The World According To Loner Bedstraw

My World, My Life, My Boredom

6/12/2006

Who really needs to know about Secondary/High school maths?

I've got my final final Mathematics exam ever later today, Mathematics M2 (second mechanics module) for my A-Levels (Americans, just google it) and, i have to admit, the standard back biting about maths and what use it is doesnt really apply to this paper as its about useful things, like projectiles, circular motion (i.e. banking on racetracks) GPE, KE, Work, and Power. ALL things that we use and see in every day life and that every time you pick up a consumer product, someone had to work out the safety restrictions and strengths of that product using software programs based on these theories.
BUT....
Thats "Applied" mathematics...
Pure mathematics is a whole different ballgame, i mean, noone in their right mind needs to know how to differentiate or integrate in every day life. To paraphrase Billy Connolly, "Why do i need to learn integrals, I'm never fucking going there".
I'm sure there are about a few hundred people who actually use this mathematics in every day life outside the teaching community.
I mean, seriously for a second, what is the point in teaching a subject where the seemingly sole purpose of that subject is to teach people to teach the subject when the teachers are old and forget their times tables!
Anyway, on slightly more interesting notes, after this I've got 2 physics exams, this thursday and next thursday. The first one is "Unified Concepts" which basically means "I hope you remember the past 2 years of work, cus were gonna ask u the questions u forgot to revise". But I love a challenge.
Then the next week I've got a Cosmology exam, and since I've been reading Steven Hawking and Michio Kaku and Brian Greene (Google them) since I was knee high to a grasshopper, Thats gonna b a case of trying NOT to write things down.
I have to keep telling myself that the examiners dont understand string theory, and that its not a proven theory, but what the hell is a proven theory?! there is no such thing ass a proven theory! Newton's Gravity was a "proven theory" until Mercury didnt fit the mold, then Einstein came along and scrapped Newtonian Gravity and made his own. Bt definition a theory or a model cant be proven, it can only be refined or disproven, never proven, cus if you do millions of experiments and millions of tests and they all come out right, if just once the theory doesnt match experiment (ignoring human error) then the theory MUST be wrong!
Anyway, end of rant, better go sit out in the sun and pretend to revise.....

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