this post was submitted on 09 Nov 2024
159 points (98.2% liked)

Ask Lemmy

26858 readers
2039 users here now

A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions

Please don't post about US Politics. If you need to do this, try [email protected]


Rules: (interactive)


1) Be nice and; have funDoxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them


2) All posts must end with a '?'This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?


3) No spamPlease do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.


4) NSFW is okay, within reasonJust remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either [email protected] or [email protected]. NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].


5) This is not a support community.
It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions. If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email [email protected]. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.


Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.

Partnered Communities:

Tech Support

No Stupid Questions

You Should Know

Reddit

Jokes

Ask Ouija


Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu


founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

By recommend, I mean content you actually find to be high quality, well done, and easy to absorb and follow. By relearn, I mean I have forgotten everything I ever learned in high school.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[โ€“] [email protected] 10 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Math is one of those funny things that's always all around you even if you're ignorant of it. The ancient Greeks calculated the circumference of the world to an impressive degree of accuracy and they didn't even have calculators - they just looked at some triangles and made some guesses.

Do you need to know the circumference of the world in your day-to-day life? Probably not. But it's cool as heck knowing that you can figure that out by applying the right formulae.

If you know math and you're faced with a problem that can be solved with math, then you can solve the problem. If you don't know math and are faced with the same problem, you might not know how or if it can be solved.

Your specific question: "Are there any upsides to go beyond everyday math?" is an interesting question because of the implication of what 'everyday math' is. Depending on our professions or interests, your definition of everyday math might be radically different from someone else. Numeracy is enough to go on for a lot of people, which often implies arithmetic. But hey, fractions are always coming up in places, and if you add algebra to the mix you can start solving some interesting problems.

Some level of applied mathematics are used in all sorts of fields. Construction, Finance, Medicine, Software, Logistics, Conservation, Cooking, you name it. And the beautiful thing about a lot of these cases is that you don't need to know very complex math in order to follow along an established procedure. For instance, I don't need to know how to find the proof for compound interest, but I can easily look up a formula so I can make some projections of my investment plan.

Anyway, long story, but math is one of those 'use it or lose it' things. And if you've lost the math, then you start to be unable to see where math can be used. Keeping the math alive or rekindling it opens you up to possibilities that you might otherwise be ignorant of. Learning math for its own sake is fine, but finding ways to use the math you've learned is what helps keep it alive, and broadens your own horizons too.

[โ€“] [email protected] 3 points 4 days ago

I feel like I'm haunted by linear algebra because it keeps cropping up in all sorts of places