Article on how little of math americans use at work

[Meta Reign]

I swear to you. A lot of those "useless" equations from high school are required use as a commercial sheet metal worker.

I used pi x diameter just last Friday to hang some 36" pipe.

 

[L&HH]

I swear to you. A lot of those "useless" equations from high school are required use as a commercial sheet metal worker.

I used pi x diameter just last Friday to hang some 36" pipe.

There's 120 million employed ppl in America and only 142,000 sheet metal workers

 

[IAmGettingAMailOrderBride]

At my job I use a lot of statistics, algebra and a little geometry. Even if you work at burger king you should know basic math, to count change.

What the thing that most people are lacking is critical thinking.

Yeah I think it's about solving problems by oneself

 

[Type Username Here]

numbers are simply symbols, that is why they fall under mathematics

and they are also tools, that you can use in many fields

but learning how to use tools is not the reason why we should teach math, or its not the sole reason, the fundamental reason why math is important is because it teaches how to think, this article is horrible because its perpetuating a view that the value of math comes from how useful it as a a tool in a particular job

even if you never use numbers at your job it is still important to learn math so you can learn how to think

Damn you're digging deep in trench with your argument? No one is denying that mathematics help with logical thinking, but dismissing the importance of numbers is foolish. Aren't you a physicist? Numbers are essential to engineering.

 

[theworldismine13]

Damn you're digging deep in trench with your argument? No one is denying that mathematics help with logical thinking, but dismissing the importance of numbers is foolish. Aren't you a physicist? Numbers are essential to engineering.

I wasn't aware that I was dismissing numbers, I thought I was making the point that math is not defined by numbers, I'm putting numbers in their proper place in the math universe

Math is the study of symbols, patterns and logic, numbers are symbols, it's a subset of symbols at that

Of course people use numbers at work, my point is that the article was using numbers at work as to the reason why we should or shouldn't teach math, IMO you should learn math regardless of whether you use numbers at work

 

[Meta Reign]

I wasn't aware that I was dismissing numbers, I thought I was making the point that math is not defined by numbers, I'm putting numbers in their proper place in the math universe

Math is the study of symbols, patterns and logic, numbers are symbols, it's a subset of symbols at that

Of course people use numbers at work, my point is that the article was using numbers at work as to the reason why we should or shouldn't teach math, IMO you should learn math regardless of whether you use numbers at work

Yea, I just read the article and it's almost trying to make the argument that we should stop teaching complex math in schools or some sh!t. That would be tragic IMO.

But this is the direction education seems to be being pushed by the liberal establishment nowadays. They want to remove any semblance of stringent rigor and grade our children on all things relative. Sad.

 

[Meta Reign]

This has me thinking. From a social engineering standpoint I can see why they would do this (remove hard/logical math from high school). If you want to build a generation whom you can easily manipulate you don't want them to have a brain that holds to logic, instead you want a generation who view everything in a relative sense. "2+2 doesn't necessarily have to equal 4." That's how they want our children to be.

You see logic and ideology go hand in hand, and ideology is the enemy of the establishment because it's rooted in rules and conviction. They want to be able to give you your rules and convinction on a whim.

 

[DANKTHRONE]

I wasn't aware that I was dismissing numbers, I thought I was making the point that math is not defined by numbers, I'm putting numbers in their proper place in the math universe

Math is the study of symbols, patterns and logic, numbers are symbols, it's a subset of symbols at that

Of course people use numbers at work, my point is that the article was using numbers at work as to the reason why we should or shouldn't teach math, IMO you should learn math regardless of whether you use numbers at work

You are just advocating a crude formalism where math is a symbol manipulation game devoid of semantic content. Godel destroyed this program 85 years ago. You don't know wtf you're talking about.

 

[theworldismine13]

You are just advocating a crude formalism where math is a symbol manipulation game devoid of semantic content. Godel destroyed this program 85 years ago. You don't know wtf you're talking about.

Godel has nothing to do with what i am saying

I just posted what i was talking about, it comes from a professor at stanford

http://www.thecoli.com/posts/9044982/

 

[DANKTHRONE]

You are explicitly advocating formalism. Godel's results wrecked that. You have no idea what you are talking about.

 

[theworldismine13]

You are explicitly advocating formalism. Godel's results wrecked that. You have no idea what you are talking about.

what devlin is saying is still relevant, godel did not destroy anything, he showed certain ideas were incomplete

 

[DANKTHRONE]

Godel's result tell us that are positions on the chessboard that can NEVER be gotten to through rule-based manipulating of symbols, which is EXACTLY what you said math is.

And math is the study of symbols?? I have never seen a type of math that uses stop signs or the word "cat" or adinkra cloth or the myriad of non-mathematical symbols? fukk you are dumb as a stump.

 

[Suicide King]

horrible article

math is not about numbers, math is the study of symbols, patterns and logic

the point is the reason why math is important is not so you can deal with numbers, math is important because it shows you how to think

 

[Robbie3000]

@theworldismine13, maybe you should take some time off. It seems every HL thread I open, there you are....making a huge ass out of yourself.

 

[theworldismine13]

Godel's result tell us that are positions on the chessboard that can NEVER be gotten to through rule-based manipulating of symbols, which is EXACTLY what you said math is.

And math is the study of symbols?? I have never seen a type of math that uses stop signs or the word "cat" or adinkra cloth or the myriad of non-mathematical symbols? fukk you are dumb as a stump.

what in hell are you talking about, all i said is that math is the study of symbols on top of other things, i didint say anything about chess

godels' results doesnt mean that math isnt symbolic, it just places limits of what you can achieve using symbols

under formalism why wouldnt the word "cat" or cloth or anything else be used as a symbol that can be manipulated

you are confused, godel did not destroy formalism, he just proved that there are limits