The Official Cricketweb Science Thread!

[cover drive man]

Originally Posted by silentstriker

i is an imaginary number.

Would have to be if it was the root of a negative number.

Also, two questions, 1) In the simplest possible terms what's a lepton? 2) What is the "e" number (thanks by the way )

[silentstriker]

Lepton: Class of particles. Electron is a type of lepton (though there are other leptons).
e: It's a bit more complicated to explain than pi. You have to know a bit of calculus to understand it's significance. But it's a number as important as pi in math.

[Marcuss]

e's a bitch.

[Shri]

Maths is the devil. Well, at least was for me during school.

[cover drive man]

For me maths is the best subject in the world when you understand it and the worst when you don't.

[cpr]

Originally Posted by cover drive man

For me maths is the best subject in the world when you understand it and the worst when you don't.

Meh, if i'm going to use it, i'll strive to understand it. If its not in my field i dont care how incomprehensible it is (not saying its useless, definately not, just useless to me)

[nightprowler10]

Math is really e

[Shri]

Originally Posted by cpr

Meh, if i'm going to use it, i'll strive to understand it. If its not in my field i dont care how incomprehensible it is (not saying its useless, definately not, just useless to me)

This. I am an animator, so its pretty useless to me.

[cpr]

In fairness I do have to use a fair bit of maths at work, and its not always straight forward (not simulataneous equations or integration etc, but still....) and have to do it bloody quickly as the persons having a whinge.

Eg someone might ask me how much tax they need to pay if they earnt X amount..... I'd have to
find out how much of that to discard (depending on their circs)
How much to tax at 10% (if app.)
How much of the remainder at 20/22%
How much at 32.5% (if their income involved shares)
The rest at 40% (though give it a few months and i'll be adding a stage where i need to go upto 50%)

THEN, start again with a different disregard figure and calc 8% for their National Insurance, add it all together, deduct what they've already paid, and bingo. If it takes more than 30 seconds the person usually gets pissy!

So whilst not completely alien to doing more than straight forward maths, some bits are best left to those who's fields of work specifically need it

[silentstriker]

Well duh. Obviously, it's pretty necessary to learn at least until calculus though in high school.

[cpr]

Of course, cant just say 'Oh little timmy wants to be an astronaught, have all this. Bobby you want to be a writer you can have the maths lessions off'..... Need a sound learning so they can decide what career path to take. Got it pretty right in this country IMO. Upto GCSE is a good basis, and then choose if you want to continue on from there. Personally I did choose A Level maths, looking at a career as a pilot, or back up within IT. Found that level of maths too difficult (esp mechanics, couldnt get my head round it), went down the back-up route of IT, again hit a wall not long into it, retreated to plan C of politics where I dont need to be able to count*





* For ref see Florida 2000, Iran 2009 etc etc

[silentstriker]

Yea mechanics (we learn it in Physics here, not math, odd that it's in math in the UK, it has nothing to do with math at all) is the first brick wall most students encounter. It's usually not like other stuff they've learned, in that an infinite variation of questions can be asked, and you only know 2-3 basic principles and maybe three equations. And you have to apply it to any type of situation you could possibly encounter. So it requires a shift in thinking and learning about things. No one can teach it to you, because you can mix and match questions a million ways, and you just need to completely understand those 2-3 principals. Once you master them though, there is no such thing as a hard mechanics problem, but it takes a long time for first time students to get to that point because you just have to keep doing millions of problems until it becomes second nature.

I see it happen here all the time, mechanics (proper mechanics, with calculus) is a good first weed out course for all those wanting to become Physicists or something.

I'd actually be a little offended as a math teacher if I had to teach mechanics. Takes away from the purity of math.

[cpr]

Out of 6 A Level modules (I actually did 7 so I could sub out one of the mechanics ones!), 2 were mechanics. Also at least 1 module in Physics was mechanics too. Couldn't do it in either and there went my dreams of being a pilot!

[silentstriker]

That's dire. Not that you had problems with it, but they sullied math by putting mechanics in the cirriculum. Should be in Physics where it properly belongs.

[cpr]

Yeah, all it was in maths was little pretend cars needing to get up steep hills........

Thing is i had to do a 1/3 of the curriculum as mechanics, even though I was off to do computer science at uni. The two Decision modules (ie networks, nodes etc etc) I had to do as extra even though I had **** all interest in mechanics. If mechanics was compulsary then OK, but it wasnt......


http://www.examsolutions.co.uk/A-Level-Maths.php is how its made up nowadays, though when i did it the Core modules were known as 'pure maths' (P1, P2 etc), and only 3 pure modules were compulsary. The school insisted we did 3 pure, 2 mechanics and 1 stats. I ended up doing 3 pure, 2 mechanics, 2 stats and 2 decision to tailor my need for uni......