Are you good at math...........?

by vitty 14 Replies latest jw friends

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  Forscher

  I like math.
  But I am not very good with it. When I was a kid I was rather rebellious in school. So I didn't make the basic funtions automatic in my head (multiplication, division, etc...). So it is hard for me t easily see certain relationships in my head when I have to factor things. That makes it hard to perform many calculations in higher math.
  Forscher
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  Warlock

  When I was in school, I was good in Music and English but I was horrible in Math. I barely passed Algebra. I can't even spell it.

  Warlock
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  james_woods

  I was reading a book about fractal geometry last night and it made this point:

  IBM mathematician Benoit Mandelbrot was (at first, at least) a terribly poor math student. He apparantly never really even mastered the multiplication tables.

  However, the author states that he had an incredible ability to relate mathematical principles into visual images. This is how he created the first working fractal image programs in the 1950s and 1960s.

  So, maybe some people don't have to have conventional skills to be Nobel Prize winners in their field.
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  Fe2O3Girl

  I would make a distinction between maths and arithmetic. In the Radio 4 programme I posted a link to above, one of the contributors describes a mathmetician as a "pattern spotter" and relates this to listening to music.

  I don't think memorising multiplication tables is maths. I don't think adding numbers is maths.

  R
• 

  Twitch

  (((Fe203girl)))

  I agree on the distinction between arithmetic and the higher order of numbers that is math. Semantics. Thank you.

  Fascinating article. I didn't read it earlier and just responded to the Leibniz quote. Too bad for him that he lived at the same time as Newton, who as I understand is credited with the discovery of calculus though Leibniz theorized it as well. If I recall, Newton and Leibniz both "discovered" differential calculus independantly but Newton theorized integral calculus overnight as a result of a challenge, or something like that. Amazing.

  I had a hard time understanding calculus and physics in college but i did better when the abstract could be associated with a real world situation, which is usually the case anyways. The tough part is seeing the problem and making the connection, the numbers just follow it seems. Rote learning bites, visuals rule. I recall asking a math teacher about the relationship of the basic functions of a circle, circumference and area from a point to 2D to 3D and asked if and how the function scales upward into higher dimensions. He just kinda looked at me, said yea and continued on. I guess it wasn't in the curriculum, lol.

  The math behind music and sound fascinates me though i never studied music formally. The relationship between different scales and modes, physics of the instrument, constructive/destructive interference of waves, the "magic" of harmonies, etc. Wave propagation of sound. Pebbles dropped in the 3D pond. Ever look at a vibrating bass string under a strobe? Me neither but i know it looks like a whole lotta sine waves getting funky, lol. Mind candy.

  I love fractals BTW. The math of God when he's just doodling. The duality of a chaotic pattern tickles my brain, lol. I have a fractal poster above my computer, courtesy of Gregory Sams.