells them that maths is a language, and a quite difficult one at that,”

Yup. I am pretty sure that if one single fucking person had listened to me and understood that math was really goddamn hard for me even in first grade I would not have been so fucking negative and hateful about it the entire time I was in school and for years after. It was something I had to do, nobody told me why, and when I couldn’t do it, nobody slowed down and helped me figure out how. It was sink or swim. I sank, and that was my fault, according to them.

And then they made like I was being stupid going into art and writing because I was “so smart” I should be able to do anything. And yet, years later, anything beyond basic arithmetic was and is mostly irrelevant to what I do, I have made no effort to retain what I learned that I do not use, and that’s fine.

I don’t think people should be proud of innumeracy, I think that’s pretty stupid, and I think a lot of people probably do it because they’re douchebags, but I do think that some (not all but some) of those people act like buttholes about it because they got dragged through the same shit I did, and the fact that in most cases they have not once been called upon to use anything beyond basic math comes as a vindication after years of being basically poked with sharp math sticks and told they are bad, bad dogs for not being able to understand it the way it is taught. They were treated like shit, and they are lashing out.

See, I’m pretty goddamn sure that dyscalculia is a very real thing, because I am pretty sure I have it. I have a mini panic surge every time I have to recite my social security number because I constantly transpose the numbers. I can only remember my phone number because it has a rhythm to it. I can’t reliably remember birthdays if they’re past the 12th of the month unless they fall on a multiple of 5, or in January, March, April, or any month between but not including June and October. If I were faking, I would not be faking something that stupid and specific. And I’m not proud of it. (Nor am I ashamed.)

I am pretty sure that a shit-ton of kids would be much happier and doing much better in math if dyscalculia was a thing that teachers would admit exists and isn’t just the result of being a lazy little shit.

I LIKED math when I was able to understand it, because it was like magic. It was putting all these tiny things into place and making them work and turning them into bigger things, or it was breaking big things down into tiny things, it was bringing order from something nonsensical, like flattening out the kinks in the universe WITH MY MIIIIIND. What algebra I could learn was a beautiful balancing act, back and forth. Not an art, which is subjective and personal, but something precise and measurable and consistent, and the same for every person.

I understood and still do understand the appeal of math. I just required about four times longer to learn it than other kids, and there was no time and no room for that, because education (in the USA, at least) is basically a Play-Doh Fun Factory with a pit full of lies about there being jobs on the other side. So I failed algebra twice. Instead of helping me, they just made me do it again the same way, and I failed again. I only passed because my teacher had mercy on me and gave me a D- on my final, instead of an F.

And, parting shot, math can describe things, it is a concrete and unchanging language with literally limitless capacity for expression without ambiguity or the possibility of being misunderstood. And that is … it cannot even be miraculous, because it is so common. It’s fundamental. And it can be amazing. When I learned about fractals, when I learned about the Fibonacci sequence, that shit blew my fucking mind.

But it cannot bring meaning to everyone’s life (some people, maybe, not not all). That’s where art, writing, dance, etc. comes in for many people. We need both. Science to explain why things are, art to give things human meaning. For me, science is why I am alive. Art is what gives me a reason to live. Those things are inextricably entwined, and equally important, and there literally cannot be one without the other. You describe it with numbers, I describe it with words. Neither one is wrong.

Disrespecting and dismissing either one as useless or stupid is kind of a dick move.

Disrespecting people who crap on what you do by saying it’s stupid and doesn’t matter (math or art), or people who call you stupid because things are hard for you and why can’t you just, that is completely understandable. I support all y’all math nerds in that, 100%.

Queueing this so I can se it again when I have more brain

(via stepchildofthesun)

Source: dermit

The cake is a lie. Pi is forever.

Just your average geek/grad student trying to survive the jungle that is school, work, and life in general while plotting a global takeover.

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