Math -- What Is It Good For? (WAS Mr. March Responds )

[blpurdom]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at y..., "cindysphynx" <cindysphynx at h...> wrote:
> And what exactly is wrong with being a dullard, undergrad, non-
> major math student?  Hmmmm?  :-)
> 
> I happen to be quite a math dullard and proud of it, thank you 
> very much!  The best part of being a math dullard is that 
> technology (undoubtedly perfected by math majors with thick 
> glasses wearing pocket protectors and carrying slide rules) has 
> made knowledge of math much less important than it used to be.  
> Can't make change?  The register does it for you!  Can't add, 
> subtract, multiply or divide?  Get a wristwatch with a 
> calculator!  Puzzled about balancing your checkbook or computing 
> your taxes?  Buy some software!  Still confused?  Ask your husband!

Or in my husband's case (the computer programmer), he asks his wife, 
the lowly architecture student. <g>  Contrary to the above 
statement, math majors do not generally engage in perfecting 
technology; that is the purview of engineers.  Slide rules are 
antiques now; graphing calculators do this job.  (If you don't know 
what slide rules were for, you obviously never dealt with 
logarithms.  I once read a fascinating biography of Napier, which 
you would probably use to prop up a wobbly table.  Oh well.)

When I worked as a fast-food cashier in my youth, I had to work out 
the change in my head at lightening speed, and when I worked as a 
waitress, if there was a line for the cash register to total up the 
items my customers had bought, I did the addition quickly myself, 
including the tax.  Unfortunately, I get very confused by the sales 
tax when I'm in stores these days because when I was younger, it was 
six percent, but now in my city it's seven percent (it's still six 
in the rest of the state).  I still have the old info about six 
percent tax in my head, and seven refuses to compute.  Must be age.

But lest you think all contemporary cashiers have it easy, just 
having a machine tell you to give someone forty-five cents in change 
isn't always quite enough; I had a girl at the store the other day 
who was quite at a loss for how to do this, and rather than quickly 
grab a quarter and two dimes, she arduously selected four dimes and 
a nickel, counting slowly and loudly the entire time...and then she 
lost track of where she was and had to start over.  Twice.

It's enough to make a person miss slide rules...

--Barb
(Who also enjoyed a book about the number "e" and reads Stephen 
Hawking for fun...)