Math question

[RoJoHen]

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

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

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

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]

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]

"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.

 

[Shaytan]

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...

The Belgians use nonante but not huitante and the Swiss use huitante and nonante (not really sure for the Swiss but that's what I've heard).
From what I know, the base 20 system comes from the celtic culture so logically, it gradually died when you go to the east.

 

[flandry84]

Also practice your addition,multiplication and division skills.
Don't laugh but to keep my mind ticking over I do this.
Walk around the nearest car park,select random car number plates and in my head either add the numbers,multiply or divide.Simple,less sedentary than sudoku and it keeps the mind sharp.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

I'd argue that Mathematics is much more interesting than Arithmetic. Mere numbers are a bore.

 

[thestrangequark]

Also practice your addition,multiplication and division skills.
Don't laugh but to keep my mind ticking over I do this.
Walk around the nearest car park,select random car number plates and in my head either add the numbers,multiply or divide.Simple,less sedentary than sudoku and it keeps the mind sharp.

Sudoku is logic, not math, to be fair.