Forum Topic

A maths joke...

Well, there aren't  many ...

Michael Ixer ● 2414d12 Comments

Very good and yet rather scary!

Ivonne Holliday ● 2414d

Haha -  wry good Michael!

Mike Warman ● 2414d

I saw a Department of Health graph on daily tests for coronavirus in the UK, and it was really not very exponential.https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/DD-COMP-C19-TESTS-PER-DAY-2.jpg

David Ainsworth ● 2414d

Maybe it was logarithmic?

Jonathan Callaway ● 2414d

David but that graph's proportional to government competence, it's the ones driven by the virus that are exponential ...Jonathan, yes, I've noticed a number of straight line graphs used in the news have logarithmic scales which isn't obvious at first glance, especially on TV. Do kids do logs at school these days now we're in a world of calculators and smart phones - hopefully it comes into maths somewhere otherwise they'll struggle with earthquake and stellar magnitudes, etc?

Michael Ixer ● 2414d

Mike, I’m completely out of touch with what they teach in schools nowadays. My O level maths won’t get me very far either. My daughter has A level maths so I could ask her, or my clever little grandson, aged 6, who knows it all (or so he tells me!).

Jonathan Callaway ● 2414d

Jonathan. Thanks, I'll also see if my cousin's son can let me know; he's apparently relaxing and chilled out now he doesn't have to sit his GCSE exams! (His predicted grades from mocks and classwork were good so it could work out well for him 🙂)

Michael Ixer ● 2414d

I expect that he can work out that at the current rate of testing in UK, everyone will have had one at the end of eighteen years.https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/coronavirus/why-coronavirus-mass-testing-must-be-our-no-1-priority-and-why-we-lag-behind-the-rest-of-the-world/ar-BB122eIn?ocid=spartanntp

David Ainsworth ● 2414d

I asked my 11-year-old granddaughter if they'd done logarithms yet, and she says: "We have actually, but we just call it 'hard algebra' 😆😂."

Richard Carter ● 2414d

Richard. Interesting, my cousin said his son was doing logs for Further Maths GCSE, not the ordinary maths syllabus. Perhaps it seemed easier in the days of using log tables and slide rules in physics rather than as an abstract concept? Must admit when I was on  BAA webcast yesterday and Nick, bead of the Comets section, went through the equation for how to calculate the magnitude of a comet I sort of switched off; but the Mail Online headline which said comet Atlas was going to be five time the size of Jupiter (!) woke people up. (Actually it was a good lecture but rule number one is avoid equations unless they're straightforward ...) But the moral of the story is - don't trust the Mail!

Michael Ixer ● 2414d

Michael - do not trust anyone!Coming back to maths - primary schools are now using the Singapore system: Concrete, Pictorial & Abstract (CPA) approach. As a parent it's very logical but takes a bit of getting used to.Probably not the only thing we can learn from Singapore :)NASA's Mars Imperial / Metric units mess up still gives me a chuckle 20 years later.

Ed Robinson ● 2413d

Thanks Ed, I must read about CPA. On first glance it looks interesting. I was interested that when I did some OU astronomy/astrophysics courses equivalent to first year degree level they didn't assume any knowledge of calculus. In the late 60s that was an integral part of A levels and I'm sure was introduced in O level maths.

Michael Ixer ● 2412d