LogFAQs > #933820745

Ic3Bullet posted...

Very true. Yes they taught us those properties. I never noticed the applicability of most of them, because they weren't something that was mentioned when the teacher was teaching us new things. We basically just had to define them in the first 2 weeks of school every year, then never looked at them again.

Well the important thing is you know why you can do something as opposed to learning a little math trick like this.

Frankly I've always thought learning stuff like the commutative property was a waste of time. All they did was ask you to recognize it when you see it, and name it.

We know by easy visualization that 2x4 is the same as 4x2. 4 rows of 2 or 2 rows of 4.

Now let's say you factor out. Every spot is now worth 2 instead of 1 but occupies half the volume. If you have cookies in this row, you can just double stack the cookies you already have. Either way you still have 8 cookies.

Understanding the logic behind it is much more important than the name.


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If you're going through hell, keep going.
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