Are there any Math fans here ?

[Heron]

I love maths. I love the patterns, the magic, the definitive nature.

I love times tables: My favorites is the 18s.

I study accountancy and statistics and have maths book to help me in stressful situation. (I use it during PSHE at collage).

What about the 17s – should be easier

 

[Aeolienne]

I studied maths at university but haven't made much use of it. Back then I was rather dismayed when a career adviser told me that around half the job opportunities for maths graduates are in the defence industry. (I had recently been arrested for demonstrating against an arms fair.)

I ended up working for several years at the Met Office. I had my membership fees for the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications reimbursed, but when I asked my boss about working towards chartered membership he couldn't see the benefit to the wider organisation, so I never did. I'm not sure if I would even be eligible to rejoin the IMA now, given my patchy employment record since getting fired from the MO back in 2009. Even more galling, whilst I was there I applied for some internal vacancies in oceanography but was turned down on the ground that I lacked experience in working with mathematical models - even though I'd studied mathematical modelling for my master's! Go figure.

 

[ZebraAutismo]

What about the 17s – should be easier

17s are also pretty satisfying.

 

[Heron]

17s are also pretty satisfying.

For 17s there is no simple trick as far as I can see. For 18s I guess a possible trick for d₁d₂ × 18 = e₁e₂e₃ is as follows:

1. The ones digit e₃ in the product e₁e₂e₃ is the ones digit in the product d₂ × 8.
2. The hundreds digit e₁ in the product e₁e₂e₃ is 0 if d₁d₂ is less than 6, else 1 if d₁d₂ is less than 12, else 2 if d₁d₂ is less than 17, else it is 3.
3. The tens digit e₂ in the product e₁e₂e₃ is then simply determined by choosing the digit such that the digit sum e₁+e₂+e₃ becomes 9 or 18 (only for the cases 11 × 18 and 16 × 18)

Example: 13 × 18

1. The ones digit of the product is the ones digit of the product 3 × 8 = 24 , that is 4.
2. The hundreds digit is 2 since 13 is at least 12 but less than 17.
3. The tens digit is now obviously 3 since 2 + 3 + 4 = 9

That is 13 × 18 = 234

 

[Spencer Carr]

As a kid math was painfully easy. I didn't understand why people had such a hard time with it. As early as kindergarten I was correcting other kids, and have a very specific memories of teaching other kids using algebra, something my first grade teacher noticed.

So the question was 15-7=?
I'm sitting there like, ok, let me help everyone out. I asked to use the chalk board and wrote this:
7+?=10 ?=
10+?=15 ?=
I asked the other kids to solve it, and they got 3 & 5, added them together and got the answer.

The first grade teacher gave me some more problems to help show the class how to make math easier, and I helped teach math for the rest of the year. Got tested, and was sent to a magnet school... Where I then promptly hated math.

Yeah algebra is fun, graphing is like a riddle and code, but dear lord when a problem looked like this [(5-√π^x)::2]-{3,7,10}=~∆7

I'm done.

I understand it's just a new vocabulary to learn, and that math is a language unto itself, but my entire basis for understanding the world is not actually that I have some super high IQ (as outdated as that concept is) but that I excel at reducing something to it's basic points, making it easier, and rebuilding the answer.

I blame math for being easy to do in education and making me seem like a genius and putting a weight on my shoulders that grew exponentially.

 

[watersprite]

I don't know if this counts.
One of my stims is doing very easy math and algebra problems - writing on the touchscreen with my finger.
I don't know why, but it is fun & soothing.
My son is studying physics now, so I asked him if he'd leave the textbook at home. I am reading it. Slowly. But I want to at least be able to understand when we discuss his class.

 

[Heron]

As a kid math was painfully easy. I didn't understand why people had such a hard time with it. As early as kindergarten I was correcting other kids, and have a very specific memories of teaching other kids using algebra, something my first grade teacher noticed.

So the question was 15-7=?
I'm sitting there like, ok, let me help everyone out. I asked to use the chalk board and wrote this:
7+?=10 ?=
10+?=15 ?=
I asked the other kids to solve it, and they got 3 & 5, added them together and got the answer.

The first grade teacher gave me some more problems to help show the class how to make math easier, and I helped teach math for the rest of the year. Got tested, and was sent to a magnet school... Where I then promptly hated math.

Yeah algebra is fun, graphing is like a riddle and code, but dear lord when a problem looked like this [(5-√π^x)::2]-{3,7,10}=~∆7

I'm done.

I understand it's just a new vocabulary to learn, and that math is a language unto itself, but my entire basis for understanding the world is not actually that I have some super high IQ (as outdated as that concept is) but that I excel at reducing something to it's basic points, making it easier, and rebuilding the answer.

I blame math for being easy to do in education and making me seem like a genius and putting a weight on my shoulders that grew exponentially.

Thank you Spencer Carr for an informative and very well written story.
The main reason I nevertheless reply is what you say about math as a language; I disagree there
In my autistic world math is anything but a language. I see it as sets of firmly related objects, which make up structures (objects in a pattern).
Such structures may according to me very well be described and talked about in normal English. No special language is needed.
Thanks for your inspiring post. I'm sorry that your school didn't seem to have made your math thrive. But still, to me, you seem positive to math.

 

[Heron]

I don't know if this counts.
One of my stims is doing very easy math and algebra problems - writing on the touchscreen with my finger.
I don't know why, but it is fun & soothing.
My son is studying physics now, so I asked him if he'd leave the textbook at home. I am reading it. Slowly. But I want to at least be able to understand when we discuss his class.

I think your son is very fortunate with a mother reasoning like that
My mother always implied what a good mother she was with a great son like me, although I never got any support from her until she became 60 years old.

 

[Heron]

x³+2x²+3x¹+4xº = 0
x = ?
Answer:

3y⁴ + 6y³ – 123y² – 126y + 1080 = 0
y = ?

As I see it, according to Quartic function the following could be an answer (with y substituting x):

 

[Heron]

x³+2x²+3x¹+4xº = 0
x = ?
Answer:
View attachment 38117

3y⁴ + 6y³ – 123y² – 126y + 1080 = 0
y = ?

As I see it, according to Quartic function the following could be an answer (with y substituting x):

 

[vangelis]

Yes I love maths and numbers in general - my job involves lots of number work and puzzle solving which is really good.

 

[Heron]

Yes I love maths and numbers in general - my job involves lots of number work and puzzle solving which is really good.

Number work and puzzle solving sounds nice.
I prefer complex numbers but also integers are good (especially positive ones; Plato).

 

[vangelis]

Number work and puzzle solving sound nice.
I prefer complex numbers but also integers are good (especially positive ones; Plato).

I deal with linear optimization problems generally, so initially mind-bogglingly vast numbers eventually becoming just huge numbers

 

[Heron]

I deal with linear optimization problems generally, so initially mind-bogglingly vast numbers eventually becoming just huge numbers

I've made a software implementation of the Simplex algorithm for linear optimization without round-off errors (integer calculations only). I'm thinking about if the algorithm could be adjusted to cope also with unlimited values in addition to integers — Close To The Edge

 

[vangelis]

I've made a software implementation of the Simplex algorithm for linear optimization without round-off errors (integer calculations only). I'm thinking about if the algorithm could be adjusted to cope also with unlimited values in addition to integers — Close To The Edge

I like the Yes reference.

The algorithm I use at work is Mosek.

 

[Aeolienne]

I once interviewed for a job at an environmental consultancy where I was asked to give a presentation on "The application of statistics to flood risk". Despite having no specialist knowledge of the subject (the only stats I'd done at university was a course in the first year that wasn't much above advanced high-school standard), I rose to the challenge. I mugged up on the subject and I looked up my interviewers on Google Scholar so I could throw in references to their research interests. This worked - I got the job. Unfortunately once I was in the job it soon became obvious that my knowledge of statistics didn't live up to the impression I gave at the interview. The requirements of the job were considerably changed from the original description. Within weeks I was expected to get up to speed with the likes of multivariate regression, copulas, the Nelder-Mead optimisation algorithm and the Aikake information criterion - and all this with only a brief PowerPoint presentation and postdoc-level paper to assist me. (I was told to "just google" anything I didn't understand.) Five months into the job I was fired for failing to "deliver the right level of technical input". Since then my heart sinks every time I see statistics mentioned in a job description.

 

[vangelis]

I once interviewed for a job at an environmental consultancy where I was asked to give a presentation on "The application of statistics to flood risk". Despite having no specialist knowledge of the subject (the only stats I'd done at university was a course in the first year that wasn't much above advanced high-school standard), I rose to the challenge. I mugged up on the subject and I looked up my interviewers on Google Scholar so I could throw in references to their research interests. This worked - I got the job. Unfortunately once I was in the job it soon became obvious that my knowledge of statistics didn't live up to the impression I gave at the interview. The requirements of the job were considerably changed from the original description. Within weeks I was expected to get up to speed with the likes of multivariate regression, copulas, the Nelder-Mead optimisation algorithm and the Aikake information criterion - and all this with only a brief PowerPoint presentation and postdoc-level paper to assist me. (I was told to "just google" anything I didn't understand.) Five months into the job I was fired for failing to "deliver the right level of technical input". Since then my heart sinks every time I see statistics mentioned in a job description.

There is a quote I remember from one of my school textbooks which goes something like "use statistics like a blind man uses a lamp post - for support rather than illumination".

 

[Vindicator Phoenix]

I'm going for a degree in mathematics; very few people understand how much I love equations.

 

[Fitzo]

I'm not a numbers person, I'm a word person.
Which is why MATH as opposed to MATHS drive's me nuts!
How can mathematics (plural) become shortened to math?
American English is in itself an oxymoron!
Sorry..... Just had to get that off my chest!
No offence meant to all you Americans

 

[Heron]

I once interviewed for a job at an environmental consultancy where I was asked to give a presentation on "The application of statistics to flood risk". Despite having no specialist knowledge of the subject (the only stats I'd done at university was a course in the first year that wasn't much above advanced high-school standard), I rose to the challenge. I mugged up on the subject and I looked up my interviewers on Google Scholar so I could throw in references to their research interests. This worked - I got the job. Unfortunately once I was in the job it soon became obvious that my knowledge of statistics didn't live up to the impression I gave at the interview. The requirements of the job were considerably changed from the original description. Within weeks I was expected to get up to speed with the likes of multivariate regression, copulas, the Nelder-Mead optimisation algorithm and the Aikake information criterion - and all this with only a brief PowerPoint presentation and postdoc-level paper to assist me. (I was told to "just google" anything I didn't understand.) Five months into the job I was fired for failing to "deliver the right level of technical input". Since then my heart sinks every time I see statistics mentioned in a job description.

I once got a very qualified job (in the 1990s), and I couldn't believe it was true. I imagined it as the turning point of my life. I gave it all I had, but the job almost killed me. Since then I know that kind of job isn't what I want. In fact I'm not able to work at all but I think I also have some undiagnosed physical impairment.