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| Yup: this is algebra... |
- King: "You do math every day, Al (movie tickets are discounted 50%?). You probably do algebra every day (yogurt's 3/$1.59, how much is one carton?... x = 1.59/3)."
- Burger: "As for algebra, I get what King said above, but I don't solve that problem algebraically. I 'see' math differently and have been able to calculate a lot in my head. 3 apples for $1.59 I'd break down as 3 goes into 15 5 times then into 9 3 times for 53 cents each, solved more with division and multiplication in my head than any other way."
- King: "But Burger, regardless of how you perform division in your head, that's still algebra. All algebra is is solving for an unknown. Some people go all bonkers when you say 'x = 1.59 / 3, what is x?' but are fine with 'If apples are 3 for $1.59, then how much is one apple?'"
- Mouse: "I classify what you describe as simple arithmetic... relabelling it 'algebra' does not come near to the mysterious formulas I was forced to solve even though they meant nothing to me."
- King: "Mouse, you ran into a lousy algebra teacher; someone who thought those 'mysterious formulas' are what algebra is about. A good teacher would make the mathematical operations accessible with real-world examples, at least up the point that the students get comfortable with thinking in the abstract instead of the concrete."
- Burger: "Yeah, I don't see that way as solving it using algebra. Algebra is an equation and 'showing your work'. [sic]"
- King: "See, Burger, there's the problem: they taught you that algebra is all 'equations and "showing your work."' That isn't what algebra is – all algebra is is finding the answers to mathematical questions."
- Burger: "I disagree. The math I use in every day [sic] life and what I have always been able to do in my head without difficulty is what I learned in elementary school math, not under the heading of 'algebra'. [sic] Just because in retrospect it appears to have the same properties, it doesn't for many of us. I did not learn 'algebra' in elementary school, I learned math."
- King: "Clearly, there are 2 kinds of people in the world: one who thinks algebra is, to quote the online dictionary, 'the part of mathematics in which letters and other general symbols are used to represent numbers and quantities in formulae and equations', [sic] and one who thinks it's the stuff on Sheldon Cooper's whiteboard."
- Mouse: "Letters are the elements of words and words are my expressions of my humanity. Frankly I don't care about your reasoning and I won't be told I SHOULD care."
"I shouldn't have bothered trying to change the minds of two fifty-somethings who've told themselves they can't do math beyond 2 + 2 = 4 for more than thirty years. The sad fact is that they do perform rudimentary algebra every day. Sure, most people never have a need for factoring quadratic equations beyond the second semester of algebra, but we set up equations in our heads all the time. We just don't use X as the unknown.
| The only difference between saying to yourself, 'What is the price of two $27.99 blouses if they're on sale at buy one, get one half off?' and writing down 'p = 27.99 + (27.99 / 2) ?' is that you've substituted the letter 'p' for 'the price of two $27.99 blouses.' It's still an algebraic equation with a letter representing the unknown answer!" |  |
So we think Burger and Mouse both deserve a Dumbass of the Day award. We'll give it to Mouse because, frankly, she's the more obnoxious of the two.
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SI - ALGEBRA
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