Poll: How do you feel about Math?

I bet a lot of you felt fear and loathing when you saw this topic. I of course love math and my heart would race and I'd get excited if I saw it. How do you feel?

I hate arithmetic, but the rest is great. Numbers are fun to mangle.

I love numbers and patterns but I don't necessarily like math. And I do all the math in my head bass-ackwards.

I hated math when I was in school and I was awful at it (except geometry) but now that I'm a couple of years older, I actually like math and I'm pretty good at it too. I think taking accounting courses in my 20s went a long way towards that - combined with the fact that I had really poor math teachers in high school and didn't really have a good focus level back then.

Not fear and loathing, but residual panic.� Which is bizarre, because I was fairly good at algebraic math in school and still am.� When I'm in the proper frame of mind, I've always enjoy the puzzle aspect, but when I have to do something practical with it, I go into classic avoidance behavior.�

On the other hand�I find geometry and trig and such excruciating.� Bizarre, considering I also aced my logic classes and they're essentially the same thing.��

in high school, i loved math. i took algebra I in 8th grade, a year ahead of most students, and finshed highschool in AP Calc.� I always had kickass teachers in highschool.

in college, however, i hated calc (the teacher was a moron, it was at 8:30, f that. i never did homework, aced the tests and then got a C).� Descrete math sucked (discrete? can never remember). i failed it once with one guy and got a C the next time. and then i squeaked out of elementary logic with a D.� never went back.

It's discrete but don't tell anyone :-)

You have the backwards experience than most people. Usually the HS math teachers suck and the college ones are good. I had some good ones in HS but they couldn't touch my best profs.

*chuckle*� between high school and college, i only ever had one good math teacher.� one.� and going into electronics, i took a whole lot of math classes at the time of college.� one good math teacher.� he explained EVERYTHING in such clarity that i suddenly found myself loving every bit of it.� it was short lived, tho. ):

my kicks in math now are gotten musically.� it sure took long enough, but i think i'm beginning to understand why music and mathematics are so closely associated.� when i'm arranging music for 4-part or writing instrumentals or thinking about what part someone else is supposed to be singing, it all equates to numbers in my head now.� craziness.

�-= george =-

i voted "merf" just because i love that word.

�-= george =-

it should be.� it seriously should be.� we should petition for plenty of them.

�-= george =-

just seeing the word "math" there sent me into panic mode.

Me too.� I'm horrible at math, unless I'm driving. Does anyone else, when on a long trip, take the number of the licence plate in front of them and make all the numbers equal some single digit number you've chosen from the group?� I do that all the time.

I like math theory. I find it neat.

I'm actually better at math than I like to admit, but if I see numbers, I still get that blank mind I remember from many a math class. I can understand the concepts, but I can't think that way long enough to do anything useful with that knowledge.

Yeah, I love math. Well, I used to be good at it, and I love the number theory... but it's become sort of the slave of physics in my life, which is a shame. We keep going around saying "we're not mathematicians, so who cares if we aren't rigorous?" Though, I guess there's a point to be had there...

ooo physics. I started as physics major and if Queens College's physics department was half as good as it's math department I would have stayed one. I always enjoyed going back and forth between the rigor of pure math and the results oriented applications.

in highschool, our kickass calc prof had us doing physics work after we finished the calc book.� mostly spring problems and whatnot.

my favorite thing in calc, was when you took a 2d graph and spun it around the y axis to make a 3d object, and had it intercepting another object, then had to find the volume of the 3d object.

!!! did that make sense? it's been 6 years ^_^

Yes it made sense. One of the most impressive things was that Archimedes found those kinds of volumes more than 2000 years before Newton by essentially inventing integral calculus. He was so far ahead of his time that it was totally forgotten and we only found out that he did that in the 19th century when a palimpsest was discovered with his book on the subject, The Method. A palimpsest(sp?) is an ancient book that had the ink scraped off of it so that the paper could then be used again. Using modern techniques what was originally written can still be read.

I really like math...dunno why...I just get it.� and it gets me!� yay math!����

nuff said.

I HATE math. Hate it hate it hate it.

...Yet, I am REALLY good at it.

BUT I HATE IT.

Stupid math. It's boring and annoying and I hate it.

this is sorta me. I'm decent at math when I apply myself... unfortunately I don't enjoy it enough to apply myself.

I passed grade 11 math with a 73% average or some such, of course I only did 75 % of the work. my school split courses up into 4 parts, I completed the first 3, realised i could pass with just that. and left it.

of course that further went on to screw me over because now I'd like to take some math pre-req stuff at university, but it means doing grade 11 and 12 math and then entry level and then doing the course I need as a pre-req. so I'll never do it ;D

Renita

Do it! Then I can play math stuff with you.

sorry gordon, that means spending almost a thousand dollars on math...

I'm just not going to take that speech science course :/

No just run away to tiajuana with me and I'll teach you math for free.

we call it maths over here. ;D

That's why it is harder over there, you have to learn more than one.

::snorts::

Yeah, never understood the math/maths thing. Do you call it taking a BATHS? No... You even have a town named BATH! Explain THAT to me!

::will ignore any comment after this saying that it's called "Mathematics"::

Well, think about it. We call it mathematics!

*ducks*

speaking of which, my brother has a masters in "Pure and Applied Math" - shouldn't it just be "Math" at that point?

we could fill a whole discussion, maybe a whole web site with the weird things you say Emilie!

:o)