Science Memes

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this one goes out to the arts & humanities (mander.xyz)

submitted 11 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 32 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Billions were spent inventing and producing the calculator device.

Human calculators are now extinct.

Complex calculations are far more accessible.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 11 months ago (2 children)

This has a secondary effect of making average people incapable of estimation in their heads. Hopefully in the future people won't be incapable of writing and art.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Average people weren't doing complex math in their head back when human calculators were a thing.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago

But they were estimating things. Somehow illiterate people ran marketplaces for thousands of years.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 11 months ago (1 children)

The entire point behind the much maligned New Math is to teach approximate solutions that you can do quickly in your head. It's the realization that if you want an exact answer, use a calculator, but quick head estimates are still useful.

It was opposed by generations who were told to memorize multiplication tables because they wouldn't always have a calculator available.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Well you should memorize those anyway. It's useful all your life for easy calculation. If you want 7 items and they cost $3.50 each, it's between $21 and $28.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago (2 children)

I check on the calculator I have with me at all times. It's $24.50

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

I calculated it in my head without memorising all the multiplication tables. I just realised that 7*3.5 is equal to (7*5+7*2)/2. And that 49/2 is equal to 40/2+9/2. Easy peasy. This is why I failed second grade math, because multiplication tables are only useful for doing operations a few seconds faster.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

There's a much easier way.

7x3.5 is the same as 7x3 plus half of 7. That's 21 plus 3.5 is 24.5

The funny thing is you did this for the division when you could do it for the entire thing.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

Yeah but that doesn't work when you need it most on "The Price is Right".