/sci/ - Science & Math

It's as important to you as your job is to everyone else.

Think about that for a second.

Math is very important in certain sciences.
It is easy once you get the hang of it.
It's really just straight logic.
If you have trouble with it, it's because you didn't learn it properly in the beginning.

>>2555523
Medicine.

>>2555521

How are you guys motivated to go so deep into math. It just doesn't make any sensio. But I do admit that i never put my head on it.

Is it possible for a person to be terrible in math but excel in literature and English classes I can't do math if t had to save my life. DO I have brain damage I find math so difficult yet stuff like english class i can do easily.

>>2555546
Do you like learning things? Do you like thinking about things and analyzing them? Do you like logic? Do you like things that are true? If you answered "yes" to any of these questions, then math may be for you.

>>2555546
Because if you don't learn it, you're almost fucked no matter what job you get.

Chimps do math. So can you. But better. I hope.

>>2555555
Oh, I and just got double trips.

>>2555546
it's because math isn't just number crunching. That's arithmetic, a very small part of mathematics.

here, read this: http://www.maa.org/devlin/LockhartsLament.pdf

I hope it widens your horizons

>>2555555
horey shit sextuplets

I think it's extraordinarily important. m in grad school for math and, frankly, I'm not that good at it.

Every time I run into some hard, super abstract concept it takes me 3 tries to understand the argument and 3 weeks - 3 months to understand the underlying insight.

If anything, the fact humans are so bad at it means that it's more important. After all we are 98% crap-flinging chimp.

>>2555560
>double triples

Don't you mean...triple doubles?

>>2555555
I like psychology, philosophy. The way how humans communicate and interact with each other socially.

These are the kind of areas my brains are ''developed'' for.

>>2555546

Once you get going it's not hard.

It gets really fun when you get into it. But nobody knows that because everybody thinks math is hard.

>>2555568

True that. I think humans always find something that they agree on that it's really important for humanity. Then totally outrage on it. Just look at religion.

>>2555576
>These are the kinds of things my brain were developed for
WAT

>>2555551
Math is logic. Language is biology.

>>2555593
>really important for humanity
>religion
>important
>religion
>for humanity
>mfw religion
0/10

>>2555562
is anyone else reading this

because this is awesome

>>2555576
>These are the kind of areas my brains are ''developed'' for.

No, you are not developed at psycology and philosophy, you just think you are because there are no right or wrong answers in these fields, you can simply take an offhanded guess at something and then bam you can't be proven wrong.

You brain isn't designef for a specific thing, you just have no knowledge of math, and if you think you can get by in life while avoiding math, then you're kidding yourself.

>>2555555

You know how psychs figure out whether what they see in people is real? Stats.

You know what the greek philosophers did for fun? Math.

>>2555611

That's what the religious people said to humans to.

' if you think you can get by in life while avoiding jesus, then you're kidding yourself.

>IN 9th grade
>see peopl already in 9th doing algebra 2
>suck at math still in algebra 1I haven't even had a b in it a c- at most in algebra support straight Fs through normal algebra.
> feel stupid unsuccessful and I feel i won't be able to get through school if i can't even learn algebra.
>also i fall asleep allot in the middle of the day even if i get 9 or 8 hours of sleep.
/sci/ I feel useless. I love everything history and English related but i can't do math it's so difficult for me to learn.

>>2555623

What the fuck are you talking about?

Who said this? what religious people?

You need math, stop being an idiot. you're comparing something that is in our day to day life with fucking jesus? get the fuck out.

>>2555624
I know that feel.
~140 IQ, universally acknowledged as a very intelligent, well-educated guy, bit of an autodidact in a myriad of subjects...
Haven't passed a math class since 9th grade geometry.

>>2555624
Math class is also in the middle of the day. I don't know really what to do. I'm trying my best to bring my grade up, but we use acuity( got a 8 out of 26 i couldn't stay awake in thecomputer lab plus the room was really warm) and cognitive tutor.
Plus most of my classmates are disruptive and they do not wish to learn. I want to, but i find it quite difficult in this class.

>>2555613

I think the reason nobody is responding is because they're too busy reading. Awesome analogy

lol @ people who think they can only get a good job when mastering the * kuch kuch * art of math.

>>2555658
khanacademy.org

you know what the best thing to do with math?

if you don't understand it, don't stop trying to understand it until you do completely.

Math is pretty friggin important. Are you having trouble in straight math classes, or are you struggling with it within the context of science? I find strictly math courses far more difficult than science courses with math, like I somehow need to apply what I'm doing to reality instead of thinking about it in solely abstract terms.

>>2555636
yfw you notice the parentheses.
mfwyf

>>2555644
inb4 lol get out kid. Unlike most people I know at my school. I don't browse /b/.

>>2555662

a degree in maths earns you on average 10% more money in your lifetime.

well, here in england at least, my chemistry professor taught me this.

>>2555673
Who what why how?
wut

>>2555668
MY school manages to double math with science, so if you learned it in science it will be taught in math that day or vice versa. It's ridiculous and i just passed my science class with a D due to this.

If I chop the rectangle into two pieces like this, I can see that each piece is cut diagonally in
half by the sides of the triangle. So there is just as much space inside the triangle as outside.
That means that the triangle must take up exactly half the box!
This is what a piece of mathematics looks and feels like.

I've got a question. I'm currently and electrical engineering && computer science double major. But lately, I've began to loose interest and I'm questioning if I even want to continue to pursue engineering. What I find extremely fascinating and much more interesting is physics and math. My only worry is if I will be able to get a job if I decide to pursue that route.

what do?

>>2555555

Dude you guys are retarded I'm just now having to actually study the material and I'm in Calculus II. You guys talking about failing algebra 1 and 2 and shit are dumb fucks that shit is so easy.

>>2555704
Well fuck you to.Some people actually struggle with these things.

I think a large problem with maths is that people "don't understand them" so they stop trying. As another poster said, if you want to understand math, you have to actually sit down and TRY to understand it. Look at the problems and theorems. Look at how they interact. People say "well, I don't understand math", and then stop even attempting to try to understand it. That is not how you do it, and you won't EVER understand math like that. It won't just hit you in the face (most of the time). You've got to actively get your hands dirty.

>>2555704
It'd be better for your ego if, rather than considering other people to be retards, you simply considered yourself to be a genius.
It'd be better for OUR egos as well, and altogether a lot less odious.

Just a simple flip of perspective, without changing anything, could make the world so much nicer.

>>2555514
Unless you're studying maths, not very important. Most of the scientists who "use" maths make do with some elementary linear algebra and some real analysis (read calculus). Other than that, what they're doing has nothing to do with maths, other than the words used.

math gives me headaches

>>2555737
Math gives me headaches, too, but I fucking love it. I love working with it. I love figuring shit out logically. There isn't nearly as much needless bullshit in math as there is in other things like English classes or any of the social "sciences". Math is straight forward and logical; no bullshit.

>Be in job class.
>Take a job quiz
>find out I am a creative thinker.
>I suck at math but it says i like it.
>proceed depression
I want to get better.

>>2555748

Well that is the most important of all. If you love doing it. Because why breaking your head over it if it makes you unhappy?

>>2555762
This is what should have happened:
>take job quiz
>realize job quizzes are utter bullshit, on a level with horoscopes

>>2555762

wow your life really sucks

I fucking love math; something about working equations is just so goddamn rewarding.

But for some reason, I can't do it. I just can't do math tests; the problems seem like nothing I've ever seen before, no matter how many problems I try and work effectively beforehand, once one of them looks alien, I have trouble placing the other ones. For some reason, this wave of context makes me feel like I had never learned anything before the test.

I gotta find a better strategy. My early math learning is all fucked up, and I can't fix it and its screwing me over so fucking hardcore.

>>2555691
I'm confused... sounds like the material is being reinforced twice as much as usual, yet you're doing worse?

>Rock the fuck out of algebra, especially word problems.
>Go to take a civil service test to become a parking enforcement officer.
>I need monies and a part-time job anyway.
>All kinds of bullshit on the test that is way above what a ticket writer is expected.
>"If Joe wrote 40 tickets to 37 people in 2 hours, how many tickets did he write per minute?"
>Obviously that's just 2 hours * 60 mins/hour / 40 tickets.
>Answer is not any part of the multiple choices.
>What the shit?

Math is only important if you're doing science that ties in heavily to physics (so physics, astronomy, meteorology, and physical chemistry) as well as computation-heavy fields (ex: computational neuroscience, computational psychology, computer science, MRI research). For the rest of science math really isn't used other than statistics, and even then most scientists don't have a great grasp on stats either. You may run into isolated cases where you have to whip out a trig function or integrate something, but that's very rare.

>>2555812

Shit, switch that formula around.
Which I did on the test.
I dicked around with all of those numbers in every possible way, and couldn't get anything close to the answers given.

>>2555820
1/3 ticket per minute

>>2555613

Summary please

>>2555719
Problem is, in most college math classes, as well as high school for that matter, they don't teach you the why behind anything that you do. You're just shown how to plug your data into a formula correctly and spit it back out. This is terrible for someone like me that needs to feel like there is a purpose to what I'm doing. I feel like most math classes I've taken and the material I've covered are just a little game, and I've had very little be applicable to the real world. It's infuriating because I know this isn't true, I know there is meaning behind what I'm doing, but no one will explain it to me. And it's not exactly the kind of task I feel up to undertaking on my own.

>>2555839

I know how you feel man. Really demotivates you :S

>>2555839
That sounds very frustrating. Most public education math classes are crap. Standardized testing certainly doesn't help the case, either, because it encourages teachers to teach at the lowest level to make sure everyone passes.

>>2555562
reeeaaaad meeeee

reeeaaaaaaaaad meeeeeeee!!!

>>2555863
I'm diggin' it throughly

>>2555812

You'd best be trolling.

>>2555555
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWfbGGZE07M&t=1m24s

>>2555839

This! I didn't do well at all in high school (Canada here, but I assume the US public education is no better) because math teachers never explained why and how the concepts work. They probably didn't know themselves. I'm trying to teach myself math from the ground up now by researching online the details of everything I "learned" in school and I've learned more in the last week then in 12 years of school.

>>2556278

same thing in the US.

I'm a computer science graduate but back in high school I remember trig identities really ripped me a new asshole. Calculus and linear algebra is simple but those goddamn proofs killed me every time. I just couldn't seem to grasp some underlying principle.