Marginal Notes
i. Growing up, my father desperately tried to instill in me a fearlessness of things mechanical. If there were tools to be used, I was to be there learning these Extremely Valuable Life Lessons of tablesaw operation or how to change a flat tire or the art of roof reshingle-ry. As a child who clutched to proper femininity like my gender life raft, I
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Which essentially leaves me with two questions. 1. ARE YOU KIDDING ME? 2. I used to know this?!
from wikipedia.org:In geometry, a vertex (Latin: corner; plural vertices) is a corner of a polygon (where two sides meet) or of a polyhedron (where three or more faces and edges meet).
if you talk it out in your head, it's not that bad:
so, "Vertex Q" represents one of the corners of the square; in fact it represents the corner that is diagnol from "O", which is the center of the circle. "Vertex Q" is on the circle, meaning the circumference of the circle touches Q. This means that the diagnol value between O and Q is the radius of the circle. If the area of the square is 8, then one side is equal to the square root of 8. Then use the Pythagorean theorem; the square root of 8 - squared - is 8. 8 x 2 = 16 (right angle triangle - the square of the hypotenuse = the sum of the squares of the other two sides). The square root of 16 is 4, that's your diagnol value (the circle radius). the area of the circle is PiR² = approx. 50.27 (rounded to two decimal places).
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Pam, with practice you’ll become a pro at these questions because it’s all..what? grade 7 math? It just takes some refreshing and getting used to the sorts of questions that get asked because once you’ve solved a few hundred you’ll see that they’re very repetitive and all sorta require the same kind of intuitive thinking. You’re really not going to get any mathematically complex problems on the GRE, so it’s just a matter of getting your head around it and thinking simple. Too bad you’re not in Ottawa anymore because I have a sick obsession with doing these sorts of problems, and we could spend afternoons on math review. How fun does that sound? :(
When/why are you taking the GRE?
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but i haven't gotten an A+ for math in over 12 years, so yay for me! i feel like lisa simpson, being graded well (on a math problem) is like a good drug. :P
this arithmetic matrices calculator is awesome.
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Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying ;)
That calculator is cute, but IMO matrices are only useful insofar as they help me kill everyone at Sudoku, which is itself only useful because I've decided that breaking Sudoku is the key to solving the mystery of NP-complete problems, which will win me a million bucks and hopefully a mention on Numb3rs.
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I'm taking the test within the next couple weeks. My MA is only a year long, so that means I have to apply for my PhD in December. York is the only Canadian school that I would even consider for a PhD, so I'm definitely going to apply to some American schools and probably some in Europe. Hence, need for stupid standardized testing. Also, word is they're restructuring the GRE in Novemeber and I don't like the sounds of the changes they're making, so I want it out of the way.
Have you thought any more about your own grad school plans of late? Are you going to be doing the GRE this year too?
Eep, sorry that was a little "garrulous". But hey, check me out using my vocabulary words in daily conversation!
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how do you find the area of a triangle if you know the lenths of the sides but not the perpendicular height?
in one word: trigonometry (specifically the Heron of Alexandria / Archimedes formula);
suppose your triangle sides are valued "a", "b", and "c", and the value of the area is "A".
A = the square root of {s(s-a)(s-b)(s-c)},
where s = (a+b+c)/2.
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See, my problem is that the study books assume you already know these things. So when they're like, "and since you know that the area of an equilateral triangle with sides of two is the square root of three..." and I'm left thinking, "I know that?!". But now I totally get why! Math kind of rules when you actually understand.
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SOHCAHTOA is the marvelous math mnemonic for remembering trigonometric functions:
"A way of remembering how to compute the sine, cosine, and tangent of an angle.
SOH stands for Sine equals Opposite over Hypotenuse.
CAH stands for Cosine equals Adjacent over Hypotenuse.
TOA stands for Tangent equals Opposite over Adjacent."
[wherein "Opposite" is the perpendicular side of the triangle, opposite the hypotenuse and theta angle, and "Adjacent" is the bottom side of the triangle, between the theta and right angles].
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And I think the scary possibility that when you go to grad school your world will be turned upside down and shaken before it's set back up again is something all of us are a little scared of. I wouldn't let it deter you. Never be afraid of more knowledge, I say!
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Way to make it sound so easy. It isn't! I think when you don't speak that language for a while, you just forget how to even start to approach such a question.
Wanna write my math section of the test for me, by any chance?
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what a great analogy! i have found from talking to others who are good with languages - but no so good with math - that my learning "frustrations" with languages very much mirror the lexicon issues that some people (who are really good with languages) seem to have with math. as though some people are naturally predispositioned to think in numerical or scientific deconstruction, while others more so in textual/verbal abstractions and correlations.
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how much gold will ye paye me? :P
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