Hostages in Algebra

Won't somebody think of the kids!?!?!?

Send Aenea in there as a negotiator!!!

:libertystatue:

I was a hostage in algebra for four years - ninth grade, 10th grade, 11th grade, with a brief respite in 12th grade before I had to take it again in freshman year of undergrad.

I still wake up screaming...

Algebra.... took that in high school, hated it then.

Had to take it again when I started back in school, barely paid attention in class and did the bare minimum. Made a 97 in it, it was so much easier the second time around.

Pfffft...Algebra is a piece of cake. And geometry is a piece of Pi!

Such a waste of valuable pot/cigarette smoking and skateboarding time in High School. I haven't solved for x since Bill Clinton was the President.

So far every math course I've taken has been a cakewalk or easy as Pi, even calculus was boringly easy.

Really? You've never calculated a tip or figured out how much your "__% Off" coupon would save you on a purchase in the past 12 years? You must live in a cave!

I liked geometry. It was concrete, it was measurable, you could use it for things.

Algebra? Not.

whaaaa? see nautica's comment above.

I don't get algebra. Never have, never will. I'd envy those of you who do, but since it serves no purpose in the course of my life, I can live with that.

Any hostages of linear algebra here?

Yeah.... it wasn't that bad.

I quite liked it, but by the time I was finished with it at college, it was getting too complex for me.

I remember just before I took linear algebra asking a friend of mine "How hard could it be? It's just a bunch of linear equations..." My friend, who has a degree in Math, laughed and said "You'll see..."

That was one of the hardest classes I've ever taken. Calculus was easy by comparison. And, while the arithmetic part of linear algebra IS actually quite easy, the conceptual part is very difficult and occasionally mind-blowing. I found it fascinating that some problems that are difficult to solve in one space are easy to solve in another, well-chosen one...

My lady is quicker on the draw with that business. I'd need a calculator.

I've got this cool tip calculator that also makes phone calls!

انها اليونانية بالنسبة لي.

But I can figure out that says, and the equation is actually pretty easy to solve.

You just plug the right numbers for the variables and you have the answer without using anything harder than exponents.

This thread is treading dangerously close to maths in the Red Room. Be warned.

^And that might as well be Greek, AFAIC.

I can learn to read Greek

How hard can it be? Lots of Greeks do it.

Can you also read music?

Used to play the trumpet.

Well, there you are. Math, languages, and musical ability are all functions of the same region of the brain.

Yep... it's a curse I live with.

In theory. Yet I can learn language and music theory easily, but am lost doing math in my head. If I can draw things out with paper and pen, I can solve problems pretty well, though I wing it with formulas - I just go by common sense and instinct.

I have to work it out on paper as well, and I'm fine as long as it's numbers. But WTF is "x"? Yah, yah, I know, "it's the variable." Well, fine. If it's the only variable, I can work it out. But as soon as you throw in y and z, I'm outta there...

Last weekend I lost several hours doing various math problems on the Khan Academy web site. I'm surprised at how much I still remember.

Much as I liked advanced algebra, though, they'd've done better by us students to have spent more time on probability and statistics and all the tricky things people can do with them. That kind of numeracy is way more common and important in most people's daily lives.