Mathless Blog

Sorry to everyone that reads this blog. I'm sure there are many that love to read my blog with little to do with math. Actually, I'm going to be taking Physics with Calculus in the near future as a college course and I hope to post some updates concerning that course. I will also be taking some Chemistry in the near future, but the math in that chemistry course will probably not be as advanced as the math I'll be using in Physics. I have been talking about math education with friends. I have basically been promoting Khan Academy's whole philosophy that one should go through the fundamental math courses with a 100% proficiency. Sal Khan compares going through math at only an 80% proficiency to learning how to ride a bike at only 80% proficiency.

My Math Lately

Lately I have been doing much Calculus. I have a Math 252 final coming up in a couple weeks and I just might get 4.0 in the class if I keep studying until the term is over and not slack off too much playing video games. I beat Portal 2 today, by the way.

Math as a Language

Any time I mention math in a room full of people, they are quick to say 'I'm not good at that' This view that math is something you are naturally good at or not is a popular misconception circulating schools today. Math should be treated like learning any other language. We don't just know French or Spanish or whatever language. We were taught the meaning of the words and how those words are used. In math, there are symbols and those symbols have properties and representations. Learning the definitions of a word in another language is very similar to learning the properties of a symbol or notation in mathematics.