Simple Maths

we learnt BOMDAS... brackets, 'of' , division, multiplicaton, addition, subtraction

kinda shit, cos the first two take equal precedence (what is 'of', anyway?), then division and multiplication are equal, then division and subtraction.

  On 4/13/2011 at 5:23 AM, chaosmachine said:

but in the states, they start teaching PEMDAS in high school.

in the states... they teach the order of operations... via PEMDAS... in high school...

not only do they use what is essentially a nursery rhyme to teach maths, they teach what is in Europe a 3rd grade (as in, the grade that comes after the first two years of elementary school) concept, in 9th grade, at the earliest (i assume).

daaaaaaaamnnnnn

I'm not even quasi-trolling anymore, this is fucking sad.

if you do that shit in 9th grade, when the hell do you start doing functions, integrals, derivations, series, matrices, trig, differentials, all that shit?

i mean, uni-level maths over there seem identical to what is being taught in universities over here, so when the fuck do people who want to pursue a career in mathematics/exact sciences hurdle over the massive gap in prerequisite basics?

is it because of the vocational system? for example, if you're mathematically inclined, do teachers spot that early on and get you into advanced classes, and then you climb a relatively smooth incline for the remainder of your education? or you just cram in the 11th-12th grades once you know you want to go to MIT or something?

US wattmers, i genuinely want to know.

for the record i'm quite FOR the vocational system, they teach us SOOOOO MUUUUCHHHH useless shit here on a mandatory basis, shit that we learn in-and-out to pass grades and then forget forever. so i'm definitely not being facetious or lofty or high-and-mighty.

but then again, the basics of everything stay tattooed and guarantee a modicum of default vital knowledge per capita, so it's not so bad. and on that basis, that PEMDAS stuff sounds like utter bullshit, and you can probably see why, to me, it sounds fucking ludicrous that it's taught so late in a kid's education.

there is nothing wrong with using a mnemonic to learn stuff. as long as the mnemonic is correct.

in fact if you look into any speed-reading or 'how to memorise shit really quickly' book, they're all made of associations and mnemonics.

the human brain seems to be adapted to them from the time we're born.

  On 4/13/2011 at 5:55 AM, Lube Saibot said:

  On 4/13/2011 at 5:23 AM, chaosmachine said:

but in the states, they start teaching PEMDAS in high school.

in 9th grade, at the earliest (i assume).

I was taught it in 6th grade.

Parents always complained that our school had the worst math program too lol.

@lube: i'm in the US. i learned the order of operations in elementary school (ages 6-10). after that began algebra, then in high school (age 13-17, for me) i learned more algebra, trig, and some pre-calc. after taking 5 years off before going to college, i started back up with some mid level algebra (we take placement tests, and i had largely forgotten the trig / pre-calc i had learned in high school).

not sure why people are saying things like "never thought i'd use high school math" when solving this arithmetic problem... if that's all the farther you got in high school math... sounds like a personal problem. idk though. i never thought of my highschool (public school in the midwest) as being particularly above the curve.

and i would like to add that math teachers are incredibly, incredibly important figures in a child's life. i loved math all the way up to high school, then i had a few shitty teachers - people who did a poor job of explaining why math works in the first place - and i began to loathe all the stupid rules that failed to make sense to me. i recall being confused about what, exactly, was happening in my calculator when i would press the trig function buttons - and so i asked my teacher - and she said it didn't matter, that i just needed to use my calculator. that pissed me off to no end, and i just about failed trig that year because of it. now i love trig, because i actually understand what the fucking cosine means, and i understand how to do it by hand if i want to, but i'd rather not get out my protractor and measure every angle i deal with; so there's my calculator with its convenient table of trig values.

math is awesome, but a bad teacher can wreck the magic for a lot of kids. sucks. :/

Yeah, I edited my post, because actually I have no idea when they first start teaching "PEMDAS", but it was definitely still being retaught in grade 9, which is when I showed up there.

Math education in both countries is pretty bad. Khan absolutely nails it:

[youtubehd]gM95HHI4gLk[/youtubehd]

  On 4/13/2011 at 5:20 AM, kaini said:

ok

 

(8/4)(2*2)/4(2+2)

 

let's do the shit inside brackets first LIKE YOU'RE FUCKING SUPPOSED TO

 

(8/4)(2*2)/4(2+2)=

(2)(4)/4(4)=

(2*4)/4*4=

8/16=

0.5

 

edit: and i know - my aim was to introduce the logical steps leading up to the calculation in the OP gradually...

doing shit inside the brackets is, in no way, related to this debate. The argument is whether or not juxtaposition implies a grouping.

You are also doing something very strange in your calculation up there.

  Quote

(2)(4)/4(4)=

(2*4)/4*4=

in this step you seem to be going towards the popular opinion(aka the "288" opinion), yet in the next step "(2*4)/4*4=" you simplify this into "8/16=". this completely goes against any agreed upon order of operations and puts you back into the result of the unpopular opinion as if the previous step meant nothing, as going left to right you get 8/4*4=2*4=8. Although this is probably just a stupid mistake I had to point it out lol i love you kaini please dont hate me now?

if only we used reverse polish notation,

this problem !exist

  On 4/13/2011 at 5:58 AM, kaini said:

there is nothing wrong with using a mnemonic to learn stuff.

never learned anything via mnemonic. except for poems when i was a kid, and that's only if you count childhood poems you tell santa as mnemonic devices in and of themselves because of their rhyme and alliteration.

i couldn't imagine learning anything via mnemonic either, seems like it would just not be elegant, instead of committing something to memory, you commit something and another something and artificially connect them via... phonetics, and/or initials? seems useful only if you have a good hear but really bad memory otherwise.

of course, there's a lot of fields where mnemonics are useful that I'm probably missing, but for 3rd grade order of operations it's just... overkill. even as a kid, those made sense right off the bat, they're super logical, memorized them instantly and to the point where they're instinctual, like basic grammar and so on. i don't remember ever thinking "hmm, this would make more sense as Pandas Eat: Mustard on Dumplings, and Apples with Spice".

lol

creating a good mnemonic is really about creating an elegant, effective index to a cumbersome wad of data.

  On 4/13/2011 at 6:22 AM, hahathhat said:

creating a good mnemonic is really about creating an elegant, effective index to a cumbersome wad of data.

granted, and good point, but how is the order of operations "a cumbersome wad of data"?

  On 4/13/2011 at 6:41 AM, Lube Saibot said:

  On 4/13/2011 at 6:22 AM, hahathhat said:

creating a good mnemonic is really about creating an elegant, effective index to a cumbersome wad of data.

 

granted, and good point, but how is the order of operations "a cumbersome wad of data"?

it's cumbersome when you're 14 and distracted by a raging boner

pemdas/bodmas/bedmas is just a shortened reference to the actual order... aimed to make life a little easier for children. not sure why you're taking such an issue with teaching children simple ways of remembering things. it seems silly to assume that anyone taught a mnemonic device always has to reference it, for the rest of their days, forever and ever

you seem like a smart guy - no doubt you know that all of math is a shorthand language for increasingly complex operations...we could write every step out in plain language, and it would still work, but it makes sense to teach kids shorthand from the get-go, because they're going to need to understand the concept of replacing operations with symbols pretty quickly anyway

  On 4/13/2011 at 6:50 AM, luke viia said:

not sure why you're taking such an issue with teaching children simple ways of remembering things.

trolling

The Director of Education of the local Sylvan Learning Center said 2.

not trolling, and see, the absurdity of the concept really shows in its the indiscriminate application. for example, you mention "children", and from your description I'm thinking pre-schoolers, and for that age I guess PEMDAS would make sense, but hahathat on the other hand mentions "14yos with a boner". sorry bruv, but by the time i was 14 the order of operations had been tatooed in my mind for 5 or so years. and in pre-school, i played with action figures and drew shapes and ate boogers, and had no math on my plate whatsoever.

by the time i was in the third grade (9yo), and started doing this shit, PEMDAS would frankly have seemed a little pedestrian. and I'm not math wunderkind, i never had exceptional aptitude for it once it got super fucking abstract (straight C's [we get numbered grades but i'm translating for your benefit] all through highschool). but i had straight A's all through gradeschool and had mastered this shit ten times over by the time i was "14 with a boner".

so who the fuck is PEMDAS for except overachieving pre-schoolers?

er, yeah, i didn't do much math in preschool either. that's not what i meant

anyway

Maths made simple

http://www.palais-decouverte.fr/index.php?id=858

  On 4/13/2011 at 7:07 AM, OneToThirtySix said:

The Director of Education of the local Sylvan Learning Center said 2.

i spotted a non-chain version of this place the other day, with "wacky" klutzy mspaint drawing logo/font and the genius name of "KUM ON"

obviously supposed to be like... aw, c'mon, do we have to do math? however, i would have thought that name was hilarious in middle school/high school, and that's who they teach !

edit: and of course, this day and age, they're on the interwebs.

edit II: it's the founder's name. i am ing hard

edit III: i guess it is a chain. tutoring yuppie brats is big biz

Kumon's actual logo. You think they would make it look less like a tard smiley ... but maybe that's the point...

yeah, exactly.

errata: i saw this while going to buy weed

  On 4/13/2011 at 7:27 AM, chaosmachine said:

 

Kumon's actual logo. You think they would make it look less like a tard smiley ... but maybe that's the point...

You can laugh all you want, but the Japanese guy that owned it was laughing all the way to the bank (until he died).

edit:and it's pronounced koo-mon