| How important are Algebra mathematics skills in the global economy? |
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Asked 3 years ago
by umpstead4  United States |
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About
Ed Tech guy, tasked with promoting the effective use of technology and data in schools.
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12 Points
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NO! They just make you do it in school to make you remember more. It is a fact that 96% of everything you learn in school is 100% useless!
We need reading, writing, counting, and using computers. That's it. Nada. No more. Useless after that!
So, you want to be a golf caddy forever?
I'm not a golf caddy.
Thats about all you will do without more than you suggest.
Even a decent golf caddy needs math.
I'm top of my class, I will do better and acoplish more than most.
Try again. All of basic accounting using algebra - Assets = Liability + Owners Equity. The money is always somewhere.
And "reading, writing, counting and using computers" only counts for squat if you have also had critical thinking and know HOW to learn and formulate an argument. So there! ;-)
Riddle me this, Sheep, where in Life ANYWHERE (except school of course), do you need: Pascal's Triangle, Quadratic Formula, Transposing Formulas, Finding the fractions equal to recurring decimals, Finding the volume of square-based and circular-based pyramids, Finding 42.73% of 118,472, Logerithams, Finding the median of a sequence of numbers, Finding the Nth term of any given sequence, or finding what 100% is if 13.379% is 12.4???
There are loads more rubbish that we learn, these are just off the top of my head.
1. It indirectly teaches how to think.
2. In a world where much of the most important nformation is statistical in nature, you cannot competently evaluate competing claims if you do not understand statistics, which is algebraic in nature.
I understand Algebra and statistics, I got an A* for Maths GCSE and B for Additional Mathematics, and am currently persuing a Maths A-level.
I haven't found any real uses for any of the crap I learned. I'm good at it though.
Okay. For every twenty points above 120 the top number of your blood pressure rises, it doubles your chance of stroke. Why is this a meaningless statement?
"I haven't found any real uses for any of the crap I learned", and I haven't learnt the information in your statement, therefore why would I think that your statement is meaningless??
Since you can't recognize it as meaningless, and why (something I learned in a statistics class) how can you possibly evaluate what your doctor tells you? If you have a blood pressure of 140/90, your doctor will do her level best to put you on not one, but two extremely strong drugs with profound possible (and not infrequent!) side effects, using exactly the statement I called 'meaningless'. If you don't understand why it, and all other stat3ements made in the same fashion, are useless, Big Pharma will run your life.
Whos Big Pharma?
The pharmaceutical industry. They are no better than the snake oil salesmen of the early 20th, and kill far more people with their ineffective and dangerous drugs than you might imagine. It is the fourth leading cause of death in the U.S., after heart disease, cancer, and stroke. Prescription drugs may actually be responsible for many of those deaths as well, because the habit here is to cite the underlying cause, not the proximate cause. Europe hasn't succumbed to the blandishments of Big Pharma to the degree that the U.S. has becase most European countries have laws preventing the antics that go on here.
(why that blood pressure statement is meaningless: Saying that the risk doubles is a relative number, not an absolute. If the risk is doubling from one in a hundred thousand to two in a hundred thousand, the effect, as statisticians say, is de minimis--essentially meaningless. Yet it is frequently quoted to justify prescribing two life-long meds that are horribly dangerous--one can cause dementia with long-term use {and hasn't there been a rise in Alzheimer's diagnoses?} and the other can kill through hyponatremia--low sodium in the body.)
Yup, what she said. She is one smart Dauguy!
All you have to do is work in a sheet metal shop and fabricate. Just make a galvanized chimney that has to expand three times 1.25 inches each progression.
Applied Maths! There ARE uses for applied maths at least, everyone knows that, the very nature of applied maths gives away that fact.