In junior high school, a math teacher (somewhat apologetically) taught a
unit on calculating square roots with pencil and paper. There were no
digital calculators then, but we did have slide rules. Still, the
curriculum had to be acknowledged.
Reaching even further back, I've read that at the time of the American
Colonial Uprising (late 18th Century), you couldn't be considered properly
educated unless you could do arithmetic (!) in Roman numerals.
When I got into the computer biz, people would comment on how good I must
be at math. I explained that my programs did lots of addition, a fair
amount of subtraction, some multiplication, and once in a while division.
I'm not sure anyone really believed me.
.
.
JO.Skip Robinson
Southern California Edison Company
Electric Dragon Team Paddler
SHARE MVS Program Co-Manager
626-302-7535 Office
323-715-0595 Mobile
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
"Shmuel Metz
(Seymour J.)"
<shmuel+ibm-main@ To
PATRIOT.NET> [email protected]
Sent by: IBM cc
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Discussion List Subject
<[EMAIL PROTECTED] Re: OT: Computer Science Education:
.EDU> Where Are the Software Engineers of
Tomor...
01/08/2008 05:17
PM
Please respond to
IBM Mainframe
Discussion List
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]
.EDU>
In <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, on 01/08/2008
at 11:52 AM, Rick Fochtman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> said:
>I'll agree to that, but without simple arithmetic, mathematics is a lost
>study!
Nonsense. It's far more important to understand numerical relations than
it is to be able to compute by hand. The schools have turned out several
generations of students who are innumerate but can do arithmetic by rote.
--
Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz, SysProg and JOAT
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