Ezekiel wrote:That is a fair point, but people who have never done an algebra question still use the same train of thought to work out an unknown quantity. It has always seemed like a rather long winded way of putting the thought process on paper to me.
I'm not one to talk to about maths though - English has always been my strong point and I both admire and wonder about those who are able to take maths at degree level. The admiration comes from them doing something that I regard as quite a hard subject choice, the wonder comes from me trying to work out why they actually bother. :icon32:
those longwinded problems are obviously designed so that youre forced to used all different kinds of solving methods.
and ofcourse mathematicians, programmers and physicists use it all the time
Ezekiel wrote:I remember asking my maths teacher what the point of algebra was. She was very emphatic when explaining how (like everything else in the lesson) it would be of great use in later life.
"But Miss, why don't they give you real numbers instead? It would be easier!"
I could never understand the point in algebra when I was ten, and my stance on the matter still hasn't changed eleven years later. Bar very specialist fields I fail to see how it is of use to anybody.
You need algebra for everything, ranging from calculus to physics, chem and just doing your budget. Linear algebra has a lot of uses too I guess
