Sunday, July 7, 2013

My Top 10 Hates about Mathematics - #7 - #6

This is a continuous series! You can see the first post here. 

#7 - Textbooks 

I hate textbooks! Why! 
1. They are BIG! 
2. They are BULKY! 
3. They are HEAVY! 
4. Some are not made to the best quality! 
5. The REAL reason why I hate them ... They provide enough problem sets, but NOT enough examples. (At least our textbooks and ALL of my college textbooks.) 

#6 - Trigonometry

Okay now it is my first concept I dislike!  I understand the concept, I understand the process, and I am blessed with identity charts. What do I hate about "Trig". Let's consider the following ... 


Let's suppose Q equals pi/2.    
Well using my table it tells me the answers is 1! Easy enough, BUT pretend I am a naive high school student to lazy to look up my chart that I carelessly "forgot" to write down....





......and I use my calculator. I type in sin(pi/2) just like the teacher told me to and press enter. 

The answer! Sin(pi/2)=0.027.... Next, problem! Sadly, there is a problem! Do you see that little DEG in the corner? No! Nor did the student! Why do I hate trig? You have to remember to do one of the smallest calculator Switch-a-Roos know to humankind! Change it to radian mode! 

Once you change the calculator's mode .... 


You get the correct answer! Do you see why I hate Trig? 

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