Comments on: Simon Jenkins’ understanding doesn’t add up

By: Tim Hall

Tim Hall — Sat, 12 Mar 2016 12:36:32 +0000

Maths is important regardless of what politicians think. It’s a gateway to so many other important things. Just because people who work in the “meeja” don’t think they need anything beyond basic numeracy doesn’t mean it’s not important for the rest of the world.

And yes, people in science and engineering who thing the humanities are waste of space are wrong as well.

By: Oswaldo Alevedo

Oswaldo Alevedo — Sat, 12 Mar 2016 03:58:04 +0000

Politicians tell us it is the pre-eminent subject. Nonsense. Theyâ€™re just obsessed with measuring, targetry and control

By: Tim Hall

Tim Hall — Thu, 10 Mar 2016 23:12:20 +0000

The trouble with salesmen is they can’t tell the difference between turnover and profit. At worst, they end up discounting so heavily the business ends up making a loss on each sale. Then the company runs out of money and goes bust.

If they’d paid more attention during maths lessons at school…

By: John P.

John P. — Thu, 10 Mar 2016 22:51:00 +0000

It was the last sentence that struck me: “The nation needs, and therefore pays most for, more executives, accountants, salesmen, designers & creative thinkers.”

I’m reminded of an MD at a multi-national I worked at who arranged the pay grades so that only salesmen could get to the top. “We’re a sales organisation,” he used to say “and without sales we are nothing.” Of course, he had a sales background and he didn’t address the logical conclusion that if a place is full of salesmen, who produces something for them to sell?

By: Tim Hall

Tim Hall — Thu, 10 Mar 2016 19:46:55 +0000

You could make an argument that some fields within maths are more widely useful that others. For example, it would be beneficial in many ways if a critical mass of the adult population had a basic understanding of statistics and probability theory rather than, say, trigonometry.

Your point about the education system forcing people to choose between a sciences path or a humanities path at too early an age is spot-on.

I do wonder if we’re ill-served by a media that’s overpopulated by people who took the humanities path at 14.

By: PaulE

PaulE — Thu, 10 Mar 2016 14:58:02 +0000

I see your quote has transformed the area of a circle (pi r squared) from the article into pi r 2 – which is the circumference. Does that mark me out as a mathematician and therefore biased in this debate

He also seems to be under the impression that higher mathematics has no practical use. Uses have been found for some surprising things. Imaginary numbers (based on square root of minus 1) may seem like the perfect example of useless abstract – except they have uses in engineering.

To some extent, every academic subject is taught as a basis for moving on to the next level and not aiming for practical relevance. It is a question of how far each of us takes this before dropping subjects we aren’t good at or dislike (or simply don’t have time to do). But allowing people to drop things too early closes off their options.