Additionally I must do this SoCSing thing and I think more like ADD, not me, but plenty of people in my life, distracting themselves while I’m over here like “FOCUS!” but then in truth, I could afford to not focus quite so muchly and that is the way of brains. So go our differences.
Adding is better than subtracting, because borrowing. I cannot borrow in my head. It changes two numbers at once. Adding only adds more numbers when you carry. But in subtraction, it’s borrowing and carrying. I can’t keep track of errant numbers wanderin round my head, runnin into lists and data storage. I don’t have a number lasso for fuck’s sake. There’s no border collie in there, herding the numbers around. By the way, it’s called regrouping now, the borrowing and carrying.
Also, math comes with properties now. I’m not sure when math got properties, but sometime after I got a bachelor’s in Not-Math and before Moo got to 4th grade. Her brother and sisters already knew about the properties, but I had remained blissfully unaware. Maybe it’s always had properties and they were withheld from me. No idea.
Sometimes I argue about math with one of my teacher friends. She contends the new math is awesome and I’m like how can you grasp that mystical sudoku bullshit computation and yet you struggle with the right usage of ‘your?’ and that, too, is the way of brains.
I have now written a post about math and so it’s time for me to go away and question who I am and what it all means.
“The” new math? The? Seriously, which new math is this? The one that frustrated me when I tried to help my kids, or the one that is now frustrating my daughter trying to help her son? There is no such thing as “awesome” math. That is factoid. I had a friend who had a PhD is “theoretical” mathematics. Some peeps are just too damn smart for their own good. He was one. At the gym one day I told him, “two plus two equal four, but you will never be a normal person.” (For the record, he was also a Zoomie). Why do I hear the theme from The Twilight Zone?
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Oof. That’s like, math that isn’t even rational 😉
I would have to go find examples of new math, but I can’t cause my brain still hurts from thinking about math yesterday when I wrote this.
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All I learned about math was to spell it – “a rat in the house might eat the ice cream.” After arithmetic, it was an uphill battle (but alone in closets, I kind of like the resolvable mystery of it).
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:O I cannot relate.
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My daughter is a CPA. She so did not get that from me……
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All of my kids are much better at math than I am. I am glad, but lonely.
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Oh my LOfrickinL! This is the best post ever. Your the best, Joey. I mean you’re. Effin properties bullshit math.
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Thank you for your enthusiastic praise!
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Now this is a day – Joey writes about math. Does that mean that math is now OK? Cause I got lots of math post ideas in my drafts folder. I like your explanation of addition vs. subtraction. In fact, there are computer processes that consider how many “operations” are required, so changing two numbers is more costly than changing one. For the record, I think math had properties when you learned it (cuz it had them when I did).
I hope you enjoy the rest of this weekend.
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Okay, math has always had properties but I didn’t know. Yeah, I’m definitely a single operation machine 🙂
You can always write about math. I may not have a comment, I may take a Tylenol, but it’s your blog and you can math if you want to!
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Ha ha – ok. My goal is to make a math post interesting for everyone.
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It’s good to have lofty goals, Dan.
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😏
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Regrouping … properties … sounds like Monopoly with funny money. Things that make me go huh? What will they think of next???! Lol :).
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Math has properties? Welp, news to me. Math and I have always had a difficult relationship so I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that math withheld this bit of news from me. Sneaky little git.
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Go English!!!
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Borrowing and carrying are much more descriptive terms than re-grouping. It’s a good thing there are people who are good at math so I don’t have to.
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Agreed
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Brains is more weird than some math.
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Joey and Math ?! Must look for more signs of the end times.
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These are treacherous times, man.
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ummm – math has properties? wth!
I now know that virtually anything is possible. Joey wrote a math post 😁
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Right? You and me both.
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I still prefer a pencil and straight columns to accomplish subtraction the way I learned in elementary school, Joey. Talk about old math!
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Have you heard Tom Lehrer’s “New Math”? Lemme see….
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Most excellent. Most excellent. Thank you!
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What the hell are properties? I made a living with trigonometry for nearly twenty years, but I don’t know about properties. Is my math dysfunctional now? Are my answers incorrect? Are my calculations like the bell-bottoms and polyester of a bygone era?
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I don’t remember all the things, but one is associative. I feel ya.
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Math makes my head hurt. Always has, always will.
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Same.
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I like math. But I do not like new math. And I absolutely don’t like proving things for which there is no need (aka the annoying part of Geometry).
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LOL Geometry is the only math that ever made good sense to me, and I think we had this chat before, cause I remember you’re good at math.
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