The problem started in
first grade with 0. For me it was the beginning of the end in proficiency with
math. If 1 represents the presence of something and -1 represents the absence
of something, why have this thing in the middle called zero? Something either
exists or it doesn’t, there’s no in-between. Public education however made
little room to accommodate pondering and so as I considered this mysterious integer
the program moved on. Not paying attention to the new mysteries presented to
class, pretty quickly I was lost.
The real slap in the
face came when I realized creative problem solving or being close enough were
not worthy of credit. Along about fifth grade I was struggling with a test in
geometry. It was all about the theorems we were supposed to memorize. To this
day I dislike the word theorem. Just the way it rolls around in my mouth, I
want to spit it out. So the problem was, “Using the theorem show how many degrees
are within the triangle.” Not remembering the foolish thing I got out a piece
of tracing paper, put it over the triangle on the test sheet, got my ruler and
traced one of the angles. I moved the paper around and lined the it up with the
next angle in the triangle, traced it and then the next until I had three
angles together which I measured with my protractor to be 178 degrees.
When the test results
came back, I learned this answer and quite a few others was wrong. Close
apparently, only counted in horse shoes and hand grenades, but c’mon, I worked
hard for those 178 degrees! I took a look at all the dreaded red X’s and
thought, “to hell with it. This is dumb,” (public education that is, not math)
and started my career as an artist by doodling my way through math class and
most every other. Note to parents: Whether mathematicians are smarter than
artists is up for grabs but they have been smart enough to convince society
they should be paid for what they do.
The speed at which Earth
orbits the Sun recently got my curiosity. It had to be a big number, but just
how big? The formula to find the circumference of a circle is 2 π r. Hey look!
My calculator has a π key on it, I can do this. In this case, r, or the
distance between our planet and star is 93,000,000 miles. One orbit takes 8,760
hours and my calculations told me we’re traveling at approximately 66,671 mph.
Which is bookin’ it. This gives a
whole new perspective to the concept of “sitting still.” Good thing space is
mostly vacuum, otherwise the leading surface of our little planet would have
one heck of a wind blowing straight down on it.
But what about this
‘approximate’ business? Well, it has to do with π. For most purposes we think
of it as 3.14, but in fact it is a number which in decimal form goes on and on
forever and never repeats itself. Thus we do not and can not know what the
value of π is - what we use is close enough. Even though the answer to any
calculation involving π and a few other constants like it is more an opinion, it
is worth some, perhaps even full, credit.
Huh. Close, in math, does count.
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