So, the other day I found out I am a genius by Facebook standards, haha. Wow hey? It all began when a friend shared one of those math questions with images instead of numbers. They are designed to make you look really clearly at the objects themselves, and then continue on to use an equation to complete the task. I am pretty good at observation in general, so found that part no big deal. Then, it came to finishing the resulting equation. I am okay at that part to, since my mom was a teacher.
However, I did double check it to make sure. Hee hee. Then to be positive since I saw so many different answers I just went ahead and looked up the formula for math in general as to what comes first…multiplication, division, addition and subtraction in that order and left to right. I had done it right, whew!
Now I saw many answers, from other friends continuing to be wrong after the proper answer was posted by my friend, who looked it up on google. Tee hee. It seems that even though we can cheat with answers and calculators, etc, we like to think that we are correct no matter what, since it is right before our eyes in the picture, plain as day. Pictures don’t lie after all, ahem. Haha. Also, we can’t all luck out and be geniuses for a moment. But seriously it is hard to explain something like that unless you break it down step by step.
You can explain your method until you are blue in the face and another person just won’t get it if their brain functions in a different way and they don’t see it the same. Not totally sure the technical term for why this happens but it is a real thing. I am sure some of it has to do with using either right or left sides of the brain, but regardless, that is why we have calculators right? So much easier. Those teachers from when I was little, who always said that you need to know math because you won’t walk around with a calculator in your hand when you grow up, weren’t thinking about cell phones and the capabilities of them!
I know that we do need some math though, in spite of the convenience of our phones. Ugh, you say?
Yeah, I know but really! What would you do if you had no data on your phone left and you were in another country, and had to say… pay a cab driver? If you didn’t know the conversions from our dollar to theirs because of basic math, then you could spend your entire budget on that one cab ride! That would totally suck right? It would be kinda embarrassing to explain to any travelling companions, or perhaps the bank or credit companies that you had to get more money from to continue this holiday.
I guess I am saying that even though we don’t always like it, Math is a useful tool. I have personally been served by someone in a restaurant who was totally messed up when I gave $20.25 for a bill that was $10.25 and they had already punched in $20.00 on the computer and had no idea how to get back the correct change as a result. Not that it mattered but it was frustrating all the same. I kept my quarter and got a bunch of change, sigh. It was simpler since there was a line-up.
This just shows how much many of us, rely on calculators to do all the work in our lives dealing with numbers. We need to try if possible, to learn some basics. I am not sure just how much advanced math, such as calculus and geometry we need on a daily basis, but some knowledge is not a bad thing. We generally rely on what the computer tells us, but we need to check since after all computers were made by humans….just sayin… I’m hoping the use of new math and calculators on our phones…since kids have them now too, doesn’t stop us from learning on our own entirely. I hate to speculate just what kind of chaos that could bring. I guess we just need to be more aware and try when we can once in awhile, at least ….take the time…..to do some things the old fashioned way….with our brains! Keeping them active is a good thing!
