What Is the Value of Algebra?

The Washington Post ^ | February 16, 2006 | Richard Cohen

[RBroadfoot]

None, according to Richard Cohen of the Washington Post.

EXCERPT: I am haunted by Gabriela Ocampo. ... failing algebra six times in six semesters, trying it a seventh time and finally just despairing over ever getting it.

The L.A. school district now requires all students to pass a year of algebra ...

Here's the thing, Gabriela: You will never need to know algebra. I have never once used it and never once even rued that I could not use it. ...

Gabriela, sooner or later someone's going to tell you that algebra teaches reasoning. This is a lie propagated by, among others, algebra teachers. Writing is the highest form of reasoning. This is a fact. Algebra is not. The proof of this, Gabriela, is all the people in my high school who were whizzes at math but did not know a thing about history and could not write a readable English sentence. ...

Algebra ruined many a day for me. Now it could ruin your life.

[CharacterCounts]

One of the advantages of learning algebra is that it heps develop critical thinking skills. The author should have worked harder at his algebra.

[Jhohanna]

I think that the only useful thing the woman that birthed me taught me for the outside world was: "Learn something new every day". I've applied that to the life that I have made, and I directly attribute my success to that. And my will. :)

Somehow, as hard as I did suffer in math (hey, just because I took so much of it doesn't mean I was good at it, but I kept trying), I still ended up jumping straight into computers. I was offered a Chemical Engineering scholarship at Yale... but same said woman wouldn't sign the papers. *blah* But again, that success was the fact that my father bought me a Vic20 when I was 8, and I was obsessed with computers ever thereafter. I guess I did learn a lot of programming and math by wrote, just from copying it out of the back of Byte.

All that being said... I quit computer engineering school after the rational brain woke up and saw that 80k in student debt was NOT going to equal any amount of what I would get paid thereupon completing said education. And am making more now than I would be at the same point in time if I *had* finished CE school. Funny thing... I quit not because it was too hard, but too unapplicable. I'm sorry, but I didn't need to be learning ADA in 1993. Once I took that, I was screwed for programming for life. :\ So, I just build the systems, let the programmers do the real work. :P

[Jhohanna]

Oddly enough, I seem to have compensated with a nearly photographic memory, making a walking phone book. I just can't DIAL them! :P

[RipSawyer]

How else would one find the answer to, "If it takes two sticks of dynamite up a billy goat's rear to blow off one horn, how many sheep does a sheep dog have to eat to shit a wool hat?">>>>>>>>>>>

I didn't grow up near Brokeback and therefore have no knowledge of sheepdogs but we had a different challenge,"how long does it take for a one legged grasshopper to kick all the seeds out of a forty pound watermelon"?

[Cboldt]

I didn't grow up near Brokeback and therefore have no knowledge of sheepdogs but we had a different challenge,"how long does it take for a one legged grasshopper to kick all the seeds out of a forty pound watermelon"?

That's a good one too. The one I heard came from one Melvin Hakes of Marshall Michigan. Toolroom supervisor extraordinare. I was hanging out in the tool design department, young engineer talking shop, and in strolls Mel.

There's a bit of shop talk between him, tool design boss, and me, at which point Mel deadpans, "Say, are you good at trigonometry?" "I think so," says I, fully expecting an honest question.

I'll never forget what followed - and that was almost 30 years ago.

[PallMal]

He figured they would then be twice as large. I had to use some finesse to explain to him that they would be four times as large.

How about this one:

If Joe can paint a fence in one hour, and Jim can paint the same fence in one hour, and Jack can paint the same fence in an hour, if Joe, Jim, and Jack worked together, how long will it take to paint the fence?

You will be surprised how many people (and I'm talking adults, not kids) will say "3 hours", because "1 + 1 + 1 = 3".

For those who supposedly "never use algebra" and knew it would take less time, and more than likely came up with the answer of 20 minutes by using common sense, that common sense was algebra, whether you knew it or not.

[showme_the_Glory]

A Class five hurricane heads for the New Orleans coast. How much Heineken can you carry?

[RipSawyer]

Trig is used all the time, especially in construction. Try building a roof or a set of stairs without it. Try estimating the materials required without algebra. I would imagine people who sew use it quite a bit too.

Calculus is rightfully the gateway math into college.>>>>>>

My father never went past eighth grade but he had no problem designing and building a set of stairs or a roof. He could ask you what width of building you wanted to cover with an A frame roof, what slope you wanted and how much overhang and he could pick up a square, cut a rafter and it would fit perfectly. He could build a house with only a floor plan to go by. He probably would have said that he didn't know algebra because he never got that far in school. He also had a job measuring land as a very young man, most college graduates that I meet now have no idea how to measure an acre of land.

[Centurion2000]

Anyone that has ever had to extrapolate from a table of straight line values will use algebra.

I use my math quite more than I thought I would.

The most common use for my calculus is doing ballistics on custom rounds I build out.

[Centurion2000]

(0) x (X) = 1 , what does X equal? There IS an answer. It turns out that not everything multiplied by zero equals zero.

Prove it. :) ... seriously.

[Professional Engineer]

Is it bad that I actually got that?

Nope. It puts you into esteemed company.INTJ

[Professional Engineer]

*snort*

[PeoplesRepublicOfWashington]

You're unhealthy (and psychotic) attitude explains why our society is so innumerate.

[Radix]

As soon as I started reading your post I was reminded of that Robin Williams movie where he has the students tear out the Intro pages to the poetry text book.

That was a classic scene.

I've taken some courses and Algebra comes up in all of them, and they are not math courses.

[Paved Paradise]

I am going to take you up on that jpsb. There are people on here that are brilliant, no doubt. I'm good at certain things and while I did get A's in math as a kid, it's been years and other than geometry which I loved, math wasn't my favorite.

You already got it right - yes, by ratios it really in truth is fractions but I seem to be okay with fractions - somehow the converting part on the ratios just gets me dyslexic. I'm getting straight A's in my anatomy class right now and it is very tough, so I know I'm not a dunce; however, when I asked the college math lab tutor for help, he started clenching his jaw when I told him I couldn't understand him. He was kindof a jerk.

Okay, here are some sample problems in my homework:

Write a ratio of 3/4 cup to 1 pint (and remember that 1 pint = 2 cups)

Write a ratio and compare 3.75 miles t0 1000 yards (1760 yds = 1 mile)

Write a radio to compare 21/2 yards to 5 feet (3 ft = 1 yard).

I'll warn you that you might not be able to help me. It'd be worth it if I can get it.

Hope to hear back from you or other FR Mathletes!

[ChessExpert]

"Writing is the highest form of reasoning. This is a fact. Algebra is not. The proof of this, Gabriela, is all the people in my high school who were whizzes at math but did not know a thing about history and could not write a readable English sentence." (emphasis added)

That is not a proof. But then, he didn't pass Algebra, so how would he know?

Do his sentences exemplify the “highest form of reasoning?” Hardly. I might as well say that chess demonstrates the highest form of reasoning, because of all the English majors who don’t know a thing about Geography and can’t play a decent game of chess.

"Writing is the highest form of reasoning. This is a fact." That's not a fact. If it were, we wouldn't need a proof, nor additional reasoning.

So what can we conclude? It seems that one doesn't need to recognize a fact, a proof, or demonstrate valid reasoning in order to succeed at the Washington Post.

[RBroadfoot]

"Writing is the highest form of reasoning. This is a fact. Algebra is not. The proof of this, Gabriela, is all the people in my high school who were whizzes at math but did not know a thing about history and could not write a readable English sentence."

It's an assertion (not a fact). As you noted, it is a ridiculous assertion, which is inherently unprovable.

Your conclusion that WaPo columnists need not understand the meaning of simple words like "fact", "reasoning", and "proof", however, stands to reason.

[SoothingDave]

Okay, here are some sample problems in my homework:

Write a ratio of 3/4 cup to 1 pint (and remember that 1 pint = 2 cups)

What form is the answer supposed to take?

There are 2 cups in a pint and 4 quarters in each cup. So there are 8 quarters in a pint. You've got 3 quarters(3/4). So the ration would be 3 to 8.

SD

[taxcontrol]

Nope, I have not used Pythagorean since high school, unless I did so on purpose. More often than not to check if something actually was a "true" right angle.

But the T square did the same work. So I never had the NEED.

[taxcontrol]

You miss the point.

While the real world may 'DO' calculus, how often do you actually NEED to perform a calculus proof or find the changes in water volume or pressure etc.

I have never needed to do so in 20+ years. My chosen profession is in the computer network architecture / engineering space and requires a different set of skills. And is certainly is not required for everyday life.