Are most Autistics good at math?
I'm a writer, writing has always been my passion. Maths, however, I always liked, there are rules, it makes sense, the teacher doesn't have to like you, nothing is subjective. I'm not brilliant at it, but better than 90% of people, it always made sense to me. I think some people think they can't do it because it sounds harder than it is, confidence is key. Most of my English teachers hated me.
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Um, no, some of us really suck at maths. It's not "all in the mind". I know the basics, yes, but otherwise I am crap. It's a bit like people that are bad at spelling. It frustrates me when people can't spell, but they can't help it. Words probably feel the same to them as maths feel to me, so who am I to criticise.
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Numbers dancing on the page can be related to Dyslexia or Irlen Syndrome https://irlen.com/what-is-irlen-syndrome/
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Dear_one
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I hated memorizing the times tables, and wasted months before I realized that there were practical uses for powers of numbers. I enjoyed geometry, but not algebra. If my math teacher had thought to ask me problems based on modified drag racing cars, I might have stayed in school. I didn't join the slide-rule club because I expected calculators to become available.
In my 30s, I wanted to design a car chassis based on controlled flex rather than separate springs and suspension members. Sometimes I'd hit a hundred calculator keys in succession, following a process in my head that I could not write down half as easily. That got tedious, so I wrote a beam-analysis program in BASIC. I've never needed the calculus, although it might have helped to clairify some thinking. The prototype worked as expected, and is still ahead of the industry.
I have always had a keen sense on which problems had a mathematical solution, and been able to do useful estimates that I can't readily document. For years, people invested money in an Air (powered) Car whose brochure clearly violated gr 11 physics, to my eye. I jotted down a few numbers on the back of an envelope, and blew the whistle, but couldn't get anyone else to look at the science.
I think that a lot more people would enjoy math except that the curriculums are ultimately set by people who would lose a fortune if people could calculate how to save money. Now that the drudgery has gone from math, we should be teaching how to use it, not how to do it by hand.
Personally, I can't picture numbers in my head. I have trouble picturing anything in my head, but numbers are the worst.
Also, my working memory sucks, so having to memorize a crapton of rules isn't my thing.
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^You should try to get that car suspension idea patented. Maybe Tesla will give it a shot? They're all about finding new roads (oh wait, that's GM's slogan). At least shoot it by Elon Musk's Facebook/Twitter. If not shoot the code by me, and I'll go and take it to my supervisor, he develops batteries for Tesla Inc. That's probably your best chance of getting it implemented.
Personally, I fear that my mathematical ideas are not nearly that glamorous. I mean, I understand the principles behind higher mathematics better than most people I know, but when it comes to doing calculations, things start getting rather sketchy, with many transcription errors popping up, 5897 becoming 8597, + becoming -, numbers getting mis-punched into the calculator, etc... Can't say I'm a great speller either, but it's alot easier to know if you've misspelled a word than written a number backwards as a misspelled word often looks kind of funny.
My specialty is organic chemistry, specifically organic synthesis. Back in 2nd year organic chemistry, I got every question correct on all my exams, including the bonus questions. I finished that course with a mark that was either a 100 or higher, a record that I have yet to beat (I got something like 95 in 3rd year Organic, don't laugh at that or else...) I must also be very good at 2nd year genetics, inorganic chemistry, analytical chemistry, and evolution, as I managed to get over 90% in all those subjects.
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Dear_one
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^@Glflegolas: https://www.compositesworld.com/columns ... le-history
I reserved some patentable features for years, but Patent lawyers never work on speculation, and corporations don't really want rapid progress, let alone products that don't create further sales. I did my program in an obscure dialect, so I'm working on a spreadsheet version that would calculate a well-refined design for any common road vehicle. However, without at least one person anxious to see the results, it may not get done.
I learned calculus in the 7-th grade, so yeah, back in the good old teen years I stood out as being good in math. But once I reached graduate school I hit what is called "gifted student stumbling block" (in other words I couldn't get used to the fact that I have to struggle through the material) so I started facing problems, to the point that they wanted to expell me.
But then again, in my courses I did fine -- even in graduate school -- my problem was that I didn't realize that graduate school is not about courses but about research. That, plus I picked a research topic, string theory, that I wasn't ready for. The fact is that majority of the department "weren't" doing string theory, but the difference between me and them is that they never said they were going to do it, while I said I would do it and then didn't follow through. And finally, most people in high school who thought I was gifted haven't made it to graduate school on the first place. So I am still gifted in comparison to people that thought I was gifted back when I was a kid.
In any case, I am 38 years old and I came back to graduate school for a second ph.d. (first was in physics, second will be in math). Most people outside academia say its impressive, but I only do that because I couldn't get professorship as a physicist. Most people can't get professorship either, I mean its super competitive; but what they do in this situation is either work in a lab or teach in community college, but I don't want to do either of those things since I want to be a professor. So I decided to go back to graduate school for a redo. Not a very good redo though, since I still want to be a "physics" professor, but to make it legit I went to graduate school for "math", since I already have physics ph.d. But, luckily for me, the math professors are willing to accommodate my interest in physics, although they aren't doing a good job with that since they don't know physics, but at least they are trying.
I'm about average at math, but I really hate it and it has always been my least favorite school subject. I always enjoyed things like writing, history, and science more.
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Dear_one
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I have NVLD, so I've always struggled with math. For me, it's the visual-spatial aspects of math that I have difficulty grasping. For those who have said math is all about rules, that is not true in my opinion. There is a lot of visual-spatial imaging that goes along with math. For instance, I am very good at algebra, because, yes, that is a very rule-based section of mathematics. However, I'm terrible at geometry and trigonometry, which are heavily visual-spatial. As a scientist, I really wish that I could excel at math, because there are areas of science (mostly physics) that I will never truly understand due to not being able to understand the math.
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Nope, not good at it at all. Nowadays I can get by with some stuff, but I am far from good.
Numbers and equations don't sync well in my head. They get jumbled and get the anxiety going. SO glad when I reached a point in school where I never had to take another math class again.
I tended to excel in English and History though.
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I hated maths in primary school (when I was aged 5-11). I found it boring and difficult. In primary school they had toys to help kids learn maths, but even with toys it was boring. I just found myself playing with the toys instead of using them to help me with learning maths.
At high school I didn't hate maths so much, although it still wasn't one of my favourite subjects. I didn't like doing maths homework though. But as I got older I found that science was more boring than maths.
Maths was rather cosy. What I mean by that is one time I was sitting by a window in a maths exam and it was raining outside, and I found it cosy and soothing to work out math problems with the rain pouring against the window. I did get an F though, but still, it was fun at the time.
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