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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To really believe algebra is a waste of time...

212 replies

Feminine · 13/12/2011 23:33

unless you are intending to go in to a math/science driven career?

Not radical I know Wink but really, its a waste of time isn't it?

I think teens would be better off concentrating on math that actually helps when they leave school...I have a teen myself and teen siblings -I hear this opinion regularly.Many of the brightest students struggle with it, surely they could do something else? something more practical perhaps?

The jobs I have heard it is used in, is quite silly.

If I am ignorant, and we would would all be much better off if we were all better at it , then I (in advance) apologize. :)

OP posts:
GrimmaTheNome · 14/12/2011 19:48

slug in that situation I would just multiply surely?
multiply and add a bit. But it is an algebraic equation, just that instead of x it says 'pound'

Original poster
Feminine · 14/12/2011 19:53

grimma Grin thanks ,I do get that -yipeee!

OP posts:
complexnumber · 14/12/2011 19:53

I know I am going to sound a smug nerd, but I think that the more you know about maths, the more you can recognise it in your life.

You don't have to know why a ball bends when Beckham hits it (or when you put some develish spin on your table tennis serve) but I do like to know that this has been recognised and is known as the Magnus effect.

Did you realise that when you manage to succesfully return a tennis ball, you could be solving a quadratic equation without even realising it.

If 25 teams enter a knock out competition, how many games would have to be played, and how would you organise the rounds.

I really apperciate a quote I once heard about mathematics:

"I advise my students to listen carefully the moment they decide to take no more mathematics courses. They might be able to hear the sound of closing doors."

slug · 14/12/2011 19:53

Algebra is used all the time you just don't realize you are doing it. Every time you are in the car and work out how long it will take you to get somewhere based on your current speed and how far away you are you are using algebra. If you are cooking a recipe that requires three cups of flour and you only have two, if you recalculate the rest of the ingredients based on the flour you are using ratios and algebra.

Get0rf · 14/12/2011 19:56

Algebra is simply beautiful, in my book.

I don't think it should not be taught all the way through school. I never thought that I would pursue a maths based career, but when I did I am glad that I hada thoroigh grounding in algebra, otherwise I would have been screwed.

I used to do simultaneous and quadratic equations for fun. They were a lovely mental exercise, so satisfying to do.

Original poster
Feminine · 14/12/2011 19:56

So I was being unreasonable ...I am happy and grateful to have had it simplified in this thread...

complex I will pass that on to my DH...a fantastic tennis player, who claims he can't do much better at algebra than me!

OP posts:
complexnumber · 14/12/2011 19:57

"I really apperciate a quote"

'Apperciating' is a special skill that only maths lovers have

ouryve · 14/12/2011 19:58

Algebra is lovely.

And you use it all the time, even when you go shopping. If you've a fiver to spend and you need 6 doughnuts at 30p each, how many 40p bars of chocolate can you get with the change? It's simple algebra with carbs instead of the x and y.

I use simple algebra if I need to work out what to do to re-size something I want to knit, or adjust for a different weight of yarn.

As for whoever was doubting trigonometry - DH had to remind himself of it to calculate something for work, recently.

BrookeDavis · 14/12/2011 20:09

Have to agree with the majority, algebra is very very useful - and not just in maths / science careers.

I hated algebra and maths generally at school. But it now makes up about 1/4 of my job. 3/4 of my time is spent being all creative and writing etc. The rest is spent preparing income and expenditure budgets. Without algebra it would probably be about half of my time. With algebra I can see how if I reduce expenditure here, it will impact income in the future there without having to start completely from scratch.

So for any kind of business where you manage budgets you need to know algebra.

It's time to embrace it OP.

Xales · 14/12/2011 20:10

I am in two minds about this. I love algebra.

However when you go into a cafe, the till breaks down and you have to tell the person using the calculator 3 times that they have added your bill wrong (to be honest this person didn't have a clue that I was not lying until their third attempt as they were relying on the calculator) perhaps this person needs to have spent more time on just simple addition and subtraction. Taking them any further may have been beyond them and a complete waste of time.

Not sure if it has been said but we could say the same now about spelling and grammar? From what I see/hear spelling is not considered important by some. My spelling is generally OK but the standards of some written stuff now days is terrible!

complexnumber · 14/12/2011 20:10

feminine complex I will pass that on to my DH...a fantastic tennis player, who claims he can't do much better at algebra than me!

I see a future for your DH and I: his fanatstic tennis skills PLUS my (dubious) Maths skills.

= Britain's Got Talent!!

complexnumber · 14/12/2011 21:03

I may well have killed this thread already, however I do enjoy this quote from Winston Churchill (during his 1874?1904 diaries):

"I had a feeling once about Mathematics - that I saw it all. Depth beyond depth was revealed to me - the Byss and Abyss. I saw - as one might see the transit of Venus or even the Lord Mayor's Show - a quantity passing through infinity and changing its sign from plus to minus. I saw exactly why it happened and why the tergiversation was inevitable but it was after dinner and I let it go."

... mathematics is merely a big fart...

Ephiny · 14/12/2011 21:18

I had another thought about this actually: if the OPs son learned programming before formally learning algebra, I wonder if that's confusing things for him. Because it's not exactly the same thing, some of the notation looks the same but means different things.

i.e. in many programming languages '=' is the assignment operator rather than meaning equality (that would often be '=='), so when programming you can say 'i = i+1' (increment the current value of i by 1 and store the new value as i), but in algebra i = i+1 would mean something quite different, and would generally not make any sense.

So 'variables' in algebra are what you'd call constant/final/immutable etc in programming, though in algebra 'constant' means something different again. it is quite confusing when you think about it :)

Still think the teacher is not doing a good job here, whether through laziness or lack of ability/understanding or something else. If he's a bright 13 year old capable of learning programming languages and doing clever stuff with them, there's no reason he shouldn't be able to grasp high school algebra with clear explanations from a good teacher.

uberalice · 14/12/2011 21:23

I was not very good at Maths at primary school. It was probably a lack of self-confidence. Then, around the age of 14, with the help of a very inspirational Maths teacher, plus a lot of work on my part, it all clicked into place, and I started to do really well. I now have a very technical job in which I use algebra all the time. Should I have given up when I was the OP's DS's age?

How on earth does a child in their early teens know if they are going to end up following a maths/science driven career anyway?

Original poster
Feminine · 14/12/2011 21:30

Ephiny that was confusing Grin you are right though, he did teach himself programming before the tougher algebra came about.

I'll show him what you wrote, maybe seeing the two things illustrated like that might help?

Thank you.

With my son it is always a mystery ...

OP posts:
FabbyChic · 14/12/2011 21:34

It shows an apptitude for learning when you can understand maths and the logistics behind it. Those who get Maths degrees can go into any profession because they have shown an application and apptitude for a seriously hard subject. You can also earn serious money too.

Degree maths would make your eyes water.

Original poster
Feminine · 14/12/2011 21:35

I bet Fabby ...thats what your son did right? :)

OP posts:
babybarrister · 14/12/2011 22:17

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

DrCoconut · 14/12/2011 23:44

I think that believing you cannot do algebra makes you unable to do it. I teach it at HE level and am so used to people telling me they can't solve an equation that I now dress one up as an everyday scenario, ask them the answer (which they can give easily) and then tell them they just solved an equation! There seems to be a problem with understanding the concept of what they are trying to do, for example solving a quadratic means finding the x values (or whatever letter) that make the equation = 0. It's as if they have never been told. How can you hope to do something when you don't really know what the objective is? It needs explaining better at an earlier stage.

lynneinjapan · 15/12/2011 13:36

@Feminine: "He is fantastic at basic math , can already do most of the A level math he has looked over ...minus the blooming algebra!"
Er, that would mean that he can do about 30% of it then, if that. There's VERY little of A-level Maths that isn't algebra-based. There's less algebra in Statistics but that's only a third of the spec, and even then it does contain SOME algebra.

Any kind of manipulation of calculations is algebra really, even if you don't actually think of it in terms of letters.
As an example, I got told the other day that I need an extractor fan with a minimum throughput of 95 m3/hr. Found one that does 22 litres/sec; is that good enough?
Well, 1 hr = 3600 secs so 22 L/s is 22 x 3600 litres/hr;
1 litre is 1000cm3 (should know this from primary school)
and 1 m3 is 100cm x 100cm x 100cm = 1 000 000 cm3
and 1 000 000 / 1000 = 1000 so there are 1000 litres in a cubic metre
so 22 L/s = 22/1000 m3/s
= 22/1000 x 3600 m3/hr = 22 x 3.6 m3/hr = 79.2 m3/hr

  • so no, it's not quite enough... But now I know that all I need to do to convert from l/s to m3/hr is multiply by 3.6 , so it's easy to work out for other values. And if I want to convert the other way then I just have to DIVIDE by 3.6, so I know that I'm looking for something over 95/3.6 = 26.4 L/s.

Algebraically you could state this as M = L x 3.6 where M = throughput in m3/hr and L = throughput in litres/sec.

Original poster
Feminine · 15/12/2011 14:31

lynne what was discovered during this thread ,was that he is has probably has covered most of it here (US) already...and that what he is doing now is pretty advanced.

I also came to the conclusion he has been working me a bit Wink

The system is very different here :)

I'm interested to see what happens when we get home ...he will be in yr8 then.

OP posts:
aswellasyou · 15/12/2011 16:26

Oh no! I love algebra. If I could just do algebra all day at work, I'd die happy! Xmas Grin

It's actually not at all complicated as long as you're taught properly in the first place. I use it all the time in daily life. Mostly trying to get the most out of my money. And for working out how much I need to sell things for on eBay to make a certain amount. Xmas Wink

somebloke123 · 15/12/2011 17:05

fabbychick wrote:

---
It shows an apptitude for learning when you can understand maths and the logistics behind it. Those who get Maths degrees can go into any profession because they have shown an application and apptitude for a seriously hard subject. You can also earn serious money too.
----

Agreed.

Maybe what the Dean of Christchurch Oxford said in the 19th century about ancient Greek could also be said of algebra and maths in general:

"Nor can I do better, in conclusion, than impress upon you the study of Greek literature, which not only elevates above the vulgar herd, but leads not infrequently to positions of considerable emolument."

FryLaw · 15/12/2011 20:42

it also helps you to win an argument, you see if I give you A and tell you B, those who don't know that algebra is a reasoning tool, won't notice the difference, and probably won't complain, because they think a=b, mayb because they are alphabet, and the same.
But hey along came algebra (who's he/she?) and said a is not b at all!!

pinkhollie · 15/12/2011 21:02

As a maths teacher what I think often happens is that because of the massive size of the maths curriculum and the pressure of testing and targets parts of basic maths are missed and students are pushed on to basic algebra before they are ready because alot of them CAN do it but without understanding it.

Students need more time looking at the meaning of the equals sign and that problems like ? + 10 = ? - 2 has infinite solutions but ? +10 = 18 has only one solution rather than moving straight to 4a + a = 5a and 3(2a -5) =6a-15. I visited schools in Russia and was extremely impressed at the level of algebra primary age students were doing there without realising they were doing algebra