The Born Loser by Art and Chip Sansom for January 09, 2022

I wouldn’t know about that. The older generation never learned the insanity that is “Common Core Math”. :/

It’s good to know math to make sure the dealership isn’t trying to pull a fast one on you in the paperwork.

Just wait until the day it’s time to pay your bills and you haven’t enough in your checking account.

Vicious cycle.

After 40 years of graduating from school I still use trigonometry’s sine and co-sign every month. At the bank when I pay for the wife’s bills.

fortunately, i don’t have any kids so i can continue to be clueless about math with no worries (especially since my wife helps me with addition and subtraction)…

I’ve used math many times—calculating mileage, planning a budget, mortgage payments, retirement, house remodel, etc.

If he ever wants to play Dungeons and Dragons, he will use a LOT of math!

I once thought that I’d never use integral calculus till I had to figure the area of a parcel of land with a curved boundary. Although, as I remember, I was also using my first computer, a Timex Sinclair 2000, and it used the trapezoid rule to figure the area and it did it in one second. I could’ve used the rule, too, but dividing the areas in 128 trapezoids, figuring each’s area and adding the totals would’ve taken much longer. Without the computer, I would’ve used the calculus.

makes me wonder what math he’s taking if he’s only gonna use it only twice, once in school and one other time to help someone with it…

maths opens up possibilities of careers in fields such as engineering & science, it can even help in some programming jobs (though not all programmers need maths so don’t be put off if it interests you) – which will hopefully remove need to work for such characters as Veeblefester

Maths can also help when doing things like tax/discounts etc. – it is fairly simple percentages but people seem to struggle with it.

Be all that you can be – because you never know what you can be – unless you have the knowledge. Wisdom is understanding that knowledge. Math and English (reading and writing and speaking skills – both are so important in life. Ask creators of Born Loser.

Math they need to teach is how to do your taxes, show all loopholes.

When stumped by a math problem, the parents’ response was usually something like, “keep at it, you’ll figure it out.” What I figured out was they were afraid of math problems.

How else are you gonna calculate the time difference on TV telecast from EST.

And when you do your bills…

I use arithmetic almost every day, but I have never used calculus. Then again I am no rocket scientist.

And then they get to college and still have to earn calculus, differential equations, Laplace transforms, and so on. How does the “new math” prepare anyone or anything useful?

Of course, this applies to the hard sciences. Social sciences don’t need real math, nor do the humanities.

Many teenagers do not like history, which I taught for a few years. Of course, I told them that sometimes when you know the past, you can predict the future to some extent. I also told them that it would come in handy if they were ever a contestant on Jeopardy! I got a lot of puzzled looks with that one.

And there’s always a chance he may someday need to figure out when Train A and Train B will meet.

Math is a part of life. Most of us don’t think about it too much as we calculate how long it will take us to get some place, how many hours until we do something, if an item of clothing in one store is 20% off and a different price in another store for 30% off – which is a better deal? We count things, do basic arithmetic all the time.

Maybe in the traditional way, we might just use our math skills to balance check books, make sure we’re not over or underpaying for some goods and services etc. However, math does so much more as it helps us understand the principals of analytical reasoning which we all need to have and use. Math in its purest form is also not just used in the sciences, medicine, engineering etc, but also in art. Many artists were also great mathematicians with perspective, symmetry heavily used in their art. However, helping one’s child and grand child is also one of the best reasons…..

How’s about when you get that blank look from the teller at McDonalds when you give them that extra penny in order to get back all quarters in change with your order?

I went all the way through Calculus III. I don’t know that I ever used it after college but I enjoyed it. Now Linear Algebra I nearly flunked.

That never helped me. My father learned Prussian math in school and he figured that it would confuse me if he started teaching it to me. I wish I had learned that way just for my own curiosity.

I’m one of those people who made use of algebra skills in my work creating document assembly software. So don’t discount the importance of algebra. Software development remains important.