I Hate Mathematics...

Post Reply New Topic

Read around your subject , in simple english , that'll help with appreciating mathematics.

I agree with ruveyn here (it seems I am only capable of doing that with respect to math and science).

Fractions, decimals, addition, subtraction, multiplication, division are arithmetic. Algebra and calculus are examples of math. They involve arithmetic, but they look beyond that at the behaviour of functions. Geometry is math. Developing algorithms is a cross between math and information processing. There are some people out there who are very good at math but sloppy when it comes to arithmetic. My grade 12 math teacher would delight in how the most advanced class of the school couldn't seem to do subtraction (that was where a lot of our mistakes would creep in), even though we were just fine at taking integrals and derivatives.

Eventhough I´m female I´m into numbers. I like number sequences, physics, computers, binairy language and that sort of stuff. I am partly a visual thinker which means that I think in detailed images rather than in words. I have to translate words into images sometimes and vice versa. I have trouble with abstract words and expressions. I definitely prefer the concrete over the abstract and forming correct sentences doesn`t come easy to me. The strange thing is that I love to read but when I have to write anything myself, like an essay for example, it`s a complete disaster. I just can not do it.

I positively hate learning new languages because words don't always come easy to me. I have enough difficulties with the grammar and spelling in my own language which is Dutch. I'm absolutely not dyslexic but language just isn't my thing. Posting in English on this forum is an almost exhausting enterprise but very usefull at the same time. That's one of the reasons why I'm doing it.

I am curious to know if there are any other females on this forum who are experiencing the same thing.

^ Wow, your English is excellent! It looked like all your errors were typos, rather than not knowing how to spell or use grammar. I wouldn't have known if you didn't say that Dutch was your first language, and English was a struggle to learn. I have a computer science professor who, while brilliant at math and genetic algorithms, is ESL and sometimes misspells words.

While I've excelled at math, I do find it easier when I can think of something in the real world that can be represented by an unfamiliar kind of math problem.

I'm 50/50 which really sucks, I'm half visual and somewhat good at math, and somewhat good at words. So I have no, I'm really good at math or I'm really good with words, which makes for up and down grades. I feel I should be better though.

I think math is beautiful. But it's not my thing.

Its about not being number phobic.

Teach yourslf not to be afraid of numbers.

If you play with numbers you will find that they will not bite.


For example I was staying with a Friend in her house in Ft.Lauderdale on a vacation from Maryland.

While starring at the road map of Florida I was trying to compare the sizes of the state I was in to the one Im from.

Maryland is probably the most wiggley and irrelegular shaped juristiction ever put on any map by mindkind. So its virtually impossible to visually compare it to other states.

However- it occured to me that Maryland's land area is 10500 square miles. Call it an even ten thousand.

The square root of 10 k is one hundred.

So the state of maryland is equivalent in size to a square 100 miles on each side. It doesnt get any simpler.

So looking at the scale legend I could easily visualize a hundred mile square and then mentally drop that square onto to south Florida.

I then saw the whole state of Maryland vanish into the Florida Everglades without a trace!

About a third of maryland sank, like Atlantis, into Lak Occichobee. The rest wasnt big enought to reach any town on either coast of Florida. It just got lost in the emply swamp in the state's lower middle.

So a simple use of square roots dramatized how damned big the state of Florida is compared to Maryland!

You can find things in your life to compare that way using numbers and applying the stuff you learned in school back in the day.

After taking mathmatics for 3 years. i got tired of students being idiots and annoying. everytime the teachers tried to teach us something, all they do is make us wonder, " well how can we comprehend this or that? ". it's actually stupid how high school taught us the crap in a way we couldn't understand. we don't go to school to get annoyed by a bunch of ret*ds, we go to find what we are and they failed. i am glad i am out of my high school. i was not happy with my graduation from my experience. THANKS DOCTOR HOLMAN. stupid piece of bull.

I am sorry to hear that, I studied Maths in university and enjoyed learning the concepts (though I didn't always know the answers. What sort of Maths do you particularly dislike?

PS: I like reading Little Women.

I love math.

Funny thing is, I used to be quite terrible at it. I used to get nothing higher than a 'C' in a math class as I progressed through school. When I decided to retake Algebra II with a different teacher, I all the sudden because a super math wiz and went on to pass higher-level math courses with flying colors. Of course, I still had to learn how to do arithmetic without a calculator, which was a pain but doesn't become too bad once you practice it a bit.

At school I always loved maths and I was ahead of the other kids, then it got to a point where it became so boring and I was sick of having to wait around for the other kids,around age 12 I lost interest and seemed to lose my ability. I did quite bad in my maths exams because they were far too boring and yet I ended up going into accountancy, initially I enjoyed the repetitive nature of inputting the figures and balancing the books.

At age 17 again I was finishing far too soon, my boss would sometimes send me home midday because there was no more work left for me to do, then he decided (due to the nature of the business) to pay for me to get a qualification in importing and exporting so that I could do 2 jobs but be paid for 1 (gotta love exploitation of the young and naive ) I was also covering the reception area because the girl they'd hired suddenly left, so I was doing 3 jobs became extremely stressed about it, then I was made redundant (business lost a huge amount of money on a bad deal).

I stayed in accountancy as the money was good and the work easy, got another job within days of leaving my old one, started off getting used to the job, enjoyed the routine of what had to be done. Then it all went downhill, I was working too fast again, apparently I was 'too efficient' and when the 2 other people in the accounts department got pregnant within weeks of each other I was then shown how to do most of their jobs, they hired a temporary financial manager to do the things they didn't trust me enough to do such as the wages. So once again I was doing 3 people's jobs and it annoyed me and I think that's what the final nail in the coffin was for me and maths. After I left that job to move 300 miles away I decided never to go back to accountancy and I've avoided maths since, I have a real hatred towards calculations and find it immensely frustrating trying to help my daughter with her maths homework, we're both of the attitude of this is boring and unnecessary, lets do something else.