Did The Light Dawn Decades Later?
Mathematics was my weakest and least enjoyable subject at school, due my own inability to learn it, by it seeming merely a school-leaving examination subject, and quite frankly by two bad teachers.
In the many years after leaving school, I came to use some topics, and even managed to understand some, in unexpected ways through work and hobbies.
Particularly....
- Trigonometry and pi in various applications, but I had no difficulties with basic geometry and mensuration;
- Differentiation by a sheer fluke. Attending a geology-club lecture on rivers, something made me write the simple formula in calculus notion and I suddenly twigged this was simple differentiation, hence what differentiation really does! Integration remains a mystery although I know what it does graphically.
- Logarithms, also indirectly. I realised I had to understand logarithms to understand decibels, when I entered work that used them. I am old enough for logarithms to have been a general-purpose arithmetical tool in my school years, on the verge of electronic calculators appearing, but though I could use log. tables for that purpose I did not understand them. I can still use them, and slide-rules, for arithmetic.
- Algebra. Improving! If you are weak at algebra obviously you will be at Maths generally, because you can no more have mathematics without algebra than you can have arithmetic without numbers. With a few exceptions of course, such as Pure (or Euclidean) Geometry which does not use formulae, values and calculations... but needs a good memory to remember many Theorems!.
Anyone else had similar epiphanies?
+-=*
I should explain that the UK's school system teaches Mathematics as a single cohesive curriculum subject of many topics including those above. It does not break Maths into separate curriculum subjects or courses for each topic, as American schools appear to do. (Although no-one has confirmed that deduction, neither has anyone said I am mistaken!)
The school-leaving exam was the General Certificate of Education "Ordinary Level".
In the many years after leaving school, I came to use some topics, and even managed to understand some, in unexpected ways through work and hobbies.
Particularly....
- Trigonometry and pi in various applications, but I had no difficulties with basic geometry and mensuration;
- Differentiation by a sheer fluke. Attending a geology-club lecture on rivers, something made me write the simple formula in calculus notion and I suddenly twigged this was simple differentiation, hence what differentiation really does! Integration remains a mystery although I know what it does graphically.
- Logarithms, also indirectly. I realised I had to understand logarithms to understand decibels, when I entered work that used them. I am old enough for logarithms to have been a general-purpose arithmetical tool in my school years, on the verge of electronic calculators appearing, but though I could use log. tables for that purpose I did not understand them. I can still use them, and slide-rules, for arithmetic.
- Algebra. Improving! If you are weak at algebra obviously you will be at Maths generally, because you can no more have mathematics without algebra than you can have arithmetic without numbers. With a few exceptions of course, such as Pure (or Euclidean) Geometry which does not use formulae, values and calculations... but needs a good memory to remember many Theorems!.
Anyone else had similar epiphanies?
+-=*
I should explain that the UK's school system teaches Mathematics as a single cohesive curriculum subject of many topics including those above. It does not break Maths into separate curriculum subjects or courses for each topic, as American schools appear to do. (Although no-one has confirmed that deduction, neither has anyone said I am mistaken!)
The school-leaving exam was the General Certificate of Education "Ordinary Level".
