Pluggers by Rick McKee for September 05, 2019

Really hate that cliché ! Some people work with the tool of good scientific education and shape the technical world around us – and some others who live in a tiny narrow world and who think science/math is useless. Oh yes, and scientists are mad people alltogether.

My father is 68 (69 this coming December) and I don’t he’s ever used algebra.

Ask carpenters and home builders among many others though.

My 2nd job out of high school used algebra. I’ve used geometry for DYI projects a lot over the decades. Math is great.

Reminds me of learning computer programing in the 1980s. Talk about a waste of time and money !

Seldom does anyone realize how much they actually use algebra probably every day. In cooking you want to halve or double a recipe, in driving how long before we get there etc.

Who uses algebra. https://www.gocomics.com/saturday-morning-breakfast-cereal/2017/11/05

Do you balance your check book? Do you use recipes? Do you make change? Algebra is all over the place.

Mathematics is very essential to day to day life. Although maybe not higher forms of algebra!

Ask anyone who grocery shops, although unit pricing has made it easier.

Algebra teaches you logic and how to think. There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t realize something I’m doing is related back to my understanding algebra.

Wouldn’t that be Geometry?

I too use algebra and geometry on DIY projects. Never did use calculus or differential equations even as an engineer.

bullsh**

It was about learning abstract thinking skills.

The purpose of the class (and most classes, really) is to help you learn to THINK in a different, or deeper fashion.

Just like everyone who isn’t a Plugger.

I remember telling my boss that repairing automobile damage was a matter of applied physics and geometry. His eyes kind of glazed over. Haven’t these guys ever worked in construction? Hung a picture on the wall, or laid out a garden plot?

“The problem is” that we use algebra all the time without realizing — algebra is a way of solving problems and a way of finding patterns. In math, algebra uses letters as symbols for unknowns and creates equations of known relationships to find out what the unknown values are. In everyday life, we use that kind of thinking all the time If you’ve ever gone to dinner in a group and decide to split the check evenly except for drinks (which will be split among the drinkers only) — that’s algebra. If you’ve ever stopped to think how many bags to take into the grocery store, that’s algebra. If you’ve ever thought about what time you need to set the alarm in order to get to work on time (x=shower/dress time; y=drive time; z=breakfast time; a = snooze alarm. 8:00 – (x+y+z+a) = alarm time ), that’s algebra.

Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal had one a while back where the child asks the teacher if they’ll ever have to use any of this stuff in real life.

“No, dear,” the teacher reassures him. “Just the smart children.”

I define algebra in one posit: How large is the battleship, true or false?

Me either?

I remember a+b, I think. . . .On second thought, I guess not.

Liberal arts pluggers, maybe. But plugger engineers? All the time.

All the time.. but it’s sneaky and you are unaware of using it in every day tasks.

I anyone has figured the size of a room or lawn-there you are algebra….

I took algebra in the 9th. grade, summer school, tutor, 10th. grade, and never passed.