If you're weak at maths does that mean your thick?

Nah. One thing they don't tell you about Maths is that there's a lot of memorisation involved. It gets portrayed as this "pure" science, this universal language that an alien from the planet Zog could understand, as long as she was sufficiently smart. That wasn't my experience at all - the books never include fully-worked examples, so if you can't remember one very specific, trivial thing they gloss over, you hit a wall.

At university, I found that I have no trouble doing advanced Calculus as long as I could remember the specific procedures and all manner of other bits that went with them. For example, solving a differential equation isn't a single process: it's a whole bunch of procedures that apply to different types of equations, and you have to choose the right ones to use in a given situation. Then when you actually do it, the instructions tend to gloss over some steps, assuming you can do them perfectly, even though you may have spent only a few lessons on them several years before. One step may require differentiating a formula, which is its own set of procedures and things you're supposed to recall from memory e.g. standard differentials. You need to have an eidetic memory to be really good at Maths, no matter how smart you are. IQ is not a reliable guide either.

OP, I know a few thick accountants, so your logic doesn't add up

jester77 wrote: »

OP, I know a few thick accountants, so your logic doesn't add up

http://www.her.ie/news/accounting-revealed-as-one-of-the-highest-paid-professions-in-ireland/303621

They may be thick, but they're filthy rich :rolleyes:

Intelligence modalities
Musical–rhythmic and harmonic.
Visual–spatial.
Verbal–linguistic.
Logical–mathematical.
Bodily–kinesthetic.
Interpersonal.
Intrapersonal.
Naturalistic.


you either like or are good at maths or not, it has nothing to do with intelligence.

I think weakness at maths should be treated with the same care and understanding as people now have for dyslexia. I am extremely weak at maths and when I first read about dyscalculia (basically dyslexia for maths), I nearly cried with the relief that ahm no a complete eejit!

Haven't read the whole thread so apologies if this has been said. Next to no-one is good at maths. Studies have shown that most people have a very loose grasp of maths and the abstract thought you need for it. This goes for pretty much everyone, myself included. And I have a degree in maths.
The way people get good at maths is by practice. You do it over and over again and you get better at it. The better you get at what you're doing, the easier the next step is. People who are "good" at maths generally have no more natural ability than anyone else, it's just that they have an interest in it so they pursue it more (or at the least don't find it as irritating as others)

A book I read gave a good example. It asked what is 0.5% of 1000. Most people will struggle for a little bit with that sum. Even though it's a very simple calculation. This is because people lack a natural ability to quantify abstract maths in their head. Studying it gives you a deeper understanding of maths and equips you with abstract logic which can be used in everyday life.

Maths is necessary because we need maths to survive in the world today. Not just to add up change but to make sense of the way the world is. A prime example is peoples fear of crime. Statistically crime has been dropping for decades but fear of crime is increasing. It's because there's a gap in peoples knowledge. We evolved from creatures that feared the rustling in the bushes but we developed rationality so we don't always run. In the modern day scenario the newspapers talking about crime is the rustling but we need to learn how to read the statistics so we can overcome the fear. Another example is emigration. In nearly every western country the population over estimate the number of emigrants in their country by a huge amount. It's because emigration is an emotive topic and there's a gap between the instinctive amount of immigrants and the actual amount.
People with an understanding of maths, when provided with the correct information, can make more informed choices.

ScumLord wrote: »

The problem is there are way too many variables to say for sure. If you had a crappy maths teacher then it's fairly likely you'll turn out bad at maths.

I repeated a year in school, was doing foundation maths and failing. Our new teacher was a fecking legend of a teacher. We weren't allowed to do foundation maths anymore, everyone not only passed the class but did quite well, some people moved up to honours maths. The teacher made all the difference.


The majority of daily basic maths is just about practice, the more you do it the better you'll get at it. I don't really expect people to be good at advanced maths unless they have some reason to use it. General I think there's no skill that can't be learned and passed on.

If you think you're bad at maths, you're probably just not doing enough maths, or just don't need to do maths so your brain isn't going to waste energy on it.

The maths teacher can make a difference. I had a crappy one. He used to write directly from the book to the board. I got grinds for a few weeks (I'd failed my mocks in honors Maths). My grinds teacher would give me questions and wouldn't except my answer if I said I couldn't do it. He's say that I was giving excused, not reasons as to why I couldn't do something. That's a phrase that has stuck with me through life. It's fine to have a reason why something can't be done, but unless it's a valid insurmountable reason, it's just an excuse.

Anyway, after a few weeks of this I started getting stuff right. I got better and better. Eventually I realised that the reason I couldn't do a problem was because I didn't know how to, but with effort I would be able to. Realising that you have the ability to do something is half the battle to getting it done.

I never would have become good at maths if it hadn't been for that teacher. I realise he's not inspiring in the traditional sense, but it worked for me.

Grayson wrote: »

A book I read gave a good example. It asked what is 0.5% of 1000. Most people will struggle for a little bit with that sum.

Well? What is it? :pac: Is it 5?

Maths is necessary because we need maths to survive in the world today.

Maths has been very useful for us for a long time. We probably wouldn't have made good farmers without it. It was farmers that really developed it and it seems likely to me that if farmers were using it so were the hunter gathers before them. Trade predates civilization and is probably one of the main reasons maths became so important, we then found it helpful when it came to tracking the seasons. I suppose you can't have fairness in a large social group without being able to account for what your have in the first place.

Grayson wrote: »

Early maths (like the egyptian stuff and later greek stuff) was geometry based around shapes. The main reason was to calculate the area of land for tax collection purposes. Then later for building. It's why triangles litter ancient maths.

And yeah, it's 5

I was more thinking off their tracking of the night sky. But now I'm wondering if they'd need maths for that?

We have found very ancient mini astro charts made from mini monoliths, in parts of egypt that date right back to the beginning of the civilization. It's basically some stone laid out in patterns that represent stars and dates. It's not on a grand scale, it almost looks like a small scale local version of the bigger complexes they made later on. I suppose that's more along the lines of gathering statistics though.