Re: Some grave concerns to the US education

On Sun, 27 Jun 2004 05:28:54 GMT, "Fletch F. Fletch"
<notme31415@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:

>toto wrote:
>> On Sat, 26 Jun 2004 17:43:33 GMT, "Fletch F. Fletch"
>> <notme31415@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>>
>>> How many people do you figure are on the earth that don't know their
>>> times tables to say twelve, but can factor a quadratic?  I'm
>>> guessing it hovers around zero.
>>
>> How many people actually need to be able to factor a quadratric?
>
>Pretty much everyone in math, science, or engineering I would guess.
>Econonmists too.  I'm sure I'm forgetting a bunch.  Of course, that is
still
>a small minority.
>
Not really.  

You don't have to factor quadratics yourself in any of those fields.
You need to understand how to solve such equations (and in fact,
people who work in the fields you mention, may need to understand
how to get solutions to cubics or higher powered equations), but
people who work in these fields don't solve the equations by factoring
for the most part.

For one thing, many of quadratics are not factorable.  We teach
factoring in Algebra I in high school or before, but it really is not
necessary in the concrete, only in the concept so that student's can
understand the explanation of how the quadratic formula was 
derived.

>Slainte,
>Fletch
>

--
Dorothy

There is no sound, no cry in all the world
that can be heard unless someone listens ..

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