Once again American students ranked near the bottom in math in international tests. Far Eastern countries, as usual, fared the best. I work in a technical and engineering field and you would think there would be a lot of math-savvy people around me but about a month ago, a coworker called me into his office when I was walking by. He showed me an algebra question on his son's homework and wanted to know if I could solve for x. I did. and he said he had gotten the same answer but his son's teacher is saying that's wrong. "I've had a few people here try it," he said. I asked him what they came up with. He said, "You're the only one who even had a clue on where to start. The others just looked at and said they didn't know." I mean, this was like 10th grade algebra and most of the technicians he spoke to at work didn't even know where to start. In fact, I was the only one.
Then I'll pick up a book about a technical subject-made-easy where I just want a very basic understanding--not too detailed. The author will always say not to worry because they won't be looking at any math. I can only shake my head. Why are we so math-phobic in this country?? Whenever I study a certain technical or science topic, I always look for the formula or I'll ask an instructor. If you know the formula and how to read it, you don't need the 20 pages of words. The whole topic is expressed in this one beautiful, little compact expression.
Take something like Ohm's Law: I=E/R where I is current, E is voltage and R is resistance. It tells you a lot. We can get resistances very low in a superconductor. Ohm's Law tells us that the lower the resistance the greater the load (current)--we can push more load with the same amount of electrical pressure (voltage). So ideally we should strive to reach 0 ohms of resistance. But can we? No. Why? Because the current can't be calculated because you are dividing by zero. Mathematicians call that an undefined property. So we know that to have a current flow, we must have some amount of resistance but we cannot and should not lower the resistance to zero or the circuit stops working.
You don't have to have any deep knowledge of a certain topic to answer those kinds of questions if you know a few math formulas. Another beautiful formula is E=VBL which encapsulates our modern world.
I remember when we learned to write in cursive and how extensively we were tested and how much we practiced making our letters. Nowadays, many American school districts are no longer teaching cursive writing even though you still need to sign your name on official documents in cursive (no, printing your name does not count--I know banks won't accept it). Literacy and numeracy in the US are becoming irrelevant. We have become a country of stupidity and mediocrity.
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