Free Republic

If one manages to graduate from high school without the rudiments of algebra, geometry and trigonometry, there are certain relatively high-paying careers probably off-limits for life -- such as careers in architecture, chemistry, computer programming, engineering, medicine and certain technical fields. For example, one might meet all of the physical requirements to be a fighter pilot, but he's grounded if he doesn't have enough math to understand physics, aerodynamics and navigation. Mathematical ability helps provide the disciplined structure that helps people to think, speak and write more clearly. In general, mathematics is an excellent foundation and prerequisite for study in...

In a meeting room at the Palazzo hotel in Las Vegas over the past week, Newt Gingrich mapped out a detailed strategy that would keep him in the presidential race all the way to the Republican convention in Tampa, Fla., in August. The crux of the former House speaker's new plan is math: a complex analysis of each state's delegates, how they're awarded and how many, reasonably, Gingrich can expect to win... The winning candidate needs 1,144 delegates to claim the nomination..... Gingrich's team has studied the convoluted rules. Using targeted phone lists and targeted mail and focusing on more...

Those who continue to believe that Romney can be stopped are focused — as is the campaign of Newt Gingrich — on the possibility of a long delegate fight. They have largely given up hope of anyone winning a knockout victory over Romney, hoping instead that some other candidate can prevent the former Massachusetts governor from wrapping the race up before the Republican National Convention, which is set for Tampa, Fla., in late August. “We have never gone through a delegate fight like this,” said Bob Vander Plaats, an influential conservative and the head of the Iowa-based Family Leader organization....

Next Week's Challenge from listener Ed Pegg Jr.: Write the digits from 1 to 9 in a line. If you put a plus sign after the 2, a times sign after the 4, and plus signs after the 6 and 8, the line shows 12 + 34 x 56 + 78 + 9, which equals 2003. That's nine years off from our current year 2012.? This example uses four arithmetic symbols. The object is to use just three of the following arithmetic operations: addition, subtraction, multiplication and division, in a line from 1 to 9 to get 2012 exactly. The...

The problem is: 3-4x = 6X+13 Can someone (please) demonstrate how to solve this? (I always was terrible at math). Thanks.

"The math is the math. You can't lower (tax) rates and raise revenues."- Barack Obama, December 11, 2011When I heard the President make the above statement to Steve Kroft during an interview on the CBS News program 60 Minutes…well, I thought of Ronald Reagan. No, not because Obama seemed Reaganesque, as he would want us to believe, but because Ronald Reagan believed just the opposite, and proved that he was right.And, I thought of Presidents Harding, Kennedy, and George W. Bush, too. All Presidents that had lowered tax rates that stimulated more economic activity – and increased the total revenue...

Texas Instruments TI-85 says: 48÷2(9+3) = 2 But Texas Instruments TI-86 says: 48÷2(9+3) = 288

I know there a a lot of FReepers smarter than I, so here goes...got this presented to me for help & I for the life of me am stumped 4 [4 - 5x] = 6x + 4 says answer is x= 10/7 can someone show how to solve? Thanks in advance....

Hearing the mainstream media breathlessly report that the unemployment rate declined to 8.5% makes it sound like all is well and the economy is mending. Unfortunately, there’s more to the story.  The official unemployment rate, called “U-3” by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), doesn’t include discouraged workers who gave up looking for work, nor does it include people working part time who want full time jobs. “U-6” is the real unemployment number, and it stands at a whopping 15.2% in Dec 2011. (See BLS Labor Underutilization for details)The Rest of the Story In the past two months, BLS reported a total...

On Tuesday, Mitt Romney beat Rick Santorum by eight votes in the Iowa caucus (maybe). Nervous Romney supporters, who had seen him down by over a hundred votes at different points in the night, were thrilled. Establishment Republicans were thrilled. And media personalities who’ve hoped Obama can get lucky enough to face Romney, instead of real conservative, were likewise thrilled. But Romney’s camp might want to take a hard and sober look at the cloud that accompanies this silver lining: namely, that Romney has been running for president for 5 years now yet 75% of Iowans still wanted no part...

You're on the trading floor, trying to price out if a 15-year bond issued by General Electric will generate the returns needed to placate your investors. Bad news, your calculator is dead and the trader from Cantor Fitzgerald is readying to signal his buy. What to do? Well, if all you need to do is double the investment in five-years, you're in luck. That's probably not the case, and GE probably isn't issuing 15-year debt. But we compiled a list of six math tricks that might just come in handy. If you have a math trick you'd like us to...

It's stuff like this that makes me love archaeology. Turns out, we can trace the concept of math homework back to at least 2300 B.C.E., in ancient Mesopotamia. In the early 20th century, German researchers found several clay tablets at the site of Šuruppak. (Today, that's basically the Iraqi city of Tell Fara.) Some of the tablets appear to be the remains of math instruction, including two different tablets that are working the same story problem. A loose translation of the problem is: A granary. Each man receives 7 sila of grain. How many men? That is, the tablets concern...

PUNTA GORDA, Fla.- The Charlotte County School District released a copy of its investigation into Charlotte High School math teacher Jeff Spires. The report details statements from students and Spires, who confess to taking part in grade-changing for money. According to the documents, an eleventh-grade student first brought forward allegations that Spires was selling grades on October 14. In the investigator's report, he says that student told the school's principal Barney Duffy he had bought several favorable grades on quizzes. The district released some of the student's exams. One one of them the student wrote "I paid coach $40.00 cash...

[SUMMARY: Public schools are bad because the Education Establishment, for 75 years, has made them that way.] Feeling brave? Got a cast-iron stomach? Not offended by decadence? Well, come with me and we’ll go for a stroll in the dangerous part of town, where society’s bad boys hang out. Yes, I’m talking about education. One metaphor works best for this whole disturbing field, and that’s CSI. Imagine a really big crime scene, chaotic and messy, filled with walking wounded, people who can’t read or count, their brains empty, their thoughts incoherent.  What happened here? We need to figure out whodunit...

Straw polls, real polls, debates, caucuses and primaries — these comprise the public side of presidential campaigns 14 months before Election Day. But behind the scenes, strategists for President Obama and his major Republican opponents are already focused like a laser on the Electoral College. The emerging general election contest gives every sign of being highly competitive, unlike 2008. Of course, at this point in 1983 and 1995, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton, respectively, were in trouble; and in 1991 George H.W. Bush still looked safe. Unexpectedly strong economic growth could make Obama’s reelection path much easier than it currently...

Hussein went spewing his class warfare excrement today in Washington D.C. He is proposing $1.5 Trillion in higher taxes for a "jobs bill" that costs, he says, about $450 billion. What the f is Husseing going to do with the other $1.1 Trillion?

A study found that when it comes to career choices, men prefer things and women prefer people.If you thought it was sexist to assume that girls aren't good at science, maybe you should think again (though stereotypes are dangerous and there are certainly many, many exceptions). A recent study in the journal Hormones and Behavior found that genetics play a key role in the career choices we make. In short, men become astronauts and women prefer nursing because of our biological nature, not environmental factors. In our society, males are more likely to work in fields dealing with "things" like...

Math professors are appalled at the lack of math skills they see in some education students -- who in turn can't adequately teach math to their own students when they get in a classroom. "We've kind of been watching a train wreck," University of Winnipeg math Prof. Anna Stokke said Friday. So far, 184 people have signed a petition demanding far higher standards for admission to faculties of education, 173 of them math, science and engineering professors. They're demanding the provincial government beef up high school graduation requirements for people intending to become teachers. Some teachers didn't get adequate math...

Watch the original Miss USA evolution video here: http://youtu.be/UkBmhM0R2A0

Baltimore school officials say the district will reimburse international teachers who paid out-of-pocket fees to obtain work visas, a practice that led the U.S. Department of Labor to order Prince George's County schools to pay nearly $6 million in penalties and back wages. Tisha Edwards, chief of staff for the city school system, said the district has international teachers — the majority Filipino — who shouldered their own costs for immigration filings and fees associated with being recruited to the district. However, the district could not say how much money it might have to pay back. "If there are cases,...