Posted on 03/07/2006 10:12:59 AM PST by 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.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
You're overthinking it. A PIC is just a cheap 8-bit microcontroller. It's got nothing to do with a PID loop.
SD
I think I remember the value of algebra to be "x". X is a real low number for most people.
parsy, the variable.
See, I knew Pi R round, not square.
Cheap? <50 cents, I guess, lol.
Is there a math ping list? If so, I'd like to be on it.
I've been thinking about how I would teach math if I were a teacher. I think from the very beginning students should be forced to use proper math "language". For instance it's not the "top" and "bottom" of a fraction, kids should be forced at all times to use the correct terminology like numerator, denominator, sum, and product etc.
Last night after reading more of this thread I looked at some on-line algebra and discovered I would probably fail a test in school because I wouldn't be able to show my work! I can easily slide around the variables in my mind and solve the problems but I don't think I could write out the steps...
I've taught math a few times (volunteer, no pay) plus I have tutored a bit too. None of my students ever got less then a B. The trick is to make it interesting and fun. The other maybe even more important trick is to make them do the learning exercizes over and over and over again. Then make them do the exercizes again, make them solve so many similar problems, that it becomes boring second nature to them.
Explain exactly why it works and how it works, then they "get it" and they can move on to next step.
I printed your response so I can look at it this weekend. I'll let you know how I fare with understanding it.
You are really nice to take the time to do this. Thanks so much!
I have no idea why this stuff is in this class either but I do have to take a physics class within the next couple of semesters.
And you made me smile with your comments on the poorly written questions. Thanks for that too! I'll keep ya posted!
God only knows Dave! There is very little instruction in this class. The question reads exactly as I've written it. I guess you can assume what you want.
It's just like there were questions before where they asked you to combine like terms - that's all it said. I combined the terms in groups but got it wrong because I didn't combine and then solve. The instruction did not say to solve. Oh, and here's another one for ya. I got 4 marked wrong on my last test because, get this! The question would say something like Mary bought 40 crates of eggs. Each crate had 20 cartons and each carton had 12 eggs. How many eggs did Mary end up with? And I'd answer "x" but I didn't write "x EGGS!" Now the instructions did not say to write out the answer. She asked how many EGGS so I assume my answer is good. These people are so infantile and elementary. Unreal.
THANKS!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'll let ya know if I get it. I've printed your stuff and jpsb's stuff so between the two I should be able to handle it (I hope).
Non sequitur. A PIC is a microcontroller manufactured by Microchip. I'm using the PIC18F6585. I've already designed the custom CAN controllers and ported the Vector CANopen stack. Read a little more carefully. The purpose of employing the PIC microcontrollers is to distribute the processing load over really cheap hardware. The current hardware employs a 32 channel A to D board made by Diamond Systems. The DMM32 sells for $750 each. I'm currently employing 16 of those channels to measure inside and outside temperatures of the 8 bearing adapters. That is a waste of expensive hardware. I can do the same with 2 $10 PIC chips. I have 2 accelerometer channels measuring lateral motion on each end of the car. The frequency of motion that I care about there is around 4 Hz. I can easily sample and analyze that signal inside a PIC and transmit the results over the CAN bus. I still need high speed sampling on the DMM32, but now I can employ a DMM32X or Hercules integrated DMM to sample 4 bearings on each truck. That will expose common mode vibration transmitted down the axles and side frames in addition to the signals specific to the bearing. The DMM32X or Hercules can give me 250,000 samples per second (16-bit). I'll will actually use 50,000 samples per second on each of 4 bearing channels. Switch time between channel samples is 5 microseconds.
SD
Non sequitur.
What do you think "non sequitur" means?
The purpose of employing the PIC microcontrollers is to distribute the processing load over really cheap hardware.
Yeah, like I said, it's a cheap microcontroller.
SD
Ooooooers! I'm off to complete, and will ping with my response! :D
You mean names like Jrek? ;)
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