Poll: Lack of basic mathmatical skills

[Troublesome Lagomorph]

My school's math program was fucking insane. They treated everyone as though they were rocket scientists in the making, and the failure rate was through the roof. I failed my first algebra class because bad teacher (she was a random student teacher and the school put all of 7th grade algebra in her hands) and I failed every single algebra class since then.
I'm too stupid to have a job with tons of math, so off to manual labour with me!

 

[mrdude2010]

not an engineer, but a physicist, so yeah pretty important

 

[mrdude2010]

I'm not on facebook, but I do see people on the internet all the time that don't know the greater than sign from the lesser than sign.

I was taught to think of it as the mouth of a creature who wants to eat the bigger number.

Same here. It works, though.

 

[Wyes]

As I'm doing a physics and maths degree, I'd say that maths is pretty important to me. I'd also like to believe I'm reasonably good at it (especially the applied maths side of things, the hardcore theory goes over my head usually).

I was also horrified to find out that a friend of mine has a girlfriend who got a maths degree in the US, where she didn't even go beyond what we do in the start of second year maths here (no multivariable etc.). That's just... how can you even call it a maths degree?

As for order of operations, I was taught BIDMAS (Brackets, Indices, Division, Multiplication, Addition, Subtraction) with the understanding that Division and Multiplication are commutative, as are addition and subtraction (because they're essentially the same operation, dividing by a is the same as multiplying by 1/a, subtracting by b is the same as adding (-b)).

I do think the order of operations is important, even if it's entirely arbitrary. This is how you get consistent results. Without it, we're in trouble.

 

[J-meMalone]

I do worry about the quality of teaching of maths in England, most people I meet tell me they don't feel they can do maths, and the usual reaction I get when I tell people I'm studying Maths at uni is a look of horror, some people even recoil. That's not a good reaction to a subject...

 

[spacecowboy86]

I'm taking Calculus now, and I'm ashamed to admit I fell for one of them last year during algebra II. We were studying partial fractions and such and someone put up one that went something like "400+600/2" and my brain was so used to seeing parenthesis in the numerator that I just clumped them together and said 500. I realize now that the correct answer was, of course, 2000 700.

 

[gideonkain]

I'm not on facebook, but I do see people on the internet all the time that don't know the greater than sign from the lesser than sign.

I was taught to think of it as the mouth of a creature who wants to eat the bigger number.

I was told it was a crocodile.

 

[barbzilla]

Kind of limited the poll there, didn't you? I'm not an engineer but I find math extremely important to know. I don't use it everyday, but I pride myself on at least being able to solve basic Calculus.

Yeah sorry I apparently made the pole questions kind of vague. I didn't intend to imply that the engineer is the only one that uses heavy math or anything else. I was just trying to give a reference point. Sorry for the confusion.

 

[Radelaide]

Math is all kinds of bullshit, imo. But I was never really any good at it, I'm better at writing.

 

[Dags90]

I do agree though that there's a serious shortage of people who are good at and interested in math, especially here in America.

Something that's an actual relevant test at basic math skills that's particularly relevant in the U.S. is tipping. If you can't figure out a 10/15/20% tip on a bill, you need to go back to middle school.

I was told it was a crocodile.

Don't be stupid, it's obviously an alligator.

 

[Cid Silverwing]

Math makes my head hurt, all because I have dyscalculia.

Autism is not fun, people.

 

[Something Amyss]

Well, division is multiplication by the reciprocal. I'm not entirely sure when the order of the two would matter that much. I'm pretty sure you can switch subtraction/addition around and it would still give you the same result.

The main thing is that giving options confuses people. Actually, this is another good example of Facebook and math fail. When trying to explain this stuff to people, they get the internet equivalent of a blank look on their faces.

 

[gideonkain]

I do agree though that there's a serious shortage of people who are good at and interested in math, especially here in America.

Something that's an actual relevant test at basic math skills that's particularly relevant in the U.S. is tipping. If you can't figure out a 10/15/20% tip on a bill, you need to go back to middle school.

I was told it was a crocodile.

Don't be stupid, it's obviously an alligator.

Okay smart guy, you obviously don't know your crocodilians.

Alligators have a broad snout, while crocodiles have a thinner snout.

That's a pretty thin snout --> (<)

 

[SoulSalmon]

Looks like I was taught yet another different order of operations.
We get taught BEDMAS here but instead of Brackets, Exponentials, Division, Multiplication, Addition, Subtraction It's was Brackets, Exponentials, Division and Multiplication, Addition, Subtraction.

As for my level of math knowledge.. well... I'm not gonna claim it's not my fault I suck at math, but the ENTIRETY of math in primary school was "memorise your times tables" and the entirety of math (physics, algebra, trigonometry, etc) in highschool made us use calculators...
So it takes me 10 seconds to a minute to solve something 'simple' like 146 - 23.

 

[Cowabungaa]

I don't mind maths, I really don't.

It's just that maths hate me. I'm awful with numbers in general, they barely connect.

Depends on what you mean by 'numbers'. Do you mean making calculations?

That too but also remembering them for instance. I'm glad I can remember my PIN for my debit card but don't ever expect me to remember my cellphone number.

 

[DoomyMcDoom]

I've used basic maths every day for a long time, usually it involves monetary calculations, and or measurements for cooking, or a variety of other things, but I dropped out in 9th grade, so I'm not exactly a calculus wizard or anything... I can do basic geometry calculations, I undertand percentages, decimals, the basics such as division(including long devision) multiplication, addition and subtraction, hell speaking as a highschool droppout, I find it amazing how many graduates I know who suck at math...

 

[xshadowscreamx]

i work with the dewey system.

 

[MetalMagpie]

The Order of Operations is P.E.M.D.A.S.
Parenthesis
Exponents
Multiplication
Division
Addition
Subtraction

I think it was BIDMAS at my school. (Brackets, Indices, Division, Multiplication, Addition, Subtraction.) I say "I think" because the maths teacher I had didn't actually use anything like that. He just said, "Brackets trump everything, so use them when you want to be very clear about the order. Then it's indices, multiplication/division, addition/subtraction."

Using BIDMAS (or PEMDAS) has always seemed a bit convoluted to me, as it doesn't actually matter which way around you do addition and subtraction, or multiplication and division.

I did (and still do!) have to use soh-cah-toa for trig though.

OT: I work as a software developer, so I use quite a bit of maths in my job. However, my partner is a mechanical engineer, so he's the real "maths guy" of the two of us.

 

[conmag9]

I'm a CS student. Math has merged with language to form a form of chimeric Old Tongue by which I may command the digital world! System.out.print("Bwahahahahahahaha!")

 

[Naeo]

Given that I'm a physics student, math is pretty dang important to me. Not much beyond calculus and some differential equations so far, but I will need partial differential equations and complex analysis as part of my degree plan.