My math book is stupid...
 

The Dover children, Eileen and Ben, are away at college. They visit home on random weekends, Eileen with a probability of 0.2 and Ben with a Probablility of 0.25. What is the probability that both will visit.

The Katz Brothers, Bob and Tom, are hiding in a cellar. If either one sneezes, they will reveal their hiding places and be found. Bob's probability of sneezing is 0.6 and Tom's probability is 0.7 What is the probability that at least one sneezes?


It must be terribly boring to write these word problems...

i know this math shit well.. do you go to a high school? it's high school curriculum in my country. it sould be a university thing in my opinion. fuck maths

Yeah, I'm a high school Sophomore. Algebra IIE, bitchz. I like math.

so how about giving me a refreshment course, alex?
it's been ages since i had that shit in school and i'm wondering about the solutions of those two problems.

Algebra in 10th grade? shiiiiiiite, I had to take summer school to make up for failing it, and cause i dropped out after 10th, it took me til 11th grade to pass it

at my school back in 99, half of the grade failed Algebra, actual half of the 10th grades in the whole state failed it, while i think it should be made an elective, at least they could suspend it to at the very least the 11th grade to grasp it

Probability: The likelyhood of an even happening represented with a number between 0 and 1.

The Dover children, Eileen and Ben, are away at college. They visit home on random weekends, Eileen with a probability of 0.2 and Ben with a Probablility of 0.25. What is the probability that both will visit.

The probability of them both visiting is the two probabilities multiplied. As in 1/5 X 1/4 = 1/20 = .05

There is a 5% chance that they will both visit.

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The Katz Brothers, Bob and Tom, are hiding in a cellar. If either one sneezes, they will reveal their hiding places and be found. Bob's probability of sneezing is 0.6 and Tom's probability is 0.7 What is the probability that at least one sneezes?

My teacher didn't fully explain why one method for this didn't work, so I may be leaving something out...

You need to find the probability of the opposite of at least one of them sneezing, meaning neither of them sneezing, then subtracting that from one in order to find the answer (finding one opposite and subtracting from 1 (essentially another oppoiste) brings you back to the original question).

So in this case, the chance of neither of them sneezing is .4 X .3 (since .6 and .7 is the chance of them sneezing, you subtract those from one to get the chance of them not sneezing). So the probability that neither of them will sneeze is .12. We take that number and subtract it from 1. The answer is .88 or 88%.

Wasn't that fun?It is standard to take Algebra I in 8th grade in my school district. Geometry in 9th grade, and Algebra II in 10th. But there are plenty of people who take the classes later.

Next year I'm taking Math Analysis E (I could also be doing AP Statistics), and after that AP (hopefully) Calculus.

i was quite great in math, even had a few honors classes until i hit the tenth grade, but after my debacle, i got back on track and excelled in geometry

maybe you can explain it better, what applications in the real world requires algebra? i understand geometry which is alot more essential, but algebra i never really understood

Um...there really isn't a lot of every day use...

Satellite dishes are actually parabolic dishes (aka a wide parabola in 3D form.) All the transmissions bounce off of the dish and into the little thing that is in front of it (the foci in math terms). The concetrated transmissions give better quality television, which is why anteneas were so weak.

Flashlights also use parabolic dishes to concentrate light.

Expontential functions are useful for determining things that deal with bank accounts/interest rates. If you go into sciences they (and a lot of other math related stuff) is much more important.

i figured as much, i guess pinheads like me do need to try to get it even if you never use it, yet i have forgotten i think just about everything i did learn

I pretty much forgot all the stuff that I learned in Chemistry when I took it last summer (to get ahead of course), which is bad because I am taking AP Chemistry next year.

basic algebra is cool when you need a general formula for something.

it's very important for the sciences & applied sciences: physics, engineering, & so forth.

then there are more advanced forms of algebra (like linear algebra) which deals w/ hairier problems of vectors & stuff i have forgotten. matrices. oy!

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oh then there are functions. functions are cool! they describe a lot of stuff in the universe.

yeah, our courses went pre-algebra in sixth, algebra i in 7th, and algebra ii in eighth. there were normal math classes too, but i took algebra. geometry was ninth, then after ninth (for ib) we can take whatever we want. i like statistics.

Thanks... I had the first one correct then (although I didn't want to post my answer for fear of looking dumb in case I was wrong! :o)

But I couldn't think of how to solve the second one. I tried something, but knew it was wrong because the result was too low and I knew it had to be more than 0.7... I've completely forgotten about most of that stuff, it's been too long.



Eh, I dunno... I'm glad I don't have to deal with that stuff anymore. I never liked mathematics, although probability was the least annoying part of it for me. It's fun every now and then.

Basic probability equations are not that bad, it's more about logical reasoning than learning formulas by heart. When you start getting into designing randomized block designs, ANOVAs and ANCOVAs, that's where all the logic goes out, except for a selected few who manage to grasp it all....

My high school has these books we use that are terrible- they are just a bunch of problems without any explaining, so you can never go back and check through the book at anything you missed. and to top it off, my math teacher cannot speak english. cool.

oh my god, dude. that would be hell. Statistics. jesus.

i took Pre-Calculus last year and passed by the skin on my teeth (AKA passed by cheating on the final).

When I was actually forced to take math courses I would try to amuse myself with these ridiculous word problems in order to make things more bearable.

Like for example... why are poor Bob and Tom hiding in the cellar? Is daddy home drunk from the bar again? Has a sadistic murderer found his way into the house? The possibilities are endless.

I do realize that I am a complete dork.

cant you be a smart ass and put in your own probabilitys
bassicly what the post above me was saying
theres so many things that could happen
Whats the chances of a car accident and noone ever visits because they are dead

I definitely hate all maths books.

nerd!

bet not!

was not very good at maths and my definate blind sopt when i was at school. i can do it but just needed to concentrate more and not rush through like we did at school. if i couldnt do one then the teacher made me walk around the playground until i did and another made me put all my books in the bin so i couldnt have had a worse start really haha.

LOL

um gosh!

My math teachers all loved me.

I went away on RISE for a week, and I did all the work I was assigned, but there were some tests/homework things that I didn't do. I asked my teacher and he said "Oh, your an A student, I'll just give you an A."

And my geometry teacher last year (at the end of the year) let me pick all of the Simpson's episodes that we watched. I picked Homerpallooza.

had an experience at school where i had to get a lift with a female teacher and the seatbelt in her car was broken, yes that old trick and she had to lean accross me to get it. it was all totaly innocent but someone saw and ofcourse it went round that she had hugged me etc. it all died down though when newer more interesting scandlas took place.

I remember reading onc about a high-school teacher who was sacked for setting a maths problem involving a pimp, and how much money he would make with various prostitutes turning tricks at various prices.