Maths question

[ad_orientem]

Oooo! Of course maths has its uses but for me I think it's rubbish. I just can't get my head round it. I hate calculations. They're for boffs. At school I was always more an English, history and geography person. English I loved especially.

,

Mathematics is not what you think it is.

All you know is arithmetic ... and, if what you say is correct, you do not even have the skill to know whether the result your calculator shows is correct or not. If you hate calculations then you cannot be aware of all those occasions that shopkeepers have short changed you. How sad.

Mathematics is about thinking and using symbolic logic to solve problems. Mathematics is universal.

I know how much change I'm supposed to get, silly. I'm not that dumb. Basic arithmetic (if you must call it that, though I prefer to lump it all together) I'm fine with, though when you get to long division and multiplication then you might as well be speaking Greek. That always got me stumped. If you're talking algebra and stuff like that, then you might as well be speaking Hebrew (though I'd sooner spend the next ten years of my life learning Greek and Hebrew, which I'm not inclined to do, than spending a day trying to get my head round trigonometry, for instance). I'd much rather spend my time playing pool.

[Rhiannon]

You use maths when playing pool to work out angles and how hard to hit the ball.

[ad_orientem]

You use maths when playing pool to work out angles and how hard to hit the ball.

I know where the cue ball and object ball are going to go through instinct and because I've played the shot a thousand times. Nothing to do with maths. Maths doesn't move the balls about but skill through hours of practice.

[Rhiannon]

But it's still maths as used in everyday life - not arithmetic, but mathematics.

[Outrider]

As to whether maths is rubbish or not, clearly it is not because without it, the modern World would look very different. Maths is far more important than any crappy religion, of which yours is one.

What an eloquent and well-worded argument  -  you ought to be on Question Time!

If you hadn't made that argument on-line - utilising the mathematics inherent in the design, encoding, encryption, decryption, decoding and integration of the programming, machine code and physical components of the keyboard, monitor, network, switching mechanisms, world-wide transmission systems, demodulation, and rendering of the signal you might have had a point.

Oh, wait, my mistake, no you wouldn't.

O.

[Outrider]

It's interesting that people who are illiterate tend to be highly embarrassed about it, but people who are innumerate seem to wear it as a badge of pride.

This.

So, so many times this. The anti-intellectualism of the modern Western world is sickeningly demoralising.

O.

[Outrider]

Basic arithmetic (if you must call it that, though I prefer to lump it all together)

That's like equating spellings with Shakespeare.

I'm fine with, though when you get to long division and multiplication then you might as well be speaking Greek. That always got me stumped. If you're talking algebra and stuff like that, then you might as well be speaking Hebrew (though I'd sooner spend the next ten years of my life learning Greek and Hebrew, which I'm not inclined to do, than spending a day trying to get my head round trigonometry, for instance). I'd much rather spend my time playing pool.

D'Oh!

O.

[Harrowby Hall]

You use maths when playing pool to work out angles and how hard to hit the ball.

I know where the cue ball and object ball are going to go through instinct and because I've played the shot a thousand times. Nothing to do with maths. Maths doesn't move the balls about but skill through hours of practice.

You're not that brilliant with language, either.

You do not use "instinct" to play a shot. You use the knowledge you have acquired through practice. You use your stored recollections of forces and angles in order to make the shot. You use a practical application of a combination of Newtonian physics and mathematics.

Were this instinctive then every human on the planet would have the same capability.

[Hope]

The calculator is one of the bestest inventions ever. Why do it in your head when you can use a calculator? Never liked maths. It's rubbish. 😁

But we still need to know that we have got the answer to the right power of 10. 

I had a slide rule when I was at school.  This gave answers that were stripped of powers of 10.  One had to estimate an answer in order to know where the decimal point lay.

[Nearly Sane]

I'm with ad_o here, he is using maths at an instinctive level , even if developed by practice. He is not doing maths in the sense of doing the equations.

[Hope]

Maths is far more important than any crappy religion, of which yours is one.

That is one attitude that I would have to disagree with.  One without the other is dead.

[Outrider]

I'm with ad_o here, he is using maths at an instinctive level , even if developed by practice. He is not doing maths in the sense of doing the equations.

Whilst I know what you mean, I'd be inclined to use 'intuitive' rather than instinctive. In common use they're pretty much synonyms, but if someone's going to resort to the technical definitions - which has never happened here, of course - the 'instinctive' doesn't fit.

O.

[Outrider]

Maths is far more important than any crappy religion, of which yours is one.

That is one attitude that I would have to disagree with.  One without the other is dead.

No. Even if you're a believer, you can still be non-religious but see the wonder, beauty and utility of maths.

As it is I'm not a believer, and therefore definitely not religious, but maths is amazing, and has changed the world more, and faster, than any religion you can name.

O.

[ad_orientem]

You use maths when playing pool to work out angles and how hard to hit the ball.

I know where the cue ball and object ball are going to go through instinct and because I've played the shot a thousand times. Nothing to do with maths. Maths doesn't move the balls about but skill through hours of practice.

You're not that brilliant with language, either.

You do not use "instinct" to play a shot. You use the knowledge you have acquired through practice. You use your stored recollections of forces and angles in order to make the shot. You use a practical application of a combination of Newtonian physics and mathematics.

Were this instinctive then every human on the planet would have the same capability.

Tell that to a naturally gifted 12 year old kid who just "knows" how to play a shot and who knows bugger all about Newtonian physics and mathematics. I've seen it plenty of times. Instinct, my old mucker!

[Nearly Sane]

This is not a technical discussion, and I don't see that the marginal difference in meaning contributes anything to the question of whether ad_o is in any sense doing maths.

[BashfulAnthony]

Maths is far more important than any crappy religion, of which yours is one.

That is one attitude that I would have to disagree with.  One without the other is dead.

No. Even if you're a believer, you can still be non-religious but see the wonder, beauty and utility of maths.

As it is I'm not a believer, and therefore definitely not religious, but maths is amazing, and has changed the world more, and faster, than any religion you can name.

O.

Be kind enough to illustrate how that is.

[Outrider]

Maths is far more important than any crappy religion, of which yours is one.

That is one attitude that I would have to disagree with.  One without the other is dead.

No. Even if you're a believer, you can still be non-religious but see the wonder, beauty and utility of maths.

As it is I'm not a believer, and therefore definitely not religious, but maths is amazing, and has changed the world more, and faster, than any religion you can name.

O.

Be kind enough to illustrate how that is.

Planes, trains, automobiles, telephones, television, computers, electronics, firearms, medicine, banking, CNC machining, meteorology...

Pick any one of them, they're all applied mathematics.

O.

[Harrowby Hall]

Tell that to a naturally gifted 12 year old kid who just "knows" how to play a shot and who knows bugger all about Newtonian physics and mathematics. I've seen it plenty of times. Instinct, my old mucker!

No. As has already been explained, the word you should have used is intuitive not instinctive.

An instinct is a hard wired capability which is present in all members of a species. Instinct makes swallows fly south for the winter.

Whether on not you know bugger all about Newtonian physics and mathematics, you are using an understanding of the ways they act acquired by practice or observation in order to engage in a rather simple recreational activity. Since you have not taken the trouble to formally understand their operation, you are using them intuitively.

For someone who earlier claimed "English I loved especially" you are using English in a rather imprecise manner.

[Nearly Sane]

Except here, ad_o seems to be using instinctive as the near synonym it is to intuitive in everyday English covering not conscious thought to describe what he is doing as not being maths. And I think he is correct in the point he is making and that arguing about not using the term in the more technical sense entirely misses that point.

Someone playing pool is not doing maths.

[Outrider]

Except here, ad_o seems to be using instinctive as the near synonym it is to intuitive in everyday English covering not conscious thought to describe what he is doing as not being maths. And I think he is correct in the point he is making and that arguing about not using the term in the more technical sense entirely misses that point.

Someone playing pool is not doing maths.

They are doing trigonometry, which is a branch of maths. They are 'estimating' rather than calculating, so they're approximating rather than doing the arithmetic, but the understanding of reciprocal angles is applied trigonometry. I'd agree it's entirely possible they're doing intuitively rather than because they've formally studied and applied it to that situation, but they're doing mathematics.

O.

[Nearly Sane]

No, to be doing maths there would have to be conscious thought about actually doing maths. It doesn't show any understanding of trig as a discipline. It gives no indication that the person knows anything about trig as a discipline or would have any real chance of understanding it.

[Outrider]

No, to be doing maths there would have to be conscious thought about actually doing maths. It doesn't show any understanding of trig as a discipline. It gives no indication that the person knows anything about trig as a discipline or would have any real chance of understanding it.

And they have learnt trig as a discipline, within that specialised environment: they've learnt about angles, about the incident angles of the path of a ball bouncing off the surface are equal either side of the perpendicular to that plane (which is also a bit of physics - isn't learning wondeful!).

They haven't studied it formally as trigonometry, but they've learned trigonometry.

It's much the same as how we learn our native language organically, but someone who come to it later in life haven't learnt their own language learns it formally - they're still learning English, they're just not thinking of it in those terms because it's not formal education.

O.

[Nearly Sane]

The analogy doesn't work. Learning English is actually doing English, it doesn't really work as an abstract discipline. There is a gap between playing pool and doing trig as a discipline which does not arise in the difference between learning a language initially and later.

[Outrider]

The analogy doesn't work. Learning English is actually doing English, it doesn't really work as an abstract discipline. There is a gap between playing pool and doing trig as a discipline which does not arise in the difference between learning a language initially and later.

Grammar doesn't work as an abstract concept? Language doesn't work as an abstract concept?

Talking is the application of that concept, writing is the application of that concept.

Playing pool includes doing trigonometry, whether you choose to think of it like that or not, in exactly the same way as it includes understanding the physical concepts of restitution and friction - you might not have the formal background to articulate them, but you can apply them.

That's why it's an intuitive understanding, but it's still an understanding.

O.

[BashfulAnthony]

Maths is far more important than any crappy religion, of which yours is one.

That is one attitude that I would have to disagree with.  One without the other is dead.

No. Even if you're a believer, you can still be non-religious but see the wonder, beauty and utility of maths.

As it is I'm not a believer, and therefore definitely not religious, but maths is amazing, and has changed the world more, and faster, than any religion you can name.

O.

Be kind enough to illustrate how that is.

Planes, trains, automobiles, telephones, television, computers, electronics, firearms, medicine, banking, CNC machining, meteorology...

Pick any one of them, they're all applied mathematics.

O.

But all materialistic, and not all exclusively beneficial to Man.  However:

"All religions, arts and sciences are branches of the same tree. All these aspirations are directed toward ennobling man's life, lifting it from the sphere of mere physical existence and leading the individual towards freedom." - Einstein.

Also:  “I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.”   - Einstein, again.   That is what guides the world towards a better life and understanding, not the puerile notion of imagination that Floo has;  nor your total lack of it.