Monday, September 15, 2008

Square this.

Ok, so you know in math you do all of these "application" problems where they say, "If you know the trajectory of a ball is given by this equation, after how long will it hit the ground?" or something like that? Where do the equations come from?! If we are really supposed to be applying stuff, we should know how to make these equations! It's not like you walk around every day and see a bird flying and know, "Well it's flying northwest in a parabolic pattern at a speed of 10 mph, so I know that in X seconds it will be directly above my head." Equations aren't just handed out to you! So where do they come from and why hasn't anyone taught this to me? That would be the really useful thing to know how to do. Who cares if you can solve an equation if there's no equation given to you from your loving texting book to solve?
This has bothered me off and on since high school. I just really needed to let it out. :P

4 comments:

Vae Gannon said...

Ehhh, I've always wondered the same thing, but luckily I'm an English major so it doesn't keep me awake at nights. Chaucer on the other hand. . .

Ash said...

Hahaha.

K. So funny story. :) My family laughs at this all the time. Matt was doing a physics problem once and it was like, "If you're standing at the top of a mountain and drop your keys at this angle aboutt his hard or whatever where would they land for you to go look for them?"

Well first off. You obviously didn't "drop" them. It was like, standing htere, holding your keys and.... WHOOPS! My hand slipped! Oh, but it "fell" at this angle this fast, so it must be over there. I'll just go hike down and pick them up.

Anyway. not funny on here. It is in person though. We always laugh about it.

Cause there ARE no equations. Well you, miss genius, will probably grow up making and solving equations every day until you save the world from whatever it is you decide to save the world from. But yeah. most of us don't get it. To me, there are no equations like that.
It's one of those things where you'll be sitting in class and your math teacher just comes straight out admitting to you there is no real world need for this information, but since we're in class we have to elarn it anyway. (Yes, that did happen.)

I'm rambling. And I have like ten minutes to get ready and go to school. Meh. Haha.

Unknown said...

Physics? A good physics course will solve your issues.

Katya said...

I'm in physics. And every problem they hand me an equation to take the derivative of or integrate to get v(t) or a(t) or s(t) or whatever. But where did it come from in the first place?!