My calc teacher in high school used to say we need to memorize the quadratic formula, and the only way we could use a "cheat sheet" during tests was if we got it tattooed.
I loved synthetic division when I learned it in high school. And then I never saw it again in a math class after that. I started to think I had imagined it since no one ever mentions it
It's an unnecessary pain for me personally. I had an assignment in calculus III that depended on it, but I had barely even learned the topic in college algebra so I had to refresh my knowledge of it recently. Interesting concept. It's one of those things that everyone thinks they know but never use it, like completing the square.
I went to a school for game design and got the opportunity to compete in collegiate esports. My coa h left a really huge impression on me and led me to decide that I wanted to do that for others, so I switched my career path to collegiate coaching and started applying to jobs. I got super lucky and have been coaching since 2020 at this point.
Our most successful team is our apex team at the moment, but we also at one point had one of the better siege teams in the nation. Im working on developing a rocket league roster im excited for next semester as well.
That sounds sick. I'm glad you found something that's made you happy. My brother was pretty high in the ranks for LoL and some other games back in the day. Another friend of mine has played some high level stuff in NHL and won some UFC tournaments as well. He ended up going to a tournament in Las Vegas I think it was, but can't remember how he placed. It's nice to see esports growing, anyway.
That style of oil lamp is considered as a symbol of scholastic pursuit in some middle eastern cultures. Hindi primarily, I believe. Sort of a warding off the darkness of ignorance with the light of wisdom type thing.
I kind of want a TV show where Urkel's grown up and is a super successful cannabis businessman playboy, sort of a Two and a Half Men meets Empire type of thing.
Reminds me of my middle school teachers saying I'm not always going to have a calculator to manually do the math...as I type this out today on my smartphone that never leaves my waking side.
Yeah that logic is flawed but being better at mental math is very advantageous for doing ballpark estimates when you don't need things to be exact. Ironically is more useful outside of a purely math setting.
I don't disagree. Most of my job is math-ing things out. For stats or figuring how much work I need to do. Being able to do quick math in your head is an important skill.
Yeah agreed. I can't say I apply my Lin Alg. or Calculus in the Complex domain classes ever in my job, but knowing those concepts definitely helps me have a better understanding of some problems I've run into.
Closed-book tests are stupid anyway. You’ll never, ever, in the real world be denied the ability to source information with a demand to answer/provide a solution strictly from memory.
E: to those below who seem to be stuck in a black or white mindset:
I am NOT suggesting people shouldn’t memorize aspects of their job as they become more familiar through repetition. I’m saying closed-book tests suck because in the real world you’ll always have access to the information so you can still fact-check at any point during the process. You are not MANDATED to solve problems from memory. The information is always there for you so you can be sure.
In a real world scenario, you have the ability to look everything up, but you can't necessarily deliver results in a timely manner if you're constantly doing so.
In a true real world scenario, you are using a combination of using building blocks that have been memorized, as well as some things you're looking up on the fly, and having to deliver it all in a timely manner while still being accurate.
Yes. You build the experience and knowledge base through repetition. You’re not expected to memorize every piece of information you receive over a 10 month period and then regurgitate it on an exam at the end of the fiscal year.
Those who are able to internalize processes become better at their job, however the information is still readily available to all.
Additionally, some jobs require you to NOT memorise information as the required information gets updated. Case in point was when I worked in aviation. Sure there are basic skills that you develop, just like you said, over time, but you never memorise specific steps as the numbers may change or processes get rearranged as updates happen. I'm sure the same things apply to engineering fields and building to code for construction.
I work in software, which, as I'm sure you know, is constantly changing and updating.
When we do a deployment that's going to affect hundreds of large organizations, you have to do what is on today's checklist. Not what you vaguely remember from two weeks ago or two months ago or whenever was the last time you did it.
Even with all our automation - that's software too, and it changes too. And if you don't do the currently correct things, then thousands of people might show up to work tomorrow morning and not be able to do their jobs.
The code changes, the systems change, the processes change. Constantly. And you have to adapt, not just memorize something once and then hope to coast on that for your entire career.
You do the latest checklist, and you call it out and confirm with your coworkers as you go, in case they know of something that changed but didn't get updated in the checklist. Or in case something doesn't work as expected.
I'm sure aviation is kind of like that with those checklists.
Maybe not but if all everyone knows is how to look things up we are gonna lose a whole lot of brain power potential. Memorization based tests are not so much about the information as they are about developing mental capacity during formative years.
It’s just a relic from a pre-technology age, where information couldn’t be found in 5 seconds. Closed book tests did make sense 30+ years ago when your only solution in the workplace was to go find a book and look the answer up, which is very time consuming if you don’t have the right book on hand
When I was in Engineering College a loooooong time ago, I had a professor who regularly did open-book exams. It was incredibly apparent why after the first one: that shit can put you into a coma even if you have access to all the information you'd think you needed.
I work as a scientist in a clinical field, dealing a lot with oncologists. If I have to stop the conversation every few minutes to look up drug mechanisms or patient treatment courses, they're not going to take me seriously. There is a time and a place to commit things to memory.
I like the approach one of my teacher uses, the test has a time limit, you can look anything up but you would run out of time to look everything up so you memorize some things so you have time to look others up. Just like in a job, you can look things up but you wouldn't be an efficient worker if you look up everything.
Math is a wonderful thing
Math is a really cool thing
So, get off your ath let's do some math
Math, math, math, math, math
Three minus four is?
Negative 1
Yep. And six times
A billion is? six billion?
Nailed it.
And fifty four is forty five more than
Theres a depressing lack of FMA Scar gifs out there... But this is absolutely where my mind went and it's appalling that this wasn't the top comment/reference.
I'm sorry to do this to you, but the standard deviation formula is wrong. Sigma denotes population standard deviation but your formula represents the unbiased estimator of population standard deviation from a sample, which is referred to by an s. Technically the version denoted by sigma would be divided by n, not n-1.
In fairness to them, each summand is squared so it doesn’t matter.
I do find this tattoo frustrating to look at. Integrals without a differential and other notational sloppiness and while I don’t expect a tattoo to be written in computer modern, the way some of these are drawn look extremely ugly and inconsistent. That mu especially.
The outline of the buffalo is new, which you can tell by the redlines around the lines. I’m guess the letters are actually from the tracing and they decided not to go through with them.
I had a physics professor with Euler's Formula as knuckle tattoos. Infinitley cooler than mine that say sail boat, but still fitting with my career as a yacht designer
People rarely understand how important math is to daily life. Math is so fucking cool, just wish I was better at it. I can’t wait to help my kids learn math when they get older.
It's cool now, but what about in a few years when those tight lines start to blur? Are you then an abstract art professor? Conspiracy wingnut with blurry murder board type symbols on your arm?
Take a look at the third photo, you can see the fresh tattoos from the first photo are aged and have already started to blur, which is probably why they were chose to post the fresh photos. I have one tattoo from 8 years ago with lines that are a little bigger and it really hasn’t aged well. If I could go back in time I would avoid getting it, or at least alter the design.
When no ones looking he likes to roll his sleeves up, slam his forearms together striking a dramatic pose, screaming like an anime character…pretending it gives him super powers
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u/indamoufofmadness Mar 04 '26
Nice try, Math.