Re: Some grave concerns to the US education

On Sun, 27 Jun 2004 09:54:18 -0500, Fletch F. Fletch wrote
(in article <ucBDc.8453$Xn.146@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>):

> toto wrote:
>> 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.
> 
> I was using the term factoring loosely.  I really meant finding a root,
> solving, etc.
> 
> In any event, the answer is 42.  If I could only remember what the
question
> was.

Why?

[to both]


  ++ Gray //