#american math

[h0n04rys3n10r]

okay we all know the weird squiggly line parenthesis “{,” right?

We all know how fucking hard it is to draw those fuckers, right??

Well I’ve just drawn one. Perfectly. 

I will post photo evidence later once I have access to a camera.

[pingmax]

[pingmax]

Americans Are Bad at Math, but It’s Not Too Late to Fix

When I lived in Las Vegas, there were billboards everywhere advertising different casinos. One of the most common was the type that promised “98 percent payouts.” I remember thinking how amazing that was. After all, 98 is a lot of percents! It seemed like a really good deal — until I thought about it for a minute.

It’s pretty simple, really. A 98 percent payout meant that, on average, for every dollar you gambled, you’d get back 98 cents. Now how attractive does that 98 percent look? No investor I know would be happy with that return on investment. Yet, based upon the number of people who visit casinos, they don’t seem too worried about it.

I suspect it’s tied, in large part, to the problems Elizabeth Green outlined in painful detail in her much-discussed article in The New York Times Magazine, “Why Do Americans Stink at Math?” She wrote, “As a nation, we suffer from an ailment that John Allen Paulos, a Temple University math professor and an author, calls innumeracy — the mathematical equivalent of not being able to read. On national tests, nearly two-thirds of fourth graders and eighth graders are not proficient in math.” The results aren’t much better among adults. As Ms. Green noted, “A 2012 study comparing 16-to-65-year-olds in 20 countries found that Americans rank in the bottom five in numeracy.”

My hunch is that how we learn math in America has very little to do with best practices and a lot to do with how teachers remember learning math when they were children. As a result, we’re seriously lacking in math skills, and it’s creating a financial problem that will only compound over time.

If we don’t understand what the numbers really mean, then how can we expect to make rational financial decisions? A perfect example of this disconnect is the lottery. We don’t think the real odds apply, even when they’re stacked against us.

In a July 16 story from NPR, David Just, a Cornell University economics and management professor, discussed the results from a study he wrote with colleagues that examined lottery data from 39 states. According to Mr. Just, “What appears to be happening is that [lottery players] really believe that there’s going to be a return on this investment.” In other words, they don’t play the lottery for entertainment, they do it because they actually think it is a good use of money!

This belief explains why one convenience store owner, whom NPR quoted in the same story, often had people in line for the lottery register from opening to closing. People genuinely believe they can be the exception, even though lottery players can only expect to get back, on average, 73 cents or less for every dollar they spend. Of course, understanding the real probability of winning won’t keep many people from buying their scratch-off cards altogether. But it might help them treat the lottery like the entertainment it is versus the retirement plan that it’s not.

Our issues with math also affect our most basic financial decisions, like understanding what happens if we only make the minimum payment on our credit cards. Companies must now include information on their monthly statements about how long it will take to pay off a current balance if we make only the minimum payment. However, if we don’t understand what the number means — interest plus a tiny percentage of the principal — it can be difficult to understand how our credit card debt grew so big in the first place. And if we don’t understand the source of the problem, how can we hope to avoid making the same mistake again?

For a long time, my work has focused almost solely on the idea that if we just improved our financial literacy, it would help us behave better. But now I’m wondering how many of us lack even foundational knowledge about basic math and numbers. Without that knowledge, how can we ever hope to understand things like compound interest and mutual fund expense ratios?

The good news is that, despite all this bad news about our innumeracy, we can get better at math and understanding the numbers. But it requires acknowledging that there’s a problem. We also need to stop using the excuse that we’re bad at math to justify remaining bad at math.

If we don’t know what the numbers mean, or it’s been a long time since our last math class, we can go online to resources like Khan Academy or BeijingMath.com and take a few courses. I can’t promise the knowledge will come easily, but if we say we’re serious about making better financial decisions, we can’t keep pretending to know more than we do.

 （From New York Time）

中文译文：虽然美国人数学很糟，但亡羊补牢为时未晚 

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虽然美国人数学很糟，但亡羊补牢为时未晚

      在拉斯维加斯的街头，到处都能看到各大赌场五花八门的广告牌。最常见的一句话就是保证你能获得“98%的胜率”。我还记得我当初曾认为这是个相当不错的数据。98%，那可真是不少了！听起来非常划算——但是仔细想想却不是这么一回事。

      其实不难理解，98%的胜率意味着，投入1美元平均只能拿回98美分。现在再看看98%这个数据，还那么有吸引力吗？反正我认识的投资者中没有谁会对这样的投资收益感到满意。但是，对于那些光顾赌场的人来说，他们才不在乎这个。

      在很大程度上，我怀疑他们之所以不在乎的原因与Elizabeth Green那篇登载在《纽约时报杂志》上的热门文章《美国人的数学为什么差？》中提出的问题有关。Elizabeth在文中写道：“我们的国家正经历着一种被坦普尔大学教授兼作家John Allen Paulos称为‘数学盲’的疾病的折磨——这种数学上的问题相当于语文上的无法阅读。在国家测试中，四年级和八年级的学生中有近三分之二在数学这门课程中达不到熟练的标准。”成年人的情况也不容乐观。就像Ms. Green提到的：“2012年一项研究中比较了20个国家中16到65岁的成人的计算能力，美国排在倒数五名之中。”

      我认为，在美国如何学习数学跟学习的最佳方式并没有太大关系，而与教师们是否还记得他们小时候学习数学的经历密切相关。因此，我们的数学技能十分匮乏，这也形成了日益严重的金融问题。

      如果我们不能理解这些数字到底意味着什么，我们就无法做出合理的财务决策。要说明这一点，彩票是一个绝佳的例子。我们从不认真考虑中奖几率的可行性，即使这些几率对我们很不利。

      康奈尔大学的经济管理学教授David Just与他的同事们对39个州的竞彩数据做了项研究，他在7月16日美国国家电台的报道中谈到了这项研究的结果。Mr. Just指出：“实际上竞彩者真的相信他们花在彩票的上的钱是能得到回报的。”也就是说，他们买彩票不是为了好玩，而是他们真的认为这是一项有意义的投资。

      这种观念就解释了同一篇报道中提到的那个便利店老板为什么能让人们从早到晚的排在他的店门前购买彩票，人们真的相信自己会成为赢钱的那个例外——即使他们用来买彩票的每一美元都只能拿回73美分甚至更少。当然，了解真正的中奖概率也许不能阻止人们一拥而上的购买刮刮卡，但可能能让人们把购买彩票当成一种娱乐，而不是把它当成退休计划。

      糟糕的数学也影响了我们大部分的基本财务决策，比如弄清楚我们只支付信用卡的最低还款额到底会带来什么结果。公司需要在月度报表中说明，如果用户每月仅支付最低还款额，公司需要多久才能付清它的当前负债。然而，如果我们不明白这些数字的含义——利息加一定比例的本金——我们就不会明白自己信用卡上的欠款怎么会变得那么多。如果我们搞不清楚问题的根源所在，我们就无法避免再次犯同样的错。

      长期以来，我都只是关注提高大众的金融知识水平能不能提高他们的财务决策能力。但现在看来，恐怕大多数人连最基本的数学知识都不甚了解。没有基础知识，怎么能指望人们理解类似“复利”或者“互惠基金费率”这样的概念呢？

      好消息是，尽管有“数学盲”这样的问题存在，我们仍然可以学好数学，理解这些数字。但是前提是我们必须承认自己存在问题，而不是把“数学不好”当作借口而不去改变现状。

      即使我们不理解这些数字，上一次上数学课也是很久远的事情了，我们还是可以去在线教程比如可汗学院或者北京数学去上几节课。我不能保证这些知识能被轻松掌握，但是如果我们想要做出明智的财务决策，我们就绝不能不懂装懂。

 （转自《纽约时报》）

English Version:  Americans Are Bad at Math, but It’s Not Too Late to Fix

[minau]

well I'm taking my school exam tomorrow wish me luck