I hate Math, but love Science

[ROFLCopter64bit]

If you learn physics/chemistry, the math starts to fall in place. They are directly connected anyways

[nothke]

I love math! But I hate numbers!!! xD

That's where my soul is torn apart in love for natural sciences xD In school whereever there was geometry, algebra I love it.. I loved all these logical parts. Arithmetics, I just can't do it! Cause it's all about MAGNITUDE and it's very linear. And the fact I can't think at the same time about 10 different numbers or remember them.. I have to write any addition subtraction, multiplication, on a paper, even if it's only 2 2-numbered numbers involved xD Remembering shapes and thinking in 2d or 3d or in graphs is much easier for me! =)

However it could also be that I had a bad teacher in primary school where you had to learn to "quick count" in your head, so I didn't pick it up very good and it remained a gap in my life.

[musicpenguin]

I'm in 6th grade, BUT I HATE MATH. BUT in science I have A+'s. Actually i'm in math right now and about to go to science.

[Grove]

Seems like you have terrible teachers, if you want to improve, you probably have the option of after-class consultation, if that exists in your country of course.

[teuchito]

I think it's a similar thing with me (though I don't know how to calculate orbital mechanics, dV etc. yet), math can be interesting but perhaps it just seems to abstract. Maybe you need to be able to see the practical effects for it to interest you, and they have to be interesting practical effects.

Exactly my thoughts. I think the way math is taught makes it seem too abstract and without any application at all, just numbers.

[honolululu]

Math is the basis of everything we know and have.

Biology is really applied chemistry, and chemistry is applied physics, and physics is applied mathematics, and mathematics is truth, as best we can explain it at the current time.

"If in other sciences we should arrive at certainty without doubt and truth without error, it behooves us to place the foundations of knowledge in mathematics."

- Roger Bacon

If class is boring or seems pointlessly easy one needs to have the self discipline to ask their teacher for more advanced work. Work that you might not even get 'credit' for. Visit the teacher of the next level to ask for guidance, or teach yourself. Of course this is not easy. Valuable things rarely are.

Good luck, we're all counting on you.

[comham]

I never liked maths either. Only have an A at GCSE with it, and didn't take the A Level. Thankfully you need almost no mathematics at all for a Chemistry degree.

[NASAFanboy]

Odd...I scored at the top 4% for math in the whole country during an Standardized test, but my grades are so low...Strange....

I scored at the top 10% for science. *facepalm*

[Jokurr]

I was lucky in that my junior high school math teacher was really, really good. He made what can rather be drab topic somewhat interesting and engaging, and more importantly he made it easy to understand. He went in for heart surgery when I was halfway through grade 9 and the teacher we had for the rest of the year was one of the worst I’ve ever had, so I feel for those who’ve had bad math teachers. Sometimes it can make all the difference.

But yeah, for anyone who wants to pursue a career in physics/engineering, sorry to say it but math is a critical skill that you WILL need, there is no getting around it. I completed a degree in mechanical engineering a few years back and 95% of my courses involved math, in one way or another.

[Xellith]

I suck at everything. ESPECIALLY maths.

[Galacticruler]

Same here.

[Uberubert]

Math is weird, because it makes perfect sense. The weirdness comes from the human brain, thinking it makes perfect sense when it actually does not. (you know what you want to eat, but you eat what is available because it is "good enough". Then you spend too much money on some thing you don't really need. You are now poor, which is a result of your own stupidity, but it was ok at the time. Math does not allow such deviations.)

The problem comes when the human brain needs to make perfect sense logical math-calculation. When this happens, the human brain needs to follow specific rules that does not have any kind of chance to be bent. Maths are not bent rules, they are absolute rules. The brain follows bendable rules all the time.

They say that you are either creative/artistic or good at maths. I think this is bull**, and it's up to each individual to get good at anything.

So basically, the more maths you do, the more you will understand (it's like lifting weights....).

The problem is that you have to struggle through the "I don't get it" periods until you get it. Those periods are hard, and depends on your tutor (and somewhat yourself) how hard it is to get through it. Once you DO "get it", then you will feel like the king of the world!

I'll just say, don't give up! You will get it if you try hard enough! Science will probably require some math-skills no matter how you look at it, but if it's your dream then don't give up!

[gjay822]

You know, in the science field you will also encountering math. Since you love science then you will never blame it that you will also be entering the math's field.

[Red Iron Crown]

Any non-trivial science is built on math. Science is the creation of mathematical models to explain observations and make predictions.

Saying you love science but hate math is like saying you love cars but hate wheels.

[*Aqua*]

math education is too procedure oriented. they show you the procedure and then give you problems ad nauseum until you get really fast at it.

Try some university math and you'll want the simplicity of the secondary school math back.

I love math! But I hate numbers!!! xD

That's where my soul is torn apart in love for natural sciences xD In school whereever there was geometry, algebra I love it.. I loved all these logical parts. Arithmetics, I just can't do it! Cause it's all about MAGNITUDE and it's very linear. And the fact I can't think at the same time about 10 different numbers or remember them.. I have to write any addition subtraction, multiplication, on a paper, even if it's only 2 2-numbered numbers involved xD Remembering shapes and thinking in 2d or 3d or in graphs is much easier for me!

In university (at least in my country) you'll use almost no numbers anymore in math. It's all about mapping one kind of mathematical structure on to an other one while juggling with the properties of sets and fields. It makes you going crazy.

Exactly my thoughts. I think the way math is taught makes it seem too abstract and without any application at all, just numbers.

You don't know abstract math. Have a look at that. I needed three tries to pass the exam in this.

Biology is really applied chemistry, and chemistry is applied physics, and physics is applied mathematics, and mathematics is truth, as best we can explain it at the current time.

Not exactly. Math show all possibilities but in nature only some of them really exist. It's the task of applied sciences to identify them. For example math allow matter with negative mass (needed by the Alcubierre drive). In reality there is none (or rather we didn't find it yet).

[Elthy]

Try some university math and you'll want the simplicity of the secondary school math back.

Oh yeah, thats so true. I was realy good at math in school (i didnt even learn much for our final test in school and passed with 14 out of 15 Points) and loved it, but now at university its awful...

[rpayne88]

See #5:

http://www.tickld.com/x/20-jokes-that-only-intellectuals-will-understand

The major difference between "math" and "science/engineering/ksp" is that "math" wants an infinite amount of accuracy. This accuracy leads to stuff like 5sqrt(2) where as engineering would use 7.07106781.

I've been in your situation before, though.

[NASAFanboy]

Why is this thread still alive?

I've long since overcome my hatred for mathematics, and this was from when I was still a "Curious George"

[hugix]

Biggest reason people hate math is because of the typical math teacher. An elderly, boring and slow man who faces the blackboard more than the students. Math classes can be very boring. It's not as interactive as Gym or shop. You just write out equations without any purpose.

It's not the math itself I used to hate, but the way people thought me. Youtube channels like Vi Hart and Numberphile made math intresting again for me.

A good way to start not hating math is programming. Learn some PHP or Python and start making you're own little programs. The more you program the more useful purposes of math you'll see.

[jackie11]

Thanks for post

[Piatzin]

3 hours ago, jackie11 said:

Thanks for post

bro

[Nuke]

when you say you hate math. what you are really saying is you hate doing math. that comes from math class when you get handed a page of boring difficult problems to solve before the class ends while the math teacher plays games on his phone (they didnt have smartphones when i was a kid, so our math teacher did crossword puzzles all day). this is why math class is so boring, in that you dont actually learn anything. the idea when this was done was to drill students into doing math quickly so that they could use it effectively in the workplace. what they dont realize is that is cheaper for an employer to supply their workers with calculators than waste man hours doing math the way taught in schools. and this started well before the digital age, with mechanical calculators (slide rules) and the "flight computers" that pilots once use (and still do as a backup to their electronics). then the pocket calculators of the '70s, and eventually spreadsheets. as a scientist you probibly arent going to be doing a lot of manual number crunching unless you are going into some kind of theoretical physics (and people who do that usually love math). you are going to be managing data sets. you might have to use some formula for your spreadsheets, but the computer crunches the numbers for you.

there is no reason young minds who have just figured out how to multiply should have to perform the same multiplication problems for 2 weeks straight. seems like our math class spent a lot of time reviewing fractions, especially when i was simultaneously using liner algebra and calculus in my electronics class (the ac unit sucked). i think schools need to expose students to a much wider variety of mathematics and less on drilling. because what it really should be doing is introducing you to stuff so you can make an educated decision about what field you want to go into when you get into college. 

 

i just realized this thread is almost a decade old and i already responded to it. 

Edited May 11, 2022 by Nuke

[razark]

2 hours ago, Nuke said:

when you say you hate math. what you are really saying is you hate doing math. that comes from math class when you get handed a page of boring difficult problems to solve before the class ends.... this is why math class is so boring, in that you dont actually learn anything.

[TheSaint]

17 minutes ago, razark said:

I came in here to post this. I'll show myself out now.

[Nuke]

to answer the final query of the comic. its because learning sports you are training a neural network. its amazing how the human brain (or any critter's brain) can for example do real time inverse kinematics and predict the trajectories of thrown objects, things significantly non trivial to compute with math. but then you give it a basic floating point multiply and it struggles to find the answer. in both cases you train the same neural network. in sports you do the thing in a very natural way, and some kind of background process you are not aware of does the heavy lifting. in math class what you are really drilling into your head is a cumbersome procedure for doing math. you are actually programming an emulator that can do procedural computer style instructions yet it runs in your own wetware. it does not take advantage of the full compute capability of the brain.