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To: LegendHasIt

“I’m still ‘number phobic’ despite eventually getting through Calculus, and D.E., etc”

I understand what you are saying. I did not do well in school and struggled through college, but when I started teaching her, things became clearer, I was able to fill in the holes in my education and teach myself what I never fully understood. The books available now are great. Danica Mckellor’s books though having too much boyfriend stuff in them are a help. There are some great you tubes and the Kahn academy is fantastic. There are a ton of web sites available. We have good library book sales and the common core standards have caused a plethora of inexpensive text books to become available. It is interesting how may ways there are to explain the same subject. I have some where between 75-100 math books not to mention some lighter theory books like Jordan Ellenberg’s or Keith Devlin’s.

What ever comes of this, I will continue with my math. It is amazing what you can do if you simply do 15-30 minutes of calculations a day even if you ever so slowly increase the complexity. Furthermore, working with math causes one to view the world differently,more rationally. Giving your mind a mathematical work out daily will change you. Don’t fear it; own it.


17 posted on 09/14/2014 9:00:25 PM PDT by rey
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To: rey
What ever comes of this, I will continue with my math. It is amazing what you can do if you simply do 15-30 minutes of calculations a day even if you ever so slowly increase the complexity. Furthermore, working with math causes one to view the world differently,more rationally. Giving your mind a mathematical work out daily will change you. Don’t fear it; own it.

Very inspirational. Great post!

30 posted on 09/14/2014 9:42:42 PM PDT by thecodont
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To: rey
I did not do well in school and struggled through college, but when I started teaching her, things became clearer, I was able to fill in the holes in my education and teach myself what I never fully understood.
When I encountered the issue of home schooling here on FR, I had to think it over before I came to support it. And the thought that first tipped me into the positive camp on the issue was exactly what you say above - even if somehow you had found that home schooling your particular child proved not to work out, a lot of learning would have still occurred. What is wrong, in principle, with adults getting educated??

If some adult, black let us say, has a poor education behind her or him, it would be tempting to say that the “experts” known as credentialed teachers need to take over. But that is precisely where the adult’s poor education came from in the first place. Thus, the Einstein definition of insanity seems to apply. Let the parent undertake the teaching role if s/he will. In the worst case, at least s/he will learn something!

The books available now are great. Danica Mckellor’s books though having too much boyfriend stuff in them are a help. There are some great you tubes and the Kahn academy is fantastic.
. . . and again, when thinking about home schooling I hoped and expected that burgeoning Personal Computer availability and capability would lead (tho I had no concept then of the wonderful Khan Academy YouTube instructional video that would come available later) to significant help for home schoolers. Congratulations!
Now as to your actual question:
I speculate that you and your child would be able to do impulse-momentum calculations with no great difficulty. I never studied aerodynamics much, tho I worked as an engineer for an aircraft manufacturer. But the big picture of what happens when an aircraft flies is that the aircraft extracts the lift and thrust it needs from the air in which it is immersed, and that it does so by changing the velocity of the air locally.

The thrust of a jet engine derives from the fact that it pumps the incoming air, hurling it backward at a higher speed than it came into the engine with. The actual thrust (which is impulse) can be calculated as the mass of air per second passing through the engine, times the change in velocity (which is the momentum) of that air. The impulse is equal to that change of momentum.

Likewise, the lift produced by the wing can only occur by knocking the oncoming air through which it passes downward. The lift of the wing is the impulse, and the mass times the velocity of the air it deflects downward is the change of momentum which causes the impulse.

In both cases, there is an efficiency advantage to be had if you can obtain your impulse by changing the velocity of a lot of air by a little bit. That is because it takes work to change the velocity of a mass - and the work required to do it goes up as the square of the change in velocity required, which is inversely proportional to the mass whose velocity is changed. (I know that could be a little technical for a ten year old).

Interesting topic, but I gotta run.


55 posted on 09/15/2014 5:07:48 AM PDT by conservatism_IS_compassion ("Liberalism” is a conspiracy against the public by wire-service journalism.)
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