#new math

[sailor-hobbiton]

My daughter is crying because she can’t do her math homework. I try to help, but she says I’m not doing it the way the teacher said to (which I believe, because the directions make NO SENSE to me).

Why do they change math every generation? I remember my mom not being able to help me with my homework, and telling me that her dad couldn’t help her either, because they KEEP CHANGING it to make it “easier and more logical”.

Which. Even if it IS, if the parents can’t help the kids with homework, how will the kids be able to learn? Because this disproportionally affects disadvantaged kids whose parents don’t have the time to learn it themselves, or the money to hire a tutor, or the socioeconomic status to send their kids to a school where the teacher actually has the time to TEACH everything during the day.

[theconcealedweapon]

Maths vs. Making a coffee

There are pros and cons to each method. Some people prefer the old method because it's fewer steps, and trying to go back and forth with the box diagram is confusing. Some people prefer the new method with the box diagram because it's easier to spot a mistake and because you can zone out without losing your place. And some people prefer their own methods because their brains work in unique ways, while other people would consider those methods to be total nonsense.

But this video is one of the worst arguments I've ever seen. If you prefer the old fashioned method, that's reasonable. But you can't accurately compare these two videos shown. One involves someone solving it who already knows how to do it and probably even rehearsed it for the video so they could do it as fast as possible. The other involves a teacher teaching it to a class of elementary school students for the first time and making sure to go slowly enough that every single student has a chance to speak up if they don't understand it. If it was compared to someone using the box diagram who already knew how to do it, it would only take a few extra seconds, and checking your work would be much easier.

I can calculate a date's day of the week in about 5-10 seconds. But if I explained how to do it to a class of elementary school kids, it would take at least a few minutes.

[beardedmrbean]

[edc-blog]

Video of the Week: Tom Lehrer's "New Math"

When you’re a mathematician by trade and you moonlight as one of the cleverest songwriters around, you’re uniquely qualified to perform something like Tom Lehrer’s “New Math” which, by our calculations, is enjoyable and confounding in equal parts.

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[somethingusefulfromflorida]

Semiseptenary: base 7½

1 = 1

10 = 7½

100 = 56¼

1,000 = 421⅞

10,000 = 3,164 1⁄16

100,000 = 23,730 ¹⁵⁄₃₂

1,000,000 = 177,978 ³³⁄₆₄

Just call me Isaac Newton, because I'm inventing new maths: fractional integers! How does this even work? I'll come back to this tomorrow and figure it out!

Let's be real though, I'm not Newton, I'm Leibniz. I invented it independently, but someone else has surely figured out fractional bases before me.

[gayemoji]

"introducing" me to tom lehrer on two separate occasions with zero recollection between them of ever knowing of tom lehrer

🤝

bo burnham overly sarcastic productions

[khansahir228]

https://youtu.be/ekzmCK5bKq0

Math trick

[thephilosopheroftheboudoir]

New Math

Invocation

from the ep They Walk Among You