Why is everyone terrible at math?

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Current Events » Why is everyone terrible at math?
Watch any game show. The question comes up asking 0.142 is closest to which of these fractions - 1/3, 1/5, 1/7 or 1/9?

Contestants will always say oh, math isnt my strong area. These are all people who graduated high school. This is stuff 10 year olds know. Stuff they learned as 10 year olds. Even uni students studying medicine choke on basic math questions.

But theyre always ready to answer questions about stupid shit like overpaid football players or crappy old 1980s music. Stuff that doesnt matter.
"The US is not a single country. It is ~20 developed countries being held hostage by ~25 developing countries and ~5 failed states." -Calintares
Because theres a difference between knowledgeable and intelligent.

You dont have to actually know what those fractions resolve to. Just insert the ones you do and go from there.

1/8 = .125 tells you the answer
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A lot of people haven't used fractions without a calculator since they learned it as 10 year olds, but crappy old 1980s music is their everyday life.
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It's funny how it's acceptable for otherwise intelligent people to say 'oh I just can't do maths', when it wouldn't be OK for them to say 'oh, I barely know how to read'.

(Football and 80s music matter to me, dammit).
You'll see motivational pictures about working hundred hour weeks/Well, it only applies to those who are operating at a really basic level
Because math sucks.

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ai123 posted...
It's funny how it's acceptable for otherwise intelligent people to say 'oh I just can't do maths', when it wouldn't be OK for them to say 'oh, I barely know how to read'.

(Football and 80s music matter to me, dammit).

Math needs more love. Its the reason these people even have their phones and social media.

SiO4 posted...
What time is it in your location?

Almost 7pm.
"The US is not a single country. It is ~20 developed countries being held hostage by ~25 developing countries and ~5 failed states." -Calintares
Math hard
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divot1338 posted...
Because theres a difference between knowledgeable and intelligent.

You dont have to actually know what those fractions resolve to. Just insert the ones you do and go from there.

1/8 = .125 tells you the answer

Thats just one example. Even questions like if something costs $120 base and $90 after discount, what percentage has it been discounted by? has people scratching their heads.

And I do feel in a position to judge because Im of fairly below average intelligence. If Ive got these questions worked out before the host has even gotten halfway through asking it, whats your excuse?
"The US is not a single country. It is ~20 developed countries being held hostage by ~25 developing countries and ~5 failed states." -Calintares
As a former math teacher I think it's perfectly fine for people to suck at math
Stop being so aggressively argumentative for no reason. - UnfairRepresent
Math is something you hate and memorize in school to pass the class, then put that shit out of your mind forever.

Math made up 90% of my homework in grade school and I still don't remember it.
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Doing math in your head is a useless skill for most people since they have a calculator on their phone.
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It's useless knowledge that is lost or diminishes after decades.
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Dark_Arbron posted...
Math needs more love. Its the reason these people even have their phones and social media.

I was guilty of this in the past. I thought that maths was boring and nerdy and never paid attention in school.

Now I really regret it. Esoteric maths really fascinates me, but I can't access it, as I have no real grasp of the basics. (I can do fractions and percentages, but I'm lost when it comes to calculus and stuff like that).
You'll see motivational pictures about working hundred hour weeks/Well, it only applies to those who are operating at a really basic level
Off the cuff numeracy is tricky, especially when you're in the spotlight. Arithmetic is simple, but it's also 'tricky' in that it's easy to make simple errors. Even if someone is good at situational math, that might not translate that to other presentations of a similar problem I worked with someone at a wedding venue who could solve all sorts of percentages and spatial problems about floor plans, but couldn't calculate a tip quickly because it was a different kind of situation.

There's also more overt instruction throughout life about pop culture stuff: a radio DJ will probably say "that song was ___ by the band ___" three times a week about any given song, but in adulthood you won't casually overhear "...and that's 9% of 17.52!" unless you're watching, like, an educational cartoon on PBS.
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Elementary school math is just preparing for knowing how to use a calculator
Because we suck at teaching it, internet access/calculators let us skip most our need to do it manually and its hard to focus on it say...onstage/on the spot, or when a jerkass customer pops some wierd math shit at you out of nowhere

The people who can't even figure out how to break a 20 or read their bill are just straight stupid though.
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Because math is the devil. The Roman's already solved x and its 10.
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I dont do math IRL
Lonestar2000 posted...
Doing math in your head is a useless skill for most people since they have a calculator on their phone.

I think that TC is a bit wrong, as I don't think that this 1/7 question is a good example, but I still think there is a point.

The problem isn't that people can't calculate simple numbers in their head, the problem is that they can't solve less simple questions even with a calculator.

But then again, you have these stupid meme polls with calculations like "12/2+5+6*7=?" and a ton of wrong answers.
Most people do not use anything beyond basic math when school or college is over, most times only specific careers use more then the basics of adding, subtracting, multiplication, and division.
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Math is just so fucking boring. It was always easy as shit in school, but sooooooo boring. Uninteresting. Unenjoyable. Trash. And almost anythign you learn after 6th grade is useless 99.9% of the time in 99.9% of jobs or life situations.

I can still do it when I need to but calculators are so much more convenient.
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Karovorak posted...
I think that TC is a bit wrong, as I don't think that this 1/7 question is a good example, but I still think there is a point.

The problem isn't that people can't calculate simple numbers in their head, the problem is that they can't solve less simple questions even with a calculator.

But then again, you have these stupid meme polls with calculations like "12/2+5+6*7=?" and a ton of wrong answers.
Which isnt even necessary to answer the question.

Work smarter, not harder.
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Math is embedded in my brain. I'm obsessed with numbers.
It's all relative and Gamefaqs.com is an echo chamber.

Nonetheless, it astounds me that people think I'm good at math because I can add/subtract quicker than them mentally.

I'm awful at math.
Because most people are trained only in arithmetic, which only covers numbers and basic operations. Mathematics is more complex.
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Because math is for nerds.
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I suck at it.
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I never learned math

And I can barely read. It is just too tough for me mentally. I don't think there anything wrong with this

I barely even thoughts throughout the day tbh. One moment I'm zoning out and I just activate whenever something catches my eye. Like this topic activated me.
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dummy420 posted...
Because math is the devil. The Roman's already solved x and its 10.

Lol!
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Dark_Koopatrol posted...
Math is embedded in my brain. I'm obsessed with numbers.

Math is a four-letter word. So is word, dude.

Ahhh! So is dude, bro!
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I'm sad that my math skills have degraded so much. I took up to partial differential equations and now I can't even remember how to do most integrals or a Laplace transform
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Math was my worst subject in school and I'm worse at math now since I don't ever use it... I wouldn't be able to answer the question in the OP...
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ai123 posted...
It's funny how it's acceptable for otherwise intelligent people to say 'oh I just can't do maths', when it wouldn't be OK for them to say 'oh, I barely know how to read'.

(Football and 80s music matter to me, dammit).
Anyone can, and should be able to read. I cannot do mathematics beyond basic algebra. Believe me, I tried, I just cant do it.
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Giacomo_Hawkins posted...
A lot of people haven't used fractions without a calculator since they learned it as 10 year olds, but crappy old 1980s music is their everyday life.
This.
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Anyone ever notice that most Vtubers are terrible at math (even talent from Asian countries, I've seen many Japanese, Chinese, and Indonesian talent trip up at math)?
Math is just difficult for me in general once it gets into the long division area. I think I failed college algebra twice and when I finally passed it, it was only due to seeing a tutor every other day. I immediately forgot everything I'd learned within an hour of finding out I passed. I was glad to no longer have to put up with it.

I think it's like a language and that if I used it every day, I'd be okay at it instead of struggling, but unlike learning a language, I have no motivation to maintain it. I could instead be writing a book, which is more working with my strengths instead of spending my time struggling and giving myself a headache with numbers.
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Price Is Right rules always apply. TC, if you said 1/7 you're wrong and I'll die on that hill everyday.
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your brain might work differently, most people have to think a while about it but can probably solve it with a bit of effort. As in, "uh, 0.333 is 1/3, so about half of that has to be 1/6, now I guess half of that is about 0.142 so let's just say the answer is 1/7"

Practicality an repetition. You can learn something in school and then never consciously need to use it again. Which means you are likely to forget it.

People definitely use fractions frequently in daily life but rarely need to know what the calculate out to. A person can know how to cut a pizza into eighths but they don't know that each slice is 12.5% of said pizza. And with no reason to practice said skull it's going to get forgotten. The rare time you need it, you have a calculator.

On flip side people get exposed to pop culture a lot and frequently have an actual interest in said culture. Repetition + interest means you are a lot more likely to remember something.
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It seems pretty simple to me why people are terrible at math and kids aren't... Kids are doing it all the time, many adults aren't.

Why do adults remember 80s music but not algebra and percentages and such? It's not comparable, because one is an enjoyable/catchy melody and another is something people are usually resistant to learning because it's boring, difficult, or they associate it with unenjoyable class and pressure of tests, etc.

We allow ourselves to forget math because we don't enjoy it and rarely use it, is the simple answer. How many people remember most of what they learned in history, science, or literature? It doesn't come up as often but just the same, we let ourselves forget. And it's fine.

If I asked you what denouement means and you didn't know, you'd say "literature isn't my best subject" but we don't hear that as often as "math isn't my best subject" so it goes unnoticed. It's all the same.
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Dark_Arbron posted...
But theyre always ready to answer questions about stupid shit like overpaid football players or crappy old 1980s music. Stuff that doesnt matter.
But the question you have as an example is literally pointless. There is zero meaning to that question... The other two would at least be trivia

Talk to anyone who deals in math, they are always looking at patterns or things that connect. The reason people are bad with math is because they dont see those patterns likely because they werent taught to think about it that way.

I mean really, who is going to look at something 0.142 is closest to which of these fractions - 1/3, 1/5, 1/7 or 1/9? and think anything other than "who gives a shit?" I mean really...?
You can't make a machine read to you as quickly as you could read yourself, and given how much reading we do, even a small time difference is significant. Math beyond the basics of arithmetic just doesn't come up as constantly for most people, and when it does, it's probably already automated.

So while I do think we could very much use a better approach to math education, comparing it to reading isn't actually that sensible, although it was funny in the standup bit.
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Outside of simple things like your basic addition, subtraction, multiplication, or division, most math is not useful to everyday life and only people who actively work with higher levels are going to remember more.

There is nothing more to it than that.
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C'mon TC it should be obvious what the difference is. Naming a song is easy because either you remember the name of the song or you don't.

But with math, it's not as simple. You have to actually calculate your answer. And for a lot of math, we haven't actually used it since school. Like I graduated 18 years ago and I've never had to calculate the percent of a sale in my day to day life.

So the knowledge is still in my head, but I haven't used it in so long that it would be something I'd have to write down and calculate rather than being able to mentally math it out in a few seconds.
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zado19 posted...
But the question you have as an example is literally pointless. There is zero meaning to that question... The other two would at least be trivia

Talk to anyone who deals in math, they are always looking at patterns or things that connect. The reason people are bad with math is because they dont see those patterns likely because they werent taught to think about it that way.

I mean really, who is going to look at something 0.142 is closest to which of these fractions - 1/3, 1/5, 1/7 or 1/9? and think anything other than "who gives a shit?" I mean really...?

Estimating a fraction from a value is something people do all the damn time. Say you're building something and you want to build the hypotenuse of a right triangle to reinforce a corner. You plug in either the Pythagorean Theorem or something with a sine function (depending on whether you want to work with side lengths or angles) and get the side length as a decimal. You'll probably intuitively want to convert that back to inches, and you decide you want to go with the nearest quarter of an inch (so you know what length to start with -- you'll cut it exactly once you have the materials together). Almost everyone can look at a value like 10.421 and say "that's a bit under ten and a half", "that's a bit over ten and four tenths", or other commonly used values. Knowing eighths is pretty common as well.

I highly doubt many people have sevenths memorized, but the question doesn't ask you what 1/7 is, it asks if the answer is closer to 1/5 (exactly .2) or 1/9 (.1111 repeating) than it is 1/7 (which you know is somewhere roughly in the middle). Being able to have any fucking common sense is a skill, too.
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the_rowan posted...
Estimating a fraction from a value is something people do all the damn time. Say you're building something and you want to build the hypotenuse of a right triangle to reinforce a corner. You plug in either the Pythagorean Theorem or something with a sine function (depending on whether you want to work with side lengths or angles) and get the side length as a decimal. You'll probably intuitively want to convert that back to inches, and you decide you want to go with the nearest quarter of an inch (so you know what length to start with -- you'll cut it exactly once you have the materials together). Almost everyone can look at a value like 10.421 and say "that's a bit under ten and a half", "that's a bit over ten and four tenths", or other commonly used values. Knowing eighths is pretty common as well.

I highly doubt many people have sevenths memorized, but the question doesn't ask you what 1/7 is, it asks if the answer is closer to 1/5 (exactly .2) or 1/9 (.1111 repeating) than it is 1/7 (which you know is somewhere roughly in the middle). Being able to have any fucking common sense is a skill, too.

Can't tell if this is a very longform joke or not, but I still laughed.
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Current Events » Why is everyone terrible at math?
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