On Tue, 12 Apr 2005 22:51:22 +0100, Andy Dingley
wrote:

On Tue, 12 Apr 2005 19:54:21 GMT, Charles Krug
wrote:

Calculus--that stuff with differentials and integrals you might have hit in college.

College ? Don't you guys do this in secondary school?
(about age 13/14 ?)

I was 16 when I got to take calculus- and that was a year early, with
a recommendation from the head of the math departement. There was no
course higher than calc offered. Shame to say that in the three year
gap between that and when I took calculus 2 in college, I forgot
pretty much everything I had learned, and it really sort of soured my
taste for higher maths.

Horray for the American public education system!


Aut inveniam viam aut faciam

On Tue, 12 Apr 2005 22:30:29 -0500, Hax Planx
wrote:

It didn't help that we had a fresh PhD whiz kid
as the prof who hadn't learned how to dumb it down yet to us poor slobs
who were only minoring in math, not making it a career.

That's because he couldn't forsee that your career would be passing
around buzz-words lame excuses in a woodworking conference about your
own inadequacies.

Get a bloody life. You know nothing about mathematics, or you'd be
simply applying it instead of blaming school systems for your own
failures. Get a hobby. Try woodworking to relieve the tension.

Hax Planx wrote:
....
My first semester calc instructor told us on day one there would be no
curve, even if it meant failing everybody. ...

The notorious one for that when I was an undergrad was Atomic Physics
lecture...each quiz was four problems, each counted 1/4-th, each was
right or wrong--down to specific precision for those w/ numeric
results. A real pita w/ a slide rule, for sure...

Dr. Livesay, the ex-Marine drill sargeant was the ogre for Analytic
Geometry (Calc IV) similar to your description...

On Tue, 12 Apr 2005 22:30:29 -0500, Hax Planx wrote:
Charles Krug says...

I hit Calc as a HS Senior in 1980, then again as a college freshman.

MUCH later when I finished, I did Advanced Calculus (Sometimes called
"Introductory Real Analysis" where you do all the proving.

The other "prove it" courses were Discrete Mathematics (all about
counting) and "Modern Algebra" (Properties of sets, operations, groups,
rings, fields . . . )

Great fun.

A math major? Mine was chemistry. I did differential and integral
calculus, analytic geometry and multivariate calculus with relative
ease. Then I got to linear algebra and differential equations and my
brain stopped working. I

My associates was in Engineering. When I got around to finishing
*COUGHS* years later, I'd been working as a software engineer basically
my whole career, so I signed up for CS, but the way the courses were
laid out, doubling Math was "easy" to schedule (though a good bit more
demanding than the CS classes).

Linear is a stumbling block for CS types, much as (pick one) Statics and
Dynamics or Differential Equations are for "hardware engineers."

I found I had to study more than with some other courses, but it wasn't
a brick wall. OTOH, fully a third of my section was either repeats
who'd dropped or Math Ed grad students who didn't do well enough as
Undergrads.

On Wed, 13 Apr 2005 07:09:18 -0500, Prometheus
wrote:
On Tue, 12 Apr 2005 22:51:22 +0100, Andy Dingley
wrote:

On Tue, 12 Apr 2005 19:54:21 GMT, Charles Krug
wrote:

Calculus--that stuff with differentials and integrals you might have hit in college.

College ? Don't you guys do this in secondary school?
(about age 13/14 ?)

I was 16 when I got to take calculus- and that was a year early, with
a recommendation from the head of the math departement. There was no
course higher than calc offered. Shame to say that in the three year
gap between that and when I took calculus 2 in college, I forgot
pretty much everything I had learned, and it really sort of soured my
taste for higher maths.


I had that problem. I (probably foolishly) tested out of Calc I and II
and dove directly into Calc III where I foundered.

Though I recovered.

Guess who says...

That's because he couldn't forsee that your career would be passing
around buzz-words lame excuses in a woodworking conference about your
own inadequacies.

Get a bloody life. You know nothing about mathematics, or you'd be
simply applying it instead of blaming school systems for your own
failures. Get a hobby. Try woodworking to relieve the tension.

For the love of God, man, keep up with your medications. Remember, Mr.
Thorazine is your friend! He brings happy thoughts and makes the bad
people talking in your head go away.

Duane Bozarth says...


The notorious one for that when I was an undergrad was Atomic Physics
lecture...each quiz was four problems, each counted 1/4-th, each was
right or wrong--down to specific precision for those w/ numeric
results. A real pita w/ a slide rule, for sure...

Dr. Livesay, the ex-Marine drill sargeant was the ogre for Analytic
Geometry (Calc IV) similar to your description...

The funny thing was our department chair was a Harvard man, and his were
the easiest advanced science classes I had.

Charles Krug says...

My associates was in Engineering. When I got around to finishing
*COUGHS* years later, I'd been working as a software engineer basically
my whole career, so I signed up for CS, but the way the courses were
laid out, doubling Math was "easy" to schedule (though a good bit more
demanding than the CS classes).

Linear is a stumbling block for CS types, much as (pick one) Statics and
Dynamics or Differential Equations are for "hardware engineers."

I found I had to study more than with some other courses, but it wasn't
a brick wall. OTOH, fully a third of my section was either repeats
who'd dropped or Math Ed grad students who didn't do well enough as
Undergrads.

I could have done much better with the lin alg/Diff eq class if I had
applied myself the way I did with my first semester calc class, but I
just had so much more going on. I had Physical Chemistry (a lot of
abstract Max Planck quantum mechanics), very demanding labs, 300 level
general ed classes, seminars to attend and write reports on, undergrad
research, part-time job, etc. But I'll admit it was a great lifestyle
and I would be still doing it to this day If I could.

Prometheus says...

I was 16 when I got to take calculus- and that was a year early, with
a recommendation from the head of the math departement. There was no
course higher than calc offered. Shame to say that in the three year
gap between that and when I took calculus 2 in college, I forgot
pretty much everything I had learned, and it really sort of soured my
taste for higher maths.

Horray for the American public education system!


Aut inveniam viam aut faciam

I don't think Calc needs to be a high school class. If high schoolers
leave with a good knowledge of algebra, geometry and trigonometry they
will be very, very well prepared for college. When some graduates can't
find the USA on a globe, they have far bigger fish to fry.

On Wed, 13 Apr 2005 11:44:15 -0500, Hax Planx
wrote:

For the love of God, man, keep up with your medications. Remember, Mr.
Thorazine is your friend! He brings happy thoughts and makes the bad
people talking in your head go away.

Then go away. This is a WOODworking forum, or did you forget how to
read, or to understand what you do read? Try your luck in a
math/physics forum, but don't keep your hopes too high that your
drivel will be tolerated there either. Who gives a rat's behind if
you passed or flunked math? You are the one with fantasies here.

You seem to be a LOT more familiar with that med than I am. I have no
idea what it is, except to guess from your behaviour.

I'm done, except to post a problem in geometry:

Design a rectangular table. The top will pivot 90 degrees, and unfold
to twice the size if needed.

1. Where do you place the pivot point so that it will sit
symmetrically about the center of the original top?

2. What ratio of sides will ensure that the unfolded table has the
same [similar] shape as the original folded rectangular top?

Come back when you can see your way through it. It's simple high
school stuff, so not too much for your brilliant mind.

On Wed, 13 Apr 2005 12:04:36 -0500, Hax Planx wrote:

I don't think Calc needs to be a high school class. If high schoolers
leave with a good knowledge of algebra, geometry and trigonometry they
will be very, very well prepared for college. When some graduates can't
find the USA on a globe, they have far bigger fish to fry.

Um. The ones taking calculus in high school, aren't the same ones who
can't find things on a globe, they're the ones who are majoring in
Phy-Ed (or whatever it's called now) and _beating up_ the ones in the
calculus class.

On Wed, 13 Apr 2005 14:00:46 -0400, Guess who wrote:
On Wed, 13 Apr 2005 11:44:15 -0500, Hax Planx
wrote:

For the love of God, man, keep up with your medications. Remember, Mr.
Thorazine is your friend! He brings happy thoughts and makes the bad
people talking in your head go away.

Then go away. This is a WOODworking forum, or did you forget how to
read, or to understand what you do read? Try your luck in a

Come back when you can see your way through it. It's simple high
school stuff, so not too much for your brilliant mind.

plonk to yet another person who talks big while "hiding" behind
anonymity.

On 13 Apr 2005 18:33:34 GMT, Dave Hinz wrote:

plonk to yet another person who talks big while "hiding" behind
anonymity.

You really can't do the math, can you?

I should give you access to my family's email address? I think not.
You're one of the reasons making relative anonymity necessary.
Besides, what does that have to do with what is said here? You're
just using that as a sidetrack, an excuse. Do you need it so that you
can ask for some hints on how to do the math? All I see here is a
handful of people muttering a few buzzwords like "Calculus" because
they heard it somewhere, and cluttering the newsgroup with other
similar drivel, but not able to do a simple high school math problem.

Put up or shut up.

In article , Guess who wrote:
On Wed, 13 Apr 2005 11:44:15 -0500, Hax Planx
wrote:

For the love of God, man, keep up with your medications. Remember, Mr.
Thorazine is your friend! He brings happy thoughts and makes the bad
people talking in your head go away.

Then go away. This is a WOODworking forum, or did you forget how to
read, or to understand what you do read?

Apparently you forgot what started the whole thing: someone asked a question
about measuring miters, someone else posted an answer that was demonstrably,
and laughably, wrong, and then proceeded to insult and abuse those who pointed
out his mistakes.

--
Regards,
Doug Miller (alphageek at milmac dot com)

Nobody ever left footprints in the sands of time by sitting on his butt.
And who wants to leave buttprints in the sands of time?

On Thu, 14 Apr 2005 00:03:32 GMT, (Doug Miller)
wrote:

Apparently you forgot what started the whole thing: someone asked a question
about measuring miters, someone else posted an answer that was demonstrably,
and laughably, wrong, and then proceeded to insult and abuse those who pointed
out his mistakes.

....then people showed how clever they were? "A rose by any other
name...." .

By the way, the pivot point is found by going half way along the
length, down 1/4 the width, then that same distance lengthwise again.
The ratio of sides for similar shapes open and closed would have to be
sqrt(2):1. Now let's get on with some wood-talk.