Math Discussion from Wednesday, July 30, 2014 Game

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Linear Gnome
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Re: Wednesday, July 30, 2014 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by Linear Gnome »

silverscreentest wrote:
OrangeSAM wrote:Now there are always imaginary numbers, but i don't think you want to go there.
:D
I saw a poster somewhere that depicts i saying to pi, "Be rational!" Pi says back to i, "Get real!"
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goforthetie
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Re: Math Discussion from Wednesday, July 30, 2014 Game

Post by goforthetie »

There is absolutely no reason to make anyone learn the terms 'abscissa' and 'ordinate'. Stupid math textbooks. *grumble grumble*
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StevenH
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Re: Math Discussion from Wednesday, July 30, 2014 Game

Post by StevenH »

goforthetie wrote:There is absolutely no reason to make anyone learn the terms 'abscissa' and 'ordinate'. Stupid math textbooks. *grumble grumble*
I took math up to calculus I and never learned those terms.
tjconn728
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Re: Math Discussion from Wednesday, July 30, 2014 Game

Post by tjconn728 »

StevenH wrote:
goforthetie wrote:There is absolutely no reason to make anyone learn the terms 'abscissa' and 'ordinate'. Stupid math textbooks. *grumble grumble*
I took math up to calculus I and never learned those terms.
I took Calculus I, II, and III online last year (so basically self-taught where I did have to read the book) and they never came up in even passing reference. Upon checking the index of the textbook, abscissa appears in the appendix only, and ordinate not at all. If they're more Algebra I terms, they don't even ring a bell from that class either, but that's going back to 1995-96 for me, so it's possible my teacher mentioned them once, only to be promptly be forgotten by the entire class.
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gnash
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Re: Math Discussion from Wednesday, July 30, 2014 Game

Post by gnash »

goforthetie wrote:There is absolutely no reason to make anyone learn the terms 'abscissa' and 'ordinate'. Stupid math textbooks. *grumble grumble*
There is nothing wrong with expanding the students' vocabulary. As long as it is not presented as learning math.
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Re: Wednesday, July 30, 2014 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by TenPoundHammer »

skullturf wrote:
TenPoundHammer wrote:I still can't wrap my head around y = mx+b.
I don't know if this is similar to your experience, but when I was in high school, something that struck me as a bit weird was that in an equation like y=mx+b, the teacher or the textbook would call x and y "variables" but call m and b "constants". I was like, aren't they all variables?

Well sure, m and b can stand for different numbers. But when you're considering a particular line, m and b would retain the same values for that problem -- as long as you're looking at just that one line. But when considering one line, you're considering different values of x and y.

So for example, y=3x+5 is the equation of just one line (whose slope is 3 and whose y-intercept is 5). There are a bunch of different x's and y's that can represent points on that line. For example, when x=1, y=8. And when x=1000, y=3005.

Obviously later that day you could consider another equation of the form y=mx+b where m doesn't have to be 3 and b doesn't have to be 5. (And also, you could have one problem containing two different lines -- maybe you have to find where they intersect, or something...)
The problem I kept running into is that the problems we were given were never in y=mx+b format. They'd have only one number on each side and I didn't know what to do.

Also, re: imaginary numbers: "You know, eleventeen, thirty-twelve…" — Hobbes
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gnash
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Re: Math Discussion from Wednesday, July 30, 2014 Game

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amorris525
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Re: Math Discussion from Wednesday, July 30, 2014 Game

Post by amorris525 »

Majored in math. I had never heard the word abscissa until reading this thread.
soxfan99
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Re: Math Discussion from Wednesday, July 30, 2014 Game

Post by soxfan99 »

I always did very well in math, and I'm currently a high school math teacher (granted, geometry, not algebra), and I've never once heard of the term abscissa. I'll take a look at our Algebra textbook on Monday and poll the Algebra teachers.
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Re: Math Discussion from Wednesday, July 30, 2014 Game

Post by Vanya »

gnash wrote:Anti-log-ism.
"To whit..."
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