whizzball1

Myriad Reality

whizzball1 said
It's a simple website, it doesn't really need one. Also your picture is tiny.

I just realised I made a comma splice. D:

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Toxic Diamond said
They should make a roleplayer guild app.

It's a simple website, it doesn't really need one. Also your picture is tiny.

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Legend said
I'll be a scientist and I still won't use them. The point is that you don't use them practically.

Yeah.

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Legend said
Exactly.

It's meant to show that it can be used. And besides that, when do you use calculus in real life? But as a Physics major I'm going to be learning that. Because most of the stuff in mathematics that you don't use in real life will be used pretty often if you're going to be a scientist. Reasoning included. I don't really need an actual real life situation in which I have to use a quadratic equation, it's just a plus to learning the quadratic equations as a whole.

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Legend said
Oh, so it's something that you think you'll use, but you actually won't. I mean something common that you wouldn't actually consider something special.

I don't think I'll ever have to figure out the original dimensions of a hole that I know is being made bigger by some amount of feet and will allow some amount of extra light in. I also don't think that there are any situations in which you use quadratic equations in common real life.

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Legend said
One in which you may actually use it, or a very specific one such as a crane operator?

Almost always something in which you'd actually use it. Here's an example from my Beginning Algebra book, Lesson 55: Solving Quadratic Equations by Factoring:

Heading back to the bunkhouse, Fred noticed that the eleven recruits had stopped watching television. They were engaged in something more constructive. On this sunny Sunday afternoon they were tearing a hole in the side of the bunkhouse. It was a nice big square hole. Fred stopped to watch. Everyone seemed busy. Pat was swinging a sledgehammer. Two of the guys were standing outside as lookouts. Fred guessed that they hadn't received permission to remodel their quarters. The only one not working on making the hole was Jack. Fred could see him through the hole in the wall. Jack was on the other side of the room working out with his weights.

Chris was on the phone with Waddle Windows (a subsidiary of Waddle Doughnuts). She was finding out the availability of various sizes of windows, and after several minutes of discussion, she ordered the largest one they offered. (Their motto is "A Wot of Window for a Wittle Price is What You Want at Waddle's.")

"You gotta make the hole a lot larger," she told Pat. "Six feet taller and six feet wider. The guy from Waddle said that that would let in four times as much light as what we've got now."

Fred decided not to go inside. He didn't want to be near what he thought might be a crime scene. He went and sat under a tree and thought about what he had heard: It was a square. If it was made six feet larger in each dimension, its area would quadruple. Was that enough information to find the current dimensions of the hole? Sometimes real life gives you enough information to solve a problem and sometimes it doesn't.

Here's where it starts talking about solving quadratic equations, but with factoring. (I can't actually solve them yet, I just turned to this page for an example.)

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Legend said
That sounds so You're a human being, not a robot; besides, it would be much more effective with an actual use rather than something nonsensical.

That's what my other curriculum for maths does. Life of Fred doesn't describe any maths at all until it's established a real life situation in which the maths is useful.

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Legend said
Still. When do you need to know bears among dogs and cats?

It's a question that's developing my algebraic reasoning. I don't ever need to know bears among dogs and cats, that's just what Khan chose to use as an example for reasoning. It's kind of ironic considering that the question is about reasoning and the situation defies all reason and logic. A pet store that sells cats, dogs, and bears.

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Legend said
School is just meant to teach people to be submissive and follow instructions.

Note that this question is from Khan Academy, and the videos of the owner of which are littered with silly situations. That specific one is my favourite so far now.

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Legend said
Regardless, there's no way to prove one thing or another. But seriously. Why bears?

No idea.