Sunday, October 24, 2010

UBC Field trip reflection

Ten things i learned from the UBC field trip:
1) math is found in all aspects of life
2) math is subject where you have to be involved in order to understand it
3)  knowledge of math is worth more than a million dollars
4) the feeling of personal satisfaction is more fulfilling for the rest of your life rather than for just the present
5) there are infinite numbers between 0/, also there are infinite numbers of Pythagorean triples 
6) equations that seem difficult can be broken down to make it more understandable
7) theory in physics, chemistry etc will be wrong eventually over time, however, math remains the same over thousands of years
8) on a plane, the theory for the Pythagorean theorem is proven true, however, having that theory at the north pole does not work
9) according to Dr. Leung, ( i think that's his name) a lot of math theories originated from the ancient Chinese
10) hard work and dedication will make you a more successful mathematician

What I learned from the lecture?

I learned from the lecture that math is found in all aspects of life, regardless whether you like or not, math is all around you. Secondly, math is subject where you have to be involved in order to understand it. knowledge of math is worth more than a million dollars because a million dollars is not worth a lot of money. On the contrary, knowledge is something you cannot buy because it's priceless. Math gives you the feeling of personal satisfaction that is fulfilling the for the rest of your life rather than for just the present. Essentially, you can look back at your life and remember all those math questions and say yes, i did those.


What did I learn from the group work?

I discovered working in a group is a great way to communicate your ideas. This also allows constructive feed back on what you got right and what you wrong. More so, this allows you to exchange different ideas and perspectives on how you solve math problems. Also, drawing the question is a lot easier to understand rather then doing it in our brain.

Friday, October 15, 2010

math10 (wings) Problem set #3

question #1

the value of 3-(-3)/2-1 is?

In order to solve this question, you first have to understand how positives and negatives cancel each other out. For example, a positive number subtracted a negative number is going to result in a positive sum (2--2= 4). However, most people typically use parenthesis when dealing with the cancellation of positives and negatives. Why? Simple, it's easier to understand an equation like that using parenthesis to avoid miss communication between the minus sign and negative numbers. For example, it's easier to understand 2-(-2)=4 than 2--2=4.
 Now back to our original equation of 3-(-3). We now know how to solve for the numerator because i mentioned previously that a positive number subtracted a negative number is going to result in a positive sum. So 3-(-3) is 6. The denominator on the other hand is 2-1. 2-1 is 1, so the equation is transformed to 6/1. 6/1 is 6 because the numerator is greater then the denominator forcing it to be a whole number (600/100=6/1)

3-(-3)/2-1=
6/2-1=
6/1=
= 6
3) Why do you like this question?

I enjoy this question because its a simple everyday equation that a lot of people still get wrong from time to time. This makes my perception more observant in order to make the correct answer in hopes i don't make that error of misunderstanding it.

4) (Most importantly) What have you learned about the process of problem solving?

What i discovered from this question is that you shouldn't view a certain question to be too easy. Especially since people (including me) might develop a tendency to overshoot and get the question wrong.