Although studying for the GREs is pretty good proof that I was in fact right as a kid, and have little or no use for large chunks of the math I was forced to learn then.
I'm not saying math is bad. I'm saying I had little use for most of what I was forced to learn. If I'd learned more statistics for example, it would have been incredibly valuable. But not things like calculating the length of an arc.
Yes. I'm not denying the usefulness of math in general. I'm saying that very little of the advanced math I had to study has been relevant to me. There are many fabulous uses for more complex math-few of them are applicable to what I do on a day to day basis.
The best use of math, is to give new pathways andpatterns that allow you to analyze things that we don't generally think of as mathematical. Often the math itself doesn't apply to those things, but there are analogous relationships, anyway.
If you're actually doing the math to get the voulume, you're doing more than I'm talking about.
But suppose you're thinking about how much more you can enjoy paintings by learning more about painting. (Maybe that's not your experience, but if not art appreciation, then I'm sure there are other example that you'd find would fit.) And there doesn't seem to be any limit on what you can get out of it (assuming you had infinite time to learn about it) but each extra hour learning about it doesn't yield as much more enjoyment as that last hour so spent (on average, after the initial burst of enthusiasm).
That's an example (or at least somthing approximated by) a logarithmic function. For most purposes it doesn't make sense to actually plug in numbers to attempt to quantify the enjoyment you receive, but just knowing the shape of the curve can help you decide, for instace, whether to enroll in an Art Appreciation course.
The more math you know, the more such patterns there are to fit things into. Persnonally, I found calculus to be the most useful in that regard.
I don't know that I quite look at it as a logarithm, more as a ratio. I need to spend at least x hours sleeping, y hours at work, and that leaves me z hours to do other things. And the things that make up z all have weighted values.
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timeasmymeasure
hangin in there
no subject
Date: 2003-12-14 01:39 pm (UTC)math is my nemesis every day.
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Date: 2003-12-14 03:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-12-14 03:44 pm (UTC)Although studying for the GREs is pretty good proof that I was in fact right as a kid, and have little or no use for large chunks of the math I was forced to learn then.
no subject
Date: 2003-12-14 04:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-12-14 04:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-12-14 04:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-12-14 05:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-12-14 08:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-12-14 09:10 pm (UTC)But I sometimes have to do things like figure out the volume of a pan when I'm cooking.
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Date: 2003-12-14 09:44 pm (UTC)But suppose you're thinking about how much more you can enjoy paintings by learning more about painting. (Maybe that's not your experience, but if not art appreciation, then I'm sure there are other example that you'd find would fit.) And there doesn't seem to be any limit on what you can get out of it (assuming you had infinite time to learn about it) but each extra hour learning about it doesn't yield as much more enjoyment as that last hour so spent (on average, after the initial burst of enthusiasm).
That's an example (or at least somthing approximated by) a logarithmic function. For most purposes it doesn't make sense to actually plug in numbers to attempt to quantify the enjoyment you receive, but just knowing the shape of the curve can help you decide, for instace, whether to enroll in an Art Appreciation course.
The more math you know, the more such patterns there are to fit things into. Persnonally, I found calculus to be the most useful in that regard.
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Date: 2003-12-15 07:06 am (UTC)Sorta like that.
But I can see your explanation making sense.
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Date: 2003-12-14 04:34 pm (UTC)