Do you like maths? (2 Viewers)

[lyounamu]

Re: 回复: Do you like maths?

Please explain.

Also, I noticed that you did not put 'Indices' in bold. Does that mean you agree with mean that the skills learnt in this topic cannot be applied to everyday life?

Of course, not everyone (Certainly not someone like me atm) will come across using all those skills. But if you go to area of sciences, architecture, finance, commerce, engineer, or whatever you will constantly use those skills.

 

[Schoey93]

maths is good because theres not much to learn and remember.

Edit:
I suppose that's true. You don't have to memorise content, but there a lot of skills you have to learn and remember. You also have to memorise some formulas.

Compared to other subjects, yes, you don't have to memorise much for maths.

 

[lyounamu]

That's not really true. You don't have to memorise content, but there a lot of skills you have to learn and remember. You also have to memorise some formulas.

Yes, it is quite largely true. If you do some dry subjects where you MUST rely on your memory, yes you do.

And most subjects like Business Studies, Economics, Chemistry and all these subjects have these stuff to memorise. And for English, you have to memorise great extent of your pre-written essays to achieve high marks (usually).

For maths, there aren't much to memorise. I would rather memorise all formulas from maths than some random contents from textbooks. It's far much easier in maths.

 

[Schoey93]

Re: 回复: Do you like maths?

Of course, not everyone (Certainly not someone like me atm) will come across using all those skills. But if you go to area of sciences, architecture, finance, commerce, engineer, or whatever you will constantly use those skills.

Yes, I see what you mean. It's just hard to imagine how you would use skills such as simplifying surds, simplifying algebraic expressions or solving algebraic equations in the fields you mentioned. Edit: I can think of some ways you'd use these skills - if you were to build something, you'd have to measure materials and do calculations to ensure you achieved the desired look. If you work in the field of finance, then you would have to make several calculations. Maybe the skills to do with algebra you learn would be useful in the areas of building or engineering and finance.

The maths teacher I had last year said that the questions we answered were often contrived. He said, for some topics, there are not really any practical applications of what we were doing, but we had to learn the skills so that we could build on them later on in High School.

 

[lyounamu]

Re: 回复: Do you like maths?

Yes, I see what you mean. It's just hard to imagine how you would use skills such as simplifying surds, simplifying algebraic expressions or solving algebraic equations in the fields you mentioned.

The maths teacher I had last year said that the questions we answered were often contrived. He said, for some topics, there are not really any practical applications of what we were doing, but we had to learn the skills so that we could build on them later on in High School.

You def need those skills to do well in calculus. And calculus is very important topic in maths. It's used by tonnes of industries because it's just a very useful tool for many.

 

[Schoey93]

Re: 回复: Do you like maths?

Lol maths is an awesome subject. easy to get lots of aggregates in it.

plus very logical

What are aggregates? First places?

 

[tommykins]

Re: 回复: Do you like maths?

Please explain.

Also, I noticed that you did not put 'Indices' in bold. Does that mean you agree with mean that the skills learnt in this topic cannot be applied to everyday life?

I didn't put it in bold because i cbf'd finding the exact part where it started, but i was aiming at your entire post.

mathematics is used EVERYWHERE, the computer you're using - the car you're running, the pen you're using, the machinery to create the paper in which you write on.

everything uses math.

 

[Rhanoct]

at times, despite my marks, it was my fave sub

 

[lyounamu]

Re: 回复: Do you like maths?

What are aggregates? First places?

nah, aggregates mean total.

In this context, it means total scaled mark which is out of 500. You need certain "aggregates" for a certain UAI, e.g. 482-483/500 for 100 UAI (roughly around that this year)

 

[Schoey93]

Re: 回复: Do you like maths?

I didn't put it in bold because i cbf'd finding the exact part where it started, but i was aiming at your entire post.

mathematics is used EVERYWHERE, the computer you're using - the car you're running, the pen you're using, the machinery to create the paper in which you write on.

everything uses math.

You don't need to understand the math that helps a piece of machinery to work to use that machine. However, I see what you mean. I can appreciate the value of mathematics. Mathematics drives advances in technology - in that way it is very useful. I was just saying that as an individual you don't need to understand advanced mathematics to survive in life. We survived for thousands of years without math, after all. We don't really need machines, they just make life easier. It's easy to become lazy when a machine can do a job for you, though.

 

[Timothy.Siu]

lots of practical applications of calculus e.g.

from 01 hsc math paper
lol...

part ii)

 

[lyounamu]

lots of practical applications of calculus e.g.

from 01 hsc math paper
lol...

part ii)

lol,

I can see the image of someone calculating it before going out to catch the bus.

But seriously, I would have preferred that type of question over the shitty one we got in 2008.

 

[Iruka]

Peoples,

Read this. Its been floating around on the internet for quite a while, but I only read it for the first time last week. It is rather long (25pp), but I'd like to know what you think of it.

http://www.maa.org/devlin/LockhartsLament.pdf

 

[lyounamu]

Every single word of that work by Lockhart touched me.

I guess I am the perfect example who perceived HSC maths to be the "true" maths...when I look back at what I have learnt this year, I don't think I solved question through thinking on an abstract level. I barely delved into the question, merely solved the question one by one hoping to understand.

In my opinion, there is hardly any space in hsc maths for students to provide any innovative way to come about solving the problem except the 4 unit mats which seems to reinforce that notion in some ways.

HSC is too dry and even maths relies on progressive memory. And that's the problem with maths such as general, 2 unit and 3 unit...

I personally like this abstract:

Now let me be clear about what I’m objecting to. It’s not about formulas, or memorizing interesting facts. That’s fine in context, and has its place just as learning a vocabulary does— it helps you to create richer, more nuanced works of art. But it’s not the ​

fact that triangles take up half their box that matters. What matters is the beautiful idea of chopping it with the line, and
how that might inspire other beautiful ideas and lead to creative breakthroughs in other problems— something a mere statement of fact can never give you.​

 

[Timothy.Siu]

"Many a graduate student has come to grief when they discover, after a decade of being told they were “good at math,” that in fact they have no real mathematical talent and are just very good at following directions. Math is not about following directions, it’s about making new directions."

lol probably me too

"Give your students a good problem, let them struggle and get frustrated. See what they come up with.
Wait until they are dying for an idea, then give them some technique. But not too much."


i agree with most of that article, but this
"Now I’m not saying that math teachers need to be professional mathematicians— far from it.
But shouldn’t they at least understand what mathematics is, be good at it, and enjoy doing it?"
i rkn my teacher knows about the history of maths and he's good at it and likes it lol

 

[Forbidden.]

回复: Re: Do you like maths?

"Many a graduate student has come to grief when they discover, after a decade of being told they were “good at math,” that in fact they have no real mathematical talent and are just very good at following directions. Math is not about following directions, it’s about making new directions."

lol probably me too

lol solving a Second Order Homogeneous Ordinary Differential Equation is like solving for the roots of a quadratic equation.

 

[dp624]

Peoples,

Read this. Its been floating around on the internet for quite a while, but I only read it for the first time last week. It is rather long (25pp), but I'd like to know what you think of it.

http://www.maa.org/devlin/LockhartsLament.pdf

tl;dr. will read later but

 

[Timothy.Siu]

lol, i read the whole thing, pretty good read, some parts were funny

 

[annabackwards]

Re: 回复: Do you like maths?

*nods* MATHS FTW !!

I concur ^^

 

[Iruka]

Re: 回复: Re: Do you like maths?

lol solving a Second Order Homogeneous Ordinary Differential Equation is like solving for the roots of a quadratic equation.

Yep - even if you solve 'em using Laplace transforms you still get the characteristic polynomial popping out and you need to know how to solve it.

Actually, I am constantly being impressed by just how much you do use what you learn in senior high schools maths later on. e.g., you need to know all about partial fractions if you want to invert a Laplace transform.

I have been learning about Lyapunov functions this weekend (which is a thing that you use when analyzing a dynamical system to show whether an equilibrium point is stable or unstable) - remember all that stuff about positive definite and negative definite quadratics? Well, you need to know that terminology to understand how a Lyapunov function works.