Comments | starfleet_rpg: 02 [voice]

unseen_marking in starfleet_rpg

02 [voice]

Jul 12, 2009 21:37

Why am I expected to learn to do sums with letters? What is the point in it?

princess mercury, cordelia chase

Comments 79

lillostlizard July 13 2009, 01:42:51 UTC

It's called algebra - the letters are there to stand in for the numbers you don't know.

unseen_marking July 13 2009, 01:45:45 UTC

But if you don't know how many of a thing there are... why try to do sums relating to it?

lillostlizard July 13 2009, 01:47:13 UTC

So that you can find out, of course.

unseen_marking July 13 2009, 01:49:58 UTC

But...

I fear this will be my least favorite class.

Thread 34

[ voice ] glowingseer July 13 2009, 08:04:15 UTC

Huh?

I mean... huh?

Re: [ voice ] unseen_marking July 13 2009, 08:09:03 UTC

Cordelia! Perhaps you can help me. How skilled are you at the... mathematics, --I think they call it?-- of this world?

[ voice ] glowingseer July 13 2009, 08:11:35 UTC

Very unskilled, I'm sorry to say. I'm good at avoiding that subject like a plague, though!

You... you're studying math? Here?

Re: [ voice ] unseen_marking July 13 2009, 08:16:09 UTC

When I was tested it was determined I was below the necessary level I should be. I can do sums, of course, but this goes beyond anything I've ever needed before.

Thread 12

beyond_thedoor July 13 2009, 16:11:38 UTC

The letters stand in for numbers you don't know.

unseen_marking July 13 2009, 18:08:31 UTC

So I've been told, but why do it like this? If there is a sum we're meant to find why not describe the situation? It's easy enough to work a sum if you know that.

beyond_thedoor July 13 2009, 18:10:27 UTC

Because letters can stand for different numbers. That's why they're called "variables".

unseen_marking July 13 2009, 18:12:57 UTC

But--

...This is very different from what I am used to, I'm afraid.

Thread 25

bugeyedhero July 14 2009, 07:10:51 UTC

...hmm. Let me put it like this: Let's say you know you can travel a mile in an hour. And you know it'll be true no matter what. The only variable with how long it'll take you to travel somewhere is the distance right? So, if we represent our variable, distance, with the letter "d", and represent how much time it'll take you with the letter "t", we get: 1*d=t. Get it now? The way certain equations are set up will always remain the same, but the numbers making it up won't.

unseen_marking July 14 2009, 21:15:16 UTC

If the problems were like that--things I can base on what I have observed--I would be able to do them. But these are all meaningless numbers with no relation to anything. Though, the problems they give that are written out in words I can solve most of the time.

[long pause] ... And that number you used was wrong. On foot if a man isn't weakened or lazy I would say at least two and more likely three or four of your miles in an hour.

bugeyedhero July 14 2009, 21:34:34 UTC

One was just the first number that popped into my head. It could've just as easily been fifteen or one hundred. The point was to explain the reason for variables, not to be correct about average traveling speeds.

unseen_marking July 14 2009, 21:38:18 UTC

In a case like that it makes sense, though I'm not used to thinking about it that way.

...I still don't think it makes any sense at all in the problems I've been given.

mizuno_hime July 15 2009, 13:30:17 UTC

It is a fundamental and integral part of mathematics.

unseen_marking July 15 2009, 14:56:10 UTC

... If it made more sense-- I just don't understand the point of doing sums this way.

mizuno_hime July 15 2009, 14:58:03 UTC

The same as any other math. Its practical applications differ dependent upon situational and functional diversity.

unseen_marking July 15 2009, 15:24:05 UTC

I have only ever used sums... practically, as you put it. Perhaps if I understood how I was meant to apply this.