High School Math

I feel like the book I’m reading is not meant for someone at my level of education. Rather, I think it is meant for college students that are working on a research project or have been assigned to read it for a mathematics-based or statistics class. Or, the book could even be written for older people that are pursuing a career in mathematics, statistics, or are just interested in the subject. David Salsburg, author of The Lady Tasting Tea, refers many times to remembering high school math courses or basic mathematic theories learned long ago.

Within just few pages, high school math is talked about twice in the sense that it was many years ago. The first reference is on page 69: “Nowadays we have the power of algebraic notation to get a solution. Remember high school algebra? If x equals the value in drachmas, then…” I wasn’t quite sure what a drachma was until I dictionary.com’d it. But that’s the neat thing about math. If there is a word problem that involves an object that the solver does not know, it doesn’t make a difference. All that matters is the numbers dealing with the object: speed, weight, height, length, volume, etc.

David Salsburg also talks about word problems. He considers high school algebra word problems “terrible”. People rowing downstream with the current, bouncing a ball, the length of a building’s shadow; these are all examples of high school word problems. Again, the author refers to the struggles of some students with these math questions:

“…and the poor student had to put those words into a formula and solve for x. The reader may recall going back through the pages of the textbook, desperately seeking a similar problem that was worked out as an example and trying to stuff the new numbers into the formulas that were used in that example.”

I have to admit that I have done that before but for the most part, word problems don’t bother me too bad. Salsburg seems to over exaggerate the great efforts it takes to figure out the answers. I’m sure it is that difficult for some people. Just like science experiments are hard for me, math is hard for others.

Anyway, David Salsburg may talk about certain events that are written for readers that experienced it a while back but I’m glad I still understand the material in his book for the most part. Much of it is written in “plain English” but some parts are really confusing, possibly for people with more education than I.