When it comes to math ...

[drkitten]

A creative science teacher could take that one question and have it fill an hour of informative discussion.

Absolutely.

Which is exactly why it should be left in science class. Because if I just want little Jimmy to stop making those annoying noises with his straw, I don't have an hour before the manager of Burger Hut comes over and throws us out.

There is a time and a place for illuminating science discussions. There is also a time and a place for sharp pointed comments just before I turn little Jimmy over my knee. And when Just thinking has explicitly told people that he's not talking about a situation involving informative discussions, it's really unfair for him to complain about Jimmy getting spanked....

 

[borealys]

Here's an experiment you might like to try, since both you and your wife are in education. Ask fellow educators (of almost any field) what is it that makes air go into a normal household vacuum cleaner ... in other words, how does it work, in very general terms. I'll bet you almost 100% will say that the somehow air gets sucked into it when in fact, there is no suction involved at all. The air inside is first PUSHED out of some volume by means of a compressor wheel creating a low pressure zone behind it. This in turn allows the higher pressure ambient air to again be PUSHED into the device, taking along with it as much nearby debris as it can. There is no pulling (suction), only pushing. See how many get that right.

I'm confused by this discussion. Isn't that what suction is?

To someone without a background in physics, it'd be easy to confuse exactly where the force is coming from, but it was my understanding that suction is a pushing force that most people misinterpret as a pulling force.

It's been a few years since OAC physics, so please correct me if I have that wrong...

 

[Uncayimmy]

Absolutely.

Which is exactly why it should be left in science class. Because if I just want little Jimmy to stop making those annoying noises with his straw, I don't have an hour before the manager of Burger Hut comes over and throws us out.

There is a time and a place for illuminating science discussions. There is also a time and a place for sharp pointed comments just before I turn little Jimmy over my knee. And when Just thinking has explicitly told people that he's not talking about a situation involving informative discussions, it's really unfair for him to complain about Jimmy getting spanked....

Where the heck did "little Jimmy" in Burger King come from? The whole discussion started with, "Ask fellow educators (of almost any field) what is it that makes air go into a normal household vacuum cleaner..."

A vacuum cleaner does use suction. While you can get all "colloquial" on us, the fact is that far too many people misunderstand suction to be an attractive force when it's not. So, if I use the right word but misunderstand what that word means, is that a good thing?

 

[drkitten]

Where the heck did "little Jimmy" in Burger King come from?

The fact that he specifically asked for an explanation "in very general terms," and specifically excluded the sort of technical accuracy you'd expect in a science classroom.

 

[Uncayimmy]

The fact that he specifically asked for an explanation "in very general terms," and specifically excluded the sort of technical accuracy you'd expect in a science classroom.

So you consider "pull" to be general and "push" to be specific and technical? I consider that nonsense. Furthermore, the question was asked of educators. Using general terms is great, but only so far as they are accurate. It's not a pulling force; it's a pushing force. The fact that it is a pushing force is related to countless other examples including Bernoulli. Any educator who refers to it as pulling is simply wrong. Any educator who thinks it "somehow gets sucked into it" isn't grasping a very basic concept.

You might think this pedantic. It's not. Suppose you have a stack of Oreo cookies and are asked to remove the one from the bottom. You pick up a ruler and lay it flat on the table so that the cookies are between you and the ruler. You then move the ruler and knock out the bottom cookie. I would completely agree that one could just as easily state that as either pushing or pulling. It's a "push" from the point of view of your hand but a "pull" from the point of view of your body. To argue one over the other would be picking nits.

It's a vacuum cleaner. Any accurate explanation must touch on the fact that a vacuum cleaner is trying to create a vacuum.

 

[Aitch]

Where the heck did "little Jimmy" in Burger King come from?

Well, some time ago, Jimmy's Mummy and Daddy had a special cuddle and nine months later the stork left baby Jimmy under a gooseberry bush for them to find him.

Does that help?

 

[SezMe]

Math doesn't have numbers. If it uses numbers, it's basically arithmetic.

Good answer. Using equations is math. When it comes down to "plug and chug" it's arithmetic.

 

[Just thinking]

So what? You specifically asked for an answer "in very general terms" and now you're complaining when "very general terms" involves oversimplification?

Almost all of them will get it right. Applying an unfair grading standard will not change that.

Similarly, "sucking water up a straw" is a completely legitimate colloquialism, even though what actually happens is the water being pushed up by atmospheric pressure. Unless you are a hydraulic engineer and need to move water up more than about 30 feet, the difference isn't really that important.

Wow ... did you ever miss the target on this one. I was noting how difficult it can be to change or alter established paradigms, and that once thought of as being correct, they remain so pretty much throughout life, even by those whose profession it is to illuminate and inform others. The vacuum cleaner is a good example as it is thought of by many as being able to pull debris into it, when if fact there is no pulling being done by the device at all. If you took one to the moon and got it to operate on the surface, nothing would happen, except for the motor turning (a bit faster than here on Earth, as there is no atmosphere for the device to push out). Not one speck of lunar dust would get drawn in even though it would be working just fine. Besides, a vacuum cleaner is a device everyone can easily relate to as it's a common household item used frequently by everyone.

Absolutely.

Which is exactly why it should be left in science class. Because if I just want little Jimmy to stop making those annoying noises with his straw, I don't have an hour before the manager of Burger Hut comes over and throws us out.

There is a time and a place for illuminating science discussions. There is also a time and a place for sharp pointed comments just before I turn little Jimmy over my knee. And when Just thinking has explicitly told people that he's not talking about a situation involving informative discussions, it's really unfair for him to complain about Jimmy getting spanked....

And now you have me spanking kids ... I had better not strike a match with all this straw about. There is absolutely no reason why science must remain in the science class, especially since scientific principles get used everywhere. If your car breaks down on the road, are you not going to think of what might be an easy fix because you're not in auto-shop class? Or because you're not a certified mechanic?

 

[Just thinking]

I'm confused by this discussion. Isn't that what suction is?

To someone without a background in physics, it'd be easy to confuse exactly where the force is coming from, but it was my understanding that suction is a pushing force that most people misinterpret as a pulling force.

It's been a few years since OAC physics, so please correct me if I have that wrong...

You're most certainly not confused at all. Take a look at a very basic explanation here.

Suction is the flow of a fluid into a partial vacuum, or region of low pressure. The pressure gradient between this region and the ambient pressure will propel matter toward the low pressure area. Suction is popularly thought of as an attractive effect, which is incorrect since vacuums do not innately attract matter. Dust being "sucked" into a vacuum cleaner is actually being pushed in by the higher pressure air on the outside of the cleaner.

The higher pressure of the surrounding fluid can push matter into a vacuum but a vacuum cannot attract matter.

I assure you, I did not make that entry, even though it mimics my previous comments very closely. The bolding is mine in that it illustrates the common paradigm that most people make. I could have chosen many others, but that is the one that came to my little mind first.

 

[Cuddles]

Where does arithmetic end and math begin?

Math doesn't have numbers. If it uses numbers, it's basically arithmetic.

Arithmetic is maths. And a very important part of it, given that by far the most common use of maths is to get some kind of number out at the end. Sure, it's not all of maths, but claiming that numbers aren't maths is, quite frankly, bizarre.

This obsession with dividing maths up into separate parts and trying to classify and teach them all separately is really quite weird. It seems to be more of an American thing as well. You don't teach arithmetic, geometry, algebra, calculus and so on, you just teach maths. Every part is related to every other part, at least at school, and you simply can't separate them all if you actually want to understand any of it.

 

[lightfire22000]

I watch the Daily Show, I confess. Jon Stewart, who is a friend of skeptics everywhere imo, was talking about military enlistment's relation to the GI Bill. He showed one article that claimed a particularly enhanced GI Bill would cause re-enlistments to decline by 10%. He then pointed to another source that stated the new GI Bill would increase enlistments by 10%. So far so good. He then tried to put it into his own words saying something to the effect of, "If you have a 10% decrease, and then you have a 10% increase, doesn't that mean there's no loss?" I just mildly chuckled because Jon Stewart did his fourth grade math wrong. If you lose 10% and then gain 10% you still have a net loss.

 

[lightfire22000]

SezMe,
What would you consider Geometry? I always describe it as using equations and numbers to describe and measure space, but people don't tend to like that definition.

 

[drkitten]

This obsession with dividing maths up into separate parts and trying to classify and teach them all separately is really quite weird. It seems to be more of an American thing as well.

Not in my experience. The UK uses more or less the same breakdown as the USA, although sometimes the separate parts are called "modules" (for example, at Imperial). But here's a partial list of some of the "modules" at Imperial:

• Analysis
• Algebra
• Probability and statistics
• Complex Analysis
• Differential Equations
• Multivariable Calculus
• Metric Spaces and Topology
• Algebraic topology
• Galois theory
• Algebraic number theory

None of which would be out of place as courses at a US mathematics department.

You may be confusing the university treatment of math, which is generally modular no matter where you study, with the secondary school treatment, which is generally not modular unless you have enough students to do tracking.

 

[lightfire22000]

I don't know much about UK education, but I know a few kids from Bermuda who studied over there. They said there high school or "college" is more specialized.

 

[Cuddles]

You may be confusing the university treatment of math, which is generally modular no matter where you study, with the secondary school treatment, which is generally not modular unless you have enough students to do tracking.

I'm not confusing anything. I specifically said I was talking about school. Feel free to read posts before arguing with them.

Edit: And given that we've been talking about the general public, game shows and the like, why the hell would you think university maths courses would be at all relevant?

 

[Jeff Corey]

Does anyone recall Asimov's short story about the scientists who were so dependent upon calculators that no one knew how to do simple math? One scientist figures out how to multiply (I recall) with a pencil and paper and the other scientists are initially skeptical.
The reason this may be appropriate here is that when I ask Psych 1 students to give the mode, median and mean of 5 one digit numbers they insist they need a calculator.

 

[Cainkane1]

before I could go to college I had to go to adult school and take two remedial math courses, two algebra course and a trigonometry class. I graduated from a not that well though of University after six years but at least I have a nice liberal arts diploma on my wall.

 

[lightfire22000]

You know what's a lost art? Newton's method for approximating square roots. Lets see the percentage of university math majors could derive it.

Congratulations Cainkane1!

 

[Just thinking]

Does anyone recall Asimov's short story about the scientists who were so dependent upon calculators that no one knew how to do simple math? One scientist figures out how to multiply (I recall) with a pencil and paper and the other scientists are initially skeptical.
The reason this may be appropriate here is that when I ask Psych 1 students to give the mode, median and mean of 5 one digit numbers they insist they need a calculator.

I recall a study that was done (too many years ago for me to recall exactly) where college students were given calculators by the instructor for an exam (guised to instill a sense of fairness) ... the caveat being that they were programed to give false answers. The real exam was to see how many students realized this was going on. The degree of error varied from operation to operation, but if I recall correctly, few if any realized it. No matter what the calculators spewed out it was accepted as gospel.

 

[mazyloron]

I recall a study that was done (too many years ago for me to recall exactly) where college students were given calculators by the instructor for an exam (guised to instill a sense of fairness) ... the caveat being that they were programed to give false answers. The real exam was to see how many students realized this was going on. The degree of error varied from operation to operation, but if I recall correctly, few if any realized it. No matter what the calculators spewed out it was accepted as gospel.

That's amusing. And depressing. But mostly amusing.