Current Events > Why is everyone terrible at math?

(+) Yeah! (+)

even disregarding everything else I would not think to change it to inches, because not from US.

Guide posted...

Can't tell if this is a very longform joke or not, but I still laughed.

It's a completely practical example. You sketch these things out before you buy materials since you want to know lengths, and you absolutely need some form of trig to make the angles and lengths match up. The exact lengths I used are pretty uncommon, but building pretty much literally anything other than "exactly a rectangle" requires this sort of thing.

I would bet that you have looked up statistics when writing papers or presentations and turned numbers like 249,700 into "almost a quarter million" or similar many times, which means you computed the intermediate steps of dividing by 1,000,000 to get 0.2497 and comparing to 0.2500, while knowing this is equal to 1/4, all probably without even thinking about it. Having number sense like this is ridiculously common, and anyone who doesn't should not be getting a high school degree.

anything below a fifth people just don't regularly deal with. well except a tenth.

the_rowan posted...

It's a completely practical example. You sketch these things out before you buy materials since you want to know lengths, and you absolutely need some form of trig to make the angles and lengths match up. The exact lengths I used are pretty uncommon, but building pretty much literally anything other than "exactly a rectangle" requires this sort of thing.

I would bet that you have looked up statistics when writing papers or presentations and turned numbers like 249,700 into "almost a quarter million" or similar many times, which means you computed the intermediate steps of dividing by 1,000,000 to get 0.2497 and comparing to 0.2500, while knowing this is equal to 1/4, all probably without even thinking about it. Having number sense like this is ridiculously common, and anyone who doesn't should not be getting a high school degree.

lol but also haha?

Its become cool to hate math tho. Its a weird flex for some people

I've never build pretty much literally anything.

Some brains just aren't wired to be good at math. Even with practice and study it doesn't come easy to many people.

Math is one of those things you either get, or you don't get.

I like math, but I assume in a lot of these game show type cases the issue is time pressure. Either you only have a few seconds to answer, or it's first to buzz in and get it, which causes people to buzz in before they've worked out the answer, just b/c of FOMO

I bet there is a greater overlap between math enthusiasts and fighting game players.

I don't bother doing math myself because calculators exist. >_>

Rai_Jin posted...

I bet there is a greater overlap between math enthusiasts and fighting game players.

FGC is too varied to be sure, but it feels like, compared to other genre-based communities, the FGC has more concentration at the high and low ends of intellectual interests; that is to say, you have a lot of prominently smart people, and a lot of dumbasses. This isn't just big name tournament-goers or streamers; at all levels of social media and even irl, you have real smart lads and absolute dumbasses in higher concentrations in higher concentrations than you would see, in, say, the Halo or Pokemon communities.

It was taught in the most confusing ways possible.

Dark_Arbron posted...

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.

Tbf I don't know the answer to that math question AND I have little knowledge on football players and 1980's music so they're probably knowledgeable enough aside from being bad at math.

Dark_Arbron posted...

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?

If you got it worked out that fast, your intelligence is fine.

Who tf knows what 1/7 is? I gave up trying to do the mental math. Dumb opening question.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/7/4/9/AAc8AqAAE2-V.jpg

the_rowan posted...

It's a completely practical example. You sketch these things out before you buy materials since you want to know lengths, and you absolutely need some form of trig to make the angles and lengths match up. The exact lengths I used are pretty uncommon, but building pretty much literally anything other than "exactly a rectangle" requires this sort of thing.

Are you living in the 50s? Do you not have a CAD program?

Dark_Arbron posted...

And I do feel in a position to judge because Im of fairly below average intelligence.

Lmao, no you're not. You're leagues ahead of some of the morons I've known, let alone some of the dumbasses I've seen on this site.

If you actually were that dumb this topic wouldn't exist.