Maths conspiracy
Everyhere around the world, we will have people complaining how maths is tough and how much it sucks… well i used to be among those that says maths sucks.. but seriously, lately i have been giving it some thought…
Everytime you look for something maths related, you were weird symbols, confusing terms, and complex explanations which is supposed to make you learn the maths…
sometimes you may be looking for a simple thing about maths.. and guess what, you bump with weird symbols, ACM portal research papers which are mostly about improvements to that specific maths or similar things.
You look on Wikipedia, you might find again, weird stuffs, really high level stuffs which doesn’t make sense.. as far as i know.. if there is a high level stuff which isn’t defined.. it sure will cause confusion.. why are there so little information about the inner low level logics behind everything maths??
coz sincerely lately, i have been on a road to learn some maths, and on that road, i have been instead of trying to do the homeworks based on just learning formulas by heart.. been trying to use simple algebras to try to rework my way up to that part of that maths that they give weird names… THEN it makes sense.
Should there be a class to explain logics behind maths instead of high level stuffs? i don’t know, i am not qualified to answer that.. but when i found that using low level algebras arithmetic makes maths understandable and logic… it really got me thinking…
“is there a conspiracy to prevent people to learn maths? If yes.. why? what are they trying to hide in the lower levels? are they trying to hide mistakes which became ‘facts’ from dumbly assuming they are right?”
I have no idea .. but it really makes me wonder… there must be some huge organization profiting from that if that is correct…
ohh well… gudnight.. 
i can pass in maths tommorrow i believe
thanks to king_trojan for grammatical correction :p
+$3|v3n
Popularity: 40% [?]
April 7th, 2009 at 10:19 pm
u r right…maths should be something simple…some people go to extreme to complicate life :S
April 7th, 2009 at 10:33 pm
2 words: F* MATHS!
Seriously, since CPE I suck at it. I can basically understand what stuff do, but when the equations get slightly more complex, I tend to give up.
Specially if statistics is concerned. In the modern world of today, there MUST be a way to simplify the maths.
Maths to the masses I say!
April 7th, 2009 at 10:37 pm
wai franc, it should be algorithmically
and the logics should be taught instead of the formulas and how to use it to find the answers!
we want to know the whys!!! :p wuuhuuuu
April 8th, 2009 at 10:52 am
I did physics at university. The logic behing maths is explained in Year 2 and believe me, it’s way harder than the things we do in Add Maths.
April 8th, 2009 at 10:52 am
I did physics at university. The logic behind maths is explained in Year 2 and believe me, it’s way harder than the things we do in Add Maths.
April 8th, 2009 at 2:35 pm
Personally, I find maths irresistible.
Since I was a kid, I’ve loved maths and now, whenever I can, I try to share my enthusiasm for maths to others.
For instance, last night, I showed Anya, my 6 years old daughter, to sort numbers (using an algorithm similar to insertion sort) and she loved it. She spent around 15 minutes sorting different group of numbers by herself. This morning, when she woke up, she made it a must to show Kyan, her 4 years old brother, what she has been learning the previous night.
This morning, I explained to Christina, my wife, how simple arithmetic is as it is based on two axioms only: (i) there is zero and (ii) every number has a successor. From that, I explained how binary operators like + and > were defined in terms of primitives. And even though she was not as enthusiastic as Anya, she was rather impressed that so simple things could be combined to build complex artifacts.
What I am trying to convey is that maths is simple. Unfortunately, some teachers (who are not good teachers) make it appear more complex than what it is actually.
Something else I would like to point out: I really discovered the beauty (and simplicity) of maths at university in France. I guess that, here in Mauritius, we are more concerned about succeeding at exams than at really understand the essence of things.
April 8th, 2009 at 3:35 pm
Aargh, had a stats module last year and I was really lost, luckily I managed to pass. I never understood the logic behind maths but I used to have good results cause I only practised and never actually understood why an equation had a particular way of being tackled.
I remember my maths teacher once told us to “just do it the way I’m showing you, don’t try to understand the logic behind it”. He said he has learnt maths the same way.
Weird.
At the end of the day the idea of the conspiracy is not far-fetched…
April 8th, 2009 at 5:26 pm
Why isn’t this possible – √-1 ???
April 8th, 2009 at 7:13 pm
@ bruno:
add maths and maths sucks…as far as the way they teach that…
i prefer the simplicity of simple operations like +/-* and build from that.. this i find quite logical and interesting as avinash mentionned.
since when you build it form way down to above, you know what is going on.. instead of just applying stuffs.
@ avinash :p
now for a surprise that a surprise :p! you posting here! lol.
I also believe that such stuffs should be taught early instead of losing time, since i believe at such an age the child has more brain power, and hence by the time she completes school, she shall be able to have more time on her hand and a larger base of facts to start building new things
.
Exactly
, they must use arithmetic to teach maths.. its more fun and easy this way [to learn].
sad but true.
That’s my main problem with maths actually.. there’s too much of stuffs to practice.. and am not the type who will be doing lots of homeworks.. i’d prefer to take something harder and play with it like a puzzle, but 10 almost simmillar questions.. i get bored too quickly and at the end of the day.. i still don’t know what it means and most probably will fail as i odn’t remember the formula!..LOL
indeed
:)
because there’s negative multiply by negative gives positive?
and that if we have a negative inside that root, then it means we have 1 negative more.. as ine -1x-1x-1, and if we would want to get that outside negative inside to make the inside positive, then, we need a squareroot of that outside negative? the number of negatives inside that squareroot will always be odd numberred i think, hence can be divided equally…
April 8th, 2009 at 7:44 pm
Why isn’t this possible – √-1
√-1 = i
- √-1 = – i
(Complex number i think.. did mats last yr hsc..)
April 8th, 2009 at 7:51 pm
Damn that maths! Got to ask you stuffs. Coming on msn. That paper of today made me think and finally sck! I dunno why. it appear so easy yet it like not.
April 8th, 2009 at 8:44 pm
in simple words i hate maths but it is of great use for many stuffs aparament
April 8th, 2009 at 9:34 pm
Selven, you will like my way of teaching then because when I become a teacher, I will abolish homework! (Although my brother-in-law is trying to persuade me to just make it non-compulsory. Apparently some people will die if they don’t have homework. And they think I’m the one who is insane…)
April 8th, 2009 at 9:43 pm
@ giga :p
yup, complex numbers indeed… but why i? :p i think that’s what carrot wanted to ask.. :p
@avish :p yup catchya online
@ yusha : i bet you don’t hate arithmetic though :p
@ cindy : mo ti pou content get sa :p .. fer devoir dans class pli seryE ki al fer devoir lakaz!
April 8th, 2009 at 9:59 pm
I hate arithmetic. I still need to count on my fingers when i do arithmetic. Thank goodness for calculators.
April 8th, 2009 at 10:06 pm
lol there’s nothing wrong with counting with fingers
.
thank god my calculator was broken for quite a while, i realized that it made me better at counting. [though i still do confuse numbers a few times :p]
April 8th, 2009 at 10:33 pm
Don’t forget that maths is not only about arithmetic (the study of quantity).
Algebra (the study of structure), geometry (the study of space) and analysis (the study of change) exist too
Have a look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematics
April 8th, 2009 at 10:56 pm
Hmm ok selven
I simply think that the square root of a -ve num doesn’t exist because no number squared gets you a -ve
April 9th, 2009 at 12:08 am
mone al gogole “king_trojan” mne al bat ek sa post laaa xD
April 9th, 2009 at 12:09 am
Without mathematics, there would have been no Google, no internet, no computers … without mathematics, no aeroplanes, no ipod, no technology … ah moins ou pe coz magie.
Non, you can’t just build up on +,-,x,/ … there is more to Maths. In fact, it is a very abstract subject. The best way to visualise Maths for me is through Physics and Geometry (Topology) … but it needs some effort from your part as well.
April 9th, 2009 at 7:03 pm
@avinash
indeed it isn’t… but most of maths is just higher level of studying quantity
April 9th, 2009 at 7:07 pm
@ giga
lol yeah :p that’s what the book says..
@king_trojan
lol narcissic?
@bruno
Without any doubt
.
Actually, this post is all about the way .. why maths explanations are written with weird symbols to complicate people’s life when infact it is something easy once you look at it from a lower level? [note am not saying all parts of maths is easy.. am just saying parts which affects me :p]
April 9th, 2009 at 8:58 pm
I always thought the weird symbols were meant to simplify things instead of complicating them.
April 10th, 2009 at 8:29 am
:p @ cindy.. quite the opposite i believe, since most people i know just stops reading any further as soon as they bump into that..
April 13th, 2009 at 10:19 am
Well you need symbols to replace certain concepts. It would be bulky to have to explain or prove it every time someone uses it.
I always thought those symbols are like a language. You can use a hundred “simple” words to explain something or one “complicated” word which has been agreed by convention (and which anybody who has seen it before will recognize it immediately).
April 13th, 2009 at 10:59 am
well… what would have been nicer would be to have people defining what X, Y,Z or whatever shall be for each new chapters starting… at-least you know what is what… coz sincerely since you raised a nice point about standardizing those symbols.. many a time i seek out infos about what a symbol is… i tend to get lots of different replies.. i can’t bear with such ambiguity.
April 13th, 2009 at 11:01 am
@ bruno.. actually, addmahs wasn’t tough.. the confusing parts were that, it assumed a lot of things and those assumptions made it hard to visualize certain things, and mosto f the time, i needed some kind of lower level derivations to be able to work my way up.
April 24th, 2009 at 10:22 pm
I didnt know so many ppl dun like mathsmo :/ how strange :/
April 24th, 2009 at 11:20 pm