Science & Math

5/20/2013

0 Comments

 
Happy Monday! Today's Math Monday blog assignment is to describe the connection(s) between science and mathematics.

Science and math are closely related, if you couldn't already tell. My dad, who is a math teacher, described them as being like "close cousins". Mostly the relationship between them depends on mathematics being used heavily in science and scientific discoveries.

For example, scientific rules and laws could not have been figured out without the use of basic mathematics. We would not know how many stars, per se, are in the Milky Way galaxy or even how many people are on the earth without the knowledge of massive, never-ending numbers. In this way, humans have used math to extend and advance our understanding and perception of the way the world works, which is what science is. 

Carrying out and learning about science and math both require clear, logical thought processes, and neither are abstract. The relationship between them could be likened to that between music and art -- both require creativity and "thinking outside of the box". In the case of science and math, however, we must think outside of the box while staying inside of the box, which is where the challenge people might see in both areas comes in. 

The basic map of what people know and continue to discover about the world would be very ineffective and our world very basic without the use of mathematics, and by using examples and concepts, our mathematic knowledge would be very insignificant without scientific applications. In fact, math itself is a science, just like biology, chemistry, or optics. The relations
0 Comments

Negative Numbers

5/13/2013

0 Comments

 
Happy Monday! I hope you are well-rested! Today's Math Monday blog prompt is to explain what negative numbers are and give an example of where we might find them in the real world.

There are a lot of ways to explain what negative numbers are, I guess, but most people know them as being the opposites of positive numbers, or ones whose values are above zero. This makes them integers along with their opposites. Being the opposite of a number means that the absolute value as the same as its counterpart, but the sign is different. For example, -8 has the same value as 8, or +8, but the signs are different. One of them is negative and you read it as "negative eight".

Negative numbers are taught to us pretty early on because they are fairly simple to use and are more applicable to the real world than some other concepts. If you owe anyone money measured in value, then you say that you have -x dollars, unless you have more to make up for it. Adding a negative number to a value is the same as subtracting its opposite. You can do this lots of times in lots of ways. If you have a discount at a store, for example, and you find out what the rate of discount is in a number, you can add the negative value to the original price. For example, if an item was originally $30 dollars but is on sale, or discount, for 10%, you can add -3 to 30. This is the same as carrying out the equation 30-3. The item now costs $27. Easy, right?

We began learning about negative numbers in the recent years past, but they've come into play a lot in this year's math class, and we've been told before that they'll definitely be on tomorrow's CST for mathematics. Not only are they applicable in the real world, but they can also be used within the field of mathematics too. We've used them in a lot of other units this year. They really are one of the basics of math we've learned about.
0 Comments

2x - 7 = 15

5/6/2013

0 Comments

 
Good morning, and Happy Monday! Today's Math Monday blog assignment is to explain the steps we would use to find the answer to the equation 2x - 7 = 15.

  1. The first step you'd carry out to do the problem, if you were to do it on paper, would be to draw a line down the equals sign, just for the sake of organization. This makes it easier for us to keep track cognitively of what we've done.
  2. Next you would look at the left-hand side of the problem. You would find out what operation is involved between 2x and the constant 7. You'd do the inverse of this operation -- since the equation says to subtract 7, we'd do the opposite and add 7. Cross out the 7, we don't need it.
  3. Now we do the same thing to the other side. Add 7 to 15. This makes 22. Our equation now says 2x = 22.
  4. Do another inverse operation. Divide both sides by the constant 2. Our first digit's value is canceled out, so now our problem reads x = 22/2.
  5. Do as the problem says. Divide by 22 by 2. You'll get 11. x = 11!
  6. You can also check your work by plugging in the variable to the equation. 2(11) - 7 = 15 --> 22 - 7 = 15. This is a valid equation.

By learning how to use inverse operations and dividing our equations into parts that correspond with each other, we simplify algebraic expressions. We learned how to do this at the beginning of the year, and it's one of the most memorable things I've learned in my math class this
0 Comments