Math question

[Robert Maxwell]

CorporalCaptain wrote:

---

No contemporary discussion of numeral bases would be complete without mentioning that, because computer memory is ultimately composed of bits, computer scientists frequently use bases that are various powers of two: binary itself (base 2), octal (base 8), and hexadecimal (base 16). Base 64 also has a place, although it's rare, if ever, for data in that base to be directly manipulated by humans.

What's awesome to me is that binary math lets you multiply and divide simply by shifting bits left and right.

[iguana_tonante]

Deranged Nasat wrote:

---

The Minbari in Babylon Five use base 11; 10 fingers plus the head.

It's not the head.

[Kenbushway]

To be honest the things you guys have said that is easy for you and helped understand still confuses me. Is my problem more than just learning math?

[thestrangequark]

Kenbushway wrote:

---

To be honest the things you guys have said that is easy for you and helped understand still confuses me. Is my problem more than just learning math?

Math isn't easy for everyone, so don't worry. What's confusing you?

[Kenbushway]

thestrangequark wrote:

---

Math isn't easy for everyone, so don't worry. What's confusing you?

Concepts, the explaining of simple math.
A teacher would has to literally go step by step and is likely going to have to repeat it more than once. And when I learn new concepts man it gets worse.

[thestrangequark]

Kenbushway wrote:

---

Concepts, the explaining of simple math.
A teacher would has to literally go step by step and is likely going to have to repeat it more than once. And when I learn new concepts man it gets worse.

No biggie. So, it takes you longer and more time to learn math. Maybe you have a learning disability...I taught special ed for years. What do you need explained, I'd be happy to give it a go. The neighbors are having a loud fucking party, so I'm not getting to sleep any time soon.

[Kenbushway]

thestrangequark wrote:

---

No biggie. So, it takes you longer and more time to learn math. Maybe you have a learning disability...I taught special ed for years. What do you need explained, I'd be happy to give it a go. The neighbors are having a loud fucking party, so I'm not getting to sleep any time soon.

I still don't get the part about 100, I've read about multiplication table, the ability for a certain number to go into 100, but I don't get it. Also I am good a science, I can understand it quite easily. since Math is the sister of science, why can't I understand math?

[thestrangequark]

Could be a learning disability, like I said. Could be that math is just harder for you to grasp, or that you haven't been taught to think about it the right way yet. Like I said, we don't have a particularly good track record for teaching math in this country. I couldn't do much math in my head until I was an adult, I was successful at math -- in advanced classes and everything, but I had no fundamental grasp of a lot of the concepts (due to missing most of 7th and 8th grades). It wasn't until I was in college taking stats, but also taking classes on how to teach more basic math, that the concepts really clicked and all of the sudden I was good at mental math -- it was all about how I was taught to look at it.

I like teaching, so if you want, I can try to help you figure it out.

give me a sec.

[thestrangequark]

Firstly, some of the things I bring up may seem really basic and young, but this is seriously how I first really grasped math concepts in college, so please don't take offense.

Have you ever worked with a hundreds chart?

[thestrangequark]

The hundreds chart is a great visual aid, because it really gives you a good idea of how base ten works. You can easily see the patterns that you know about (like counting by tens, starting at any number, ie 6, 16, 26, 36, 46...). I know it seems ridiculously simple to some people, but sometimes we just need to be able to actually see the pattern in front of us to get it, you know what I mean? I didn't see a hundreds chart until I was and adult, an it would have made math so much faster for me as a kid! Like I said, I was good enough at math to be in advanced classes, but that's only because I could memorize algorithms, not because I understood the concepts.

There are other patterns that are easier to see when you look at the chart, like combinations of 10, for example. 4+6=10, 14+6=20, 24+6=30, etc. Does the visual aid help you to see the patterns at all?

[RoJoHen]

thestrangequark wrote:

---

I didn't see a hundreds chart until I was and adult,

This is the first time I've ever seen one.

[Asbo Zaprudder]

Shaytan wrote:

---

My ancestors were astute enough to know that they have also 10 toes and they used a base 20 system that survived a little in my language and in the collective culture.
For example, there is a hospital in Paris called les quinze-vingts (the 15-20) because it hosted 300 patients when it was created during the Middle Ages.
Another example : 80 = quatre-vingt = 4-20 literally.

English used to use a similar scheme -- even now, four score is understood to mean eighty as used in the Gettysburg Address. Score is an archaic word for twenty from a tally mark that was recorded when counting things (probably livestock).

Do the Belgians and Swiss still use septante, huitante/octante, and nonante instead of soixante-dix, quatre-vingts, and quatre-vingt-dix? That system never caught on in France though...

Regarding the hundreds chart, I think it would be more effective if the numbers were right-justified in the cells so the cycling over the digits would be more obvious.

[Deranged Nasat]

Kenbushway wrote:

---

To be honest the things you guys have said that is easy for you and helped understand still confuses me. Is my problem more than just learning math?

For what it's worth, maths isn't my best either, which is odd seeing that it was my best subject when I was very young. I don't know what changed or why, but for a long time maths has been something that can readily give me headaches.

[Asbo Zaprudder]

Everybody has a limit to their understanding. Many mathematicians wouldn't be able to get their heads around the Hodge conjecture:

"Let X be a projective complex manifold. Then every Hodge class on X is a linear combination with rational coefficients of the cohomology classes of complex subvarieties of X."

which Keith Devlin in "The Millennium Problems" restates as:

"Every harmonic differential form (of a certain type) on a non-singular projective algebraic variety is a rational combination of cohomology classes of algebraic cycles."

but which has yet to be proved. There is a Millennium Prize worth $1 million if you can prove it. I haven't much of a clue about what most of the individual terms mean so I won't be trying for the prize ever.

There are seven Millennium Prize problems, each worth $1 million, of which six remain to be proved:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Prize_Problems

[Deranged Nasat]

Asbo Zaprudder wrote:

---

"Let X be a projective complex manifold. Then every Hodge class on X is a linear combination with rational coefficients of the cohomology classes of complex subvarieties of X."

I'd be quite happy to let X be whatever it wants, so long as it doesn't try to involve me.