Math applies to life
My last post made me decide to go back to my drafts and either delete or post all of them. This is the only one close enough for me to finish.
Remember how you took math in school and said “When will I ever use this in my real life, especially since we have calculators?” I’m pretty sure everyone said that at least once. Some people said it in 5th grade when they were learning fractions because they wanted to be a writer. Some people said it in high school geometry because they wanted to be a lawyer. Some people said it in college linear algebra because they wanted to be a webmaster. Some people said it in Calc-based Physics 1&2 because they hated that class and almost failed it and thought doing UT online homework was the worst way to be taught physics. That last one was me and I stand by that assessment.
Well I have been traveling for work quite a bit lately and realized that even 5th grade math applies to life, and it helps keep you from being a douchebag.
If you have flown Southwest airlies in the past few months you realize that they started lining people up by group letter, and then sub-grouping by number. Lets say you are A10, then you go to line up when he says “A’s line up” and then you look at the big poles that say “1 through 5 to the left” and “6 through 10 to the right”. Well at least that’s what they say to me, some people don’t under stand the symbols:
<– 1-5 6-10 –>
But assuming you made it that far because you don’t only read roman numerals, then you have a big math decision coming up. “My ticket is #8 and no one is in the 6-10 grouping yet, where do I stand?” This is where math applies to your life. Lets take a space that needs to hold 5 people, and divide it up in our mind so that it can (fractions, be careful). Yep, thats 5 slots. Now take those slots and number them from 6-10. 6,7,8,9,10. Now, lets see which one of those numbers matches our number. Yep, its #8. Now lets step in to that slot. Wow, so what we have just done is roughly put ourself in the middle so that 6 and 7 can stand in front and 9 and 10 can stand behind.
Now lets replay this situation as someone who doesn’t know math. “My ticket is #10 and no one is standing in the 6-10 grouping yet, where do I stand?” “Let’s make a big math decis… Fuck it, I’m an important douchebag, let me stand at the front.”
See the difference? Now I’m an easy going person so I (being #6) will just stand behind Mr. Darrell Bag. because it’s not that important to me to be 6th in line instead of 7th, but if everyone in line was either related to Mr. D. Bag, or got pissed off easily, Southwest would have a brawl on their hands.
So what is the point of this story? Math applies to life, and being a douchebag means you get to ignore it. So the next time your Math teacher asks you “What is the cotangent of the given angle?” Just say “The cotangent is ‘Fuck it I’m an important douchebag and I don’t need to know that ever’” They will pass you, I promise, my sister is a Math teacher and she told me.