In article ,
"Hawke" wrote:

"Lew Hartswick" wrote in message
m...
Hawke wrote:

When I went to school we had Algebra I, Algebra II,
Plane Geometry, Solid Geometry, and Trigonometry.
Calculus, diferential and integral I didn't get till college.
That served me very well and a lot of other folks I know.
...lew...

Same at my high school, though introductory calculus was offered as a
senior elective.

I went through hell with math until I ran into a teacher who wouldn't
let me fail and gave me the confidence that I could, in fact, learn it.

God Bless You, Mary Dye!

I seldom used algebra or anything higher after college, but in these
later years I've rediscovered calculus and am having some fun with it.

I still hate integrals.

What I think learning math provides is the ability to perceive
relationships and express them in terms that are useful in more than one
instance. You can use the derived formulas in all kinds of jobs.

Geometry and trig are still useful for building, machining, and figuring
the height of mountains or telephone poles.

I get thoroughly wrapped (and warped) when reading the quantum mechanics
folks. Some of those relationships are just plain wild, but often
devolve to just statistics and probability!

Maths just opens you up to knowing a little of how the universe works.
In someone's pithy words: Mathematics is how God thinks.



Here's the problem. You guys that can do and understand math remind me of
the basketball players that say I don't see what's so hard about dunking a
basketball and why can't you do it. All my friends can. Most people just
can't understand math. The people who do understand it think it's easy and
can't see why others don't get it. Just like the basketball player. To me
math is like when you go to the eye doctor and they show you the color
blindness charts where it's a circle filled with colored dots and there is a
number in the middle, which you can see if you're not colorblind. But if
you're color blind you can't see anything. That's math. If you get it you
can see the number in the circle if you can't you see nothing. Most people
could never complete a class in trig, calculus, or what comes after. It
takes a certain type of brain to understand that stuff. Those of you who get
it are lucky. Most of us are not. Even so, I still think there are other
classes that would be more helpful for most students than mathematics. Aside
from Goodwill Hunting, I've never seen a janitor or anyone working
construction, or on an oil rig, or selling cars, or cage fighting, or so
many other jobs doing equations. Like you said, most people can't even do
simple arithmetic, but I can understand why.

Hawke