Guys
I just had to reply to this one following a conversation which took place on similar lines to this thread that I had only yesterday. It took place with four of my very good friends (20- 40 year olds) who run our local computer shop. They all are in their own ways specialists within the various aspects of computing and offer in general terms a super service to our local community. The question of the quality of the teaching of mathematics was raised, and I made the point that I felt that old fashioned arithmetic skills were no longer taught as an essential basic primer to the later teaching of mathematics .This statement was pooh-poohed as not a valid point. at this juncture I posed the question "what is one divided by zero" now I got two distinctly wrong answers from the assembled group, the first - "zero" was backed up by a demonstration using a pocket calculator, when I asked what the small letter "E" in the corner of the display signified I was told briefly "nothing", the second answer proffered was almost as predictable "1", the reasoning behind this was simply that zero could not possibly alter the "one " that exists in the top line when the problem is written as a fraction.
Now I proved to all their satisfaction that the correct answer is in fact "infinity". and the "E" in the calculator was in fact the machine running out of memory and thereby giving up.
Is there a moral to be learned here?, I don't know but I always remember my great mentor
(my Grandfather) saying that Chippendale would have used chip board- had it been available to him.
It's not the method used that is important its the quality of the result and furthermore if we remember that man put men on the moon on the backs of slide rules and technology of 40+ years ago just think what today's technology should achieve .......watch this space
I just had to reply to this one following a conversation which took place on similar lines to this thread that I had only yesterday. It took place with four of my very good friends (20- 40 year olds) who run our local computer shop. They all are in their own ways specialists within the various aspects of computing and offer in general terms a super service to our local community. The question of the quality of the teaching of mathematics was raised, and I made the point that I felt that old fashioned arithmetic skills were no longer taught as an essential basic primer to the later teaching of mathematics .This statement was pooh-poohed as not a valid point. at this juncture I posed the question "what is one divided by zero" now I got two distinctly wrong answers from the assembled group, the first - "zero" was backed up by a demonstration using a pocket calculator, when I asked what the small letter "E" in the corner of the display signified I was told briefly "nothing", the second answer proffered was almost as predictable "1", the reasoning behind this was simply that zero could not possibly alter the "one " that exists in the top line when the problem is written as a fraction.
Now I proved to all their satisfaction that the correct answer is in fact "infinity". and the "E" in the calculator was in fact the machine running out of memory and thereby giving up.
Is there a moral to be learned here?, I don't know but I always remember my great mentor
(my Grandfather) saying that Chippendale would have used chip board- had it been available to him.
It's not the method used that is important its the quality of the result and furthermore if we remember that man put men on the moon on the backs of slide rules and technology of 40+ years ago just think what today's technology should achieve .......watch this space