"Tom" wrote in message
.253...
Martin wrote in
:

In real life being able to instantly recall a product is better than
knowing how to derive it from scratch.


And much better than either is knowing how and
when to use/apply it, and to use the right tool
to get the correct answer.


Try solving a quadratic equation using the "formla" method, oh damn! -
you've forgotten the formula (shame)

Now use the "completing the square" logical method.- no formulae involved.

Nice to kow how it really is done.

Bill

"Martin" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 27 Jan 2011 08:01:19 +0000 (GMT), wrote:

In article ,
Martin wrote:
On Wed, 26 Jan 2011 22:57:05 +0000, Sacha wrote:
On 2011-01-26 16:40:08 +0000, kay said:

But I think learning times tables by rote up to 12 x 12 is the wrong
place to start!

Worked and continues to work, for me.

The difference between our generation and the young ones, is that we can
do
mental arithmetic. Tables are part of the basic tools needed to do this.
Not necessarily. I didn't rely on them and still don't. When my
elder daughter had trouble with her tables, I taught her the methods
I used and said that I didn't give a damn how she got the answer,
provided that she got the right one in under a second. She did,
and got a first-class engineering degree.

There's more than one way to kill a cat.

Nick says people can use a calculator, but I have yet to see anybody
doing this
in a supermarket, for example. Our two kids did arithmetic using a
calculator
at school. I don't think they even own one nowadays.

If you can't learn tables and can't learn the mathematical tricks,
then any sane person would buy one.

In the 1970s I saw people using slide rules in Californian supermarkets.
There
was a slide rule in the cutlery drawer in a house I rented.

Supermarkets are full of the insane.
I still see people buying Guinness Draft in 10 packs although the unit
price
for a 10 pack is more than the unit price for a 4 pack. In Morrisons the
10
packs were on sale in a different row to the individual cans. In one Co-op
they
were on sale immediately below the individual cans. The unit price is
provided
in both supermarkets.
http://www.tesco.com/groceries/produ...rchBox=Guiness
ATM in Tesco's a Guinness Draft 10 pack has a unit price of GBP3.07 a
Guinness
Draft 4 pack has a unit price of GBP2.90

Tell us about your tricks, Nick? I am sick of supermarket tricks :-)
--

Martin


My Whiskey was cheaper per Litre in the smaller 70cl bottles than the Litre
bottle.

Choc Digestive Biscuits were cheaper per pack than the twin pack of the same
thing.

Sprouts were cheaper loose than the packs

Mike
Of Jewish descent with short arms and deep pockets

--

....................................
Don't take life too seriously, you'll never get out alive
....................................

"Martin" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 27 Jan 2011 09:22:15 -0000, "Bill Grey"
wrote:


Nick says people can use a calculator, but I have yet to see anybody
doing this
in a supermarket, for example. Our two kids did arithmetic using a
calculator
at school. I don't think they even own one nowadays.

If you can't learn tables and can't learn the mathematical tricks,
then any sane person would buy one.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

It's no great encumberance to learn the times table at an early age - it
can
only help in future years.
There maybe more than one way to skin a cat, but it doesn't hurt to have
more than one string to your bow.

Children at the age that times tables were taught could readily absorb the
information, why deny them such a wonderful experience of learning a
technique that could serve them well in their future
lives.

They can also absorb new languages at the same age.
--

Martin

Definitely !

Bill

On Tue, 25 Jan 2011 09:16:49 +0000, Sacha wrote:

On 2011-01-25 08:55:53 +0000, said:
[...]

It's one of those diagrams that looks like someone has put a bunch of coffee
mugs down on a sheet of paper, and all the people go in the circles. So the
coffee stain is 'people who are posh' and the tea stain is 'people who own
chickens' and the bit where the tea and coffee stains overlap is the posh
people who own chickens. And people outside both drink stains are people
who aren't posh and don't have chickens.
Then you can put a beer bottle down to make another circle that is 'people
who microwave their pork pies'

Cheeky! ;-)) I'm in at least 4 circles already - does Dante know about this?

That was infernally witty.

WIWAL, we called them "Euler circles", which makes me the oldest in
the thread so far.
[...]

--
Mike.

Tom wrote:
I like* things like '75% fat free' ... meaning 25% fat? Eyww.
To digress, in California you can get egg-free omlettes and
fat-free sour cream. I have a container of the latter, but
couldn't figure out how to preserve and transport the former.

fat free sour cream I could possibly comprehend, but ... /egg/ free
omlettes?? My ghast is flabbered.

Martin wrote:
To digress, in California you can get egg-free omlettes and
fat-free sour cream. I have a container of the latter, but
couldn't figure out how to preserve and transport the former.
Don't forget non-dairy product cheese on pizzas.

I have non-dairy cheese in the cupboard, and I have bought it in the past
during Lent. I have no problem with the idea of cheeseless cheese. It has
a different texture to 'real' cheese, but the flavour is provided by yeast
extract, iirc.
But a key point of omlettes is that eggy texture. Tofu has a 'fried egg
white' kind of texture. But it's not the same as omlette texture.

Hmm, perhaps we should move this over to a food ng instead.

Bill Grey wrote:
There maybe more than one way to skin a cat, but it doesn't hurt to have
more than one string to your bow.

Skinning a cat with a bow seems a cruel and unnecessary approach.

'Mike' wrote:
Sprouts were cheaper loose than the packs

That is fairly normal for veg, IME.

Tom wrote:
But it would help if more than 20% of primary school
teachers knew the answer to "what is one plus two time three".

My answer would be "do you mean one plus two-times-three, or one-plus-two
times three?"

Do I win an apple?

On 25 Jan 2011 13:04:31 GMT, wrote:

wrote:
On the matter of multiplication tables, I didn't learn mine until
I was well into my teens, and 7x8 was always my bugbear - however,
I could work out the answer fast enough that the teachers never
realised, so I never got punished for it (sic). 7x8 = 2 x 7x4
or 7x8 = 7x7 + 7.

I think I do the last one, (7x7)+7

I suffer, too. I'm inclined to think an uncertain memory of 7x8 is so
widespread that there must be an identifiable cause: perhaps the
proximity of 6x9 has a sort of "twister" effect a little like a
tongue-twister?

--
Mike.

Sacha wrote:
Yes, I've always thought it a big mistake that schools wait so long to
introduce a foreign language into the curriculum. I started learning
French when I was 4 and while no way am I fluent, I speak fairly well
for a foreigner. I just don't remember actually learning verbs because
we started so young and I was very lucky to have good French teachers
at all the schools I went to.

The boys' primary school have introduced French, the boys both got Spanish
and Urdu (!) sessions when at nursery.

"Janet" wrote in message
...
In article ,
says...

"'Mike'" wrote in
:

I went to a Private School and they were very hot on the 3 x 'R's from
a very early age. Later, and as I had no desire to go into the Hotel
business like my parents, I went for an interview for an
Apprenticeship as a Marine Electrical Engineer During the interview I
was asked 'What are your Maths like?' 'Good I suppose', 'What are 7 x
8's?' and before he had finished I flashed '56'. I always remember
that because I surprised myself as to just how fast I was able to
recall it!!!!

That's arithmetic, not maths. (OK, a small subset of maths)

What do you expect, he's from a school that didn't teach grammar and
punctuation either.

Janet

Mmmmmmmeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeoooooooooooooooooooooooooo wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww

Sharp claws ????????????????

Who have you been taking lessons from ;-) ?????

god don't i wish I were as perfect as sum of the peeple on this site

Mike


--

....................................
Don't take life too seriously, you'll never get out alive
....................................

What do you mean by "it worked"?

Do you mean "everybody could multiply relatively small numbers together in their heads" or do you mean"everybody had a good understanding of percentages, differentials, risk and the other concepts that are necessary in order to make decisions in everyday life"?

This is my last posting on this.


In article ,
Martin wrote:

Tell us about your tricks, Nick? I am sick of supermarket tricks :-)

I did. zx8 = 8x7 = 7x(4+4) = 7x7 = 10*7-3*7 and more. Also using
factorisation, so 44x75 = 11*(4*25)*3. Make a habit of that sort
of thing, and you will soon develop your own collection.

Also, using iteration (usually binary chop or interpolation) to do
division, square and cube roots etc.

Make a habit of such tricks and you will soon develop your own
suite. But mental arithmetic is no longer taught.


In article , Sacha wrote:

It's the learning by rote and repetition wot dunnit, imo.

Quite a few people can't do that at all - I never could and, as I say,
that was a punishable offence.

Then they started asking me what was the
'product' of 7 and 9 and I had no idea if they were adding it, dividing
it or multiplying it. Why couldn't it have remained "what's 7 times
9"? (Grump over) ;-)

Grin :-) Yes, if you don't know, it's not obvious. It's the result
of multiplying them.


In article ,
Mike Lyle wrote:

On the matter of multiplication tables, I didn't learn mine until
I was well into my teens, and 7x8 was always my bugbear - however,
I could work out the answer fast enough that the teachers never
realised, so I never got punished for it (sic). 7x8 = 2 x 7x4
or 7x8 = 7x7 + 7.

I think I do the last one, (7x7)+7

I suffer, too. I'm inclined to think an uncertain memory of 7x8 is so
widespread that there must be an identifiable cause: perhaps the
proximity of 6x9 has a sort of "twister" effect a little like a
tongue-twister?

I don't know the reason, but it does seem to be a widespread blind
spot. It would make an interesting research topic in psychology.



Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

"kay" wrote in message
...

'Martin[_2_ Wrote:
;911185']On Wed, 26 Jan 2011 16:40:08 +0000, kay
wrote:
-


But I think learning times tables by rote up to 12 x 12 is the wrong
place to start!-

It worked for my generation and they were taught to kids at an age when
they
could memorise stuff by rote quickly.
-

What do you mean by "it worked"?

Do you mean "everybody could multiply relatively small numbers together
in their heads" or do you mean"everybody had a good understanding of
percentages, differentials, risk and the other concepts that are
necessary in order to make decisions in everyday life"?




--
kay

Slow down! slow down, were talkng about children in infant school learning
their times tables /NOT/ percentages, differentials etc. That comes later,
considerably later.

Bill