Hate math? It turns out that a lot of us do!
I believe that is largely because we are not given an appreciation for it when we are young. Throughout our childhood and all of grade school, we are given problems and expected to solve them. Few teache...
Let's face it: People are lazy. When tasked with a problem, we try to find the easiest way to solve it. If required to write out a solution, we naturally gravitate towards the shortest way of doing so. This, I think, is largely how a number of mathematical operations came about.
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I need to read these cover to cover!
Thanks to the infamous order of operations (also taught as BEDMAS or PEDMAS), you likely already have a solid understanding of what an operation is, but bear with me. An operation is something which takes one or more numbers, also called operands, and gives back one or more numbers as a result. The important thing to note is that I say one or more. We will see why shortly.
For now, let's start basic. The first operation we learn as kids is grounded in the physical world. If I have two candies and you give me two more, I have four as per the rules of addition. I've got a sweet tooth and eat them all, which leaves me with none (and a sugar high) as per subtraction.
2 + 2 = 4
4 - 4 = 0
Now, given my love of sweets, I can be pretty convincing when it comes to getting more. Say I've got five friends (please suspend your disbelief) who each have candy to share. If I can get three pieces from each of them, how much candy will I have? Of course, your mind jumps immediately to multiplication:
5 • 3 = 15
Let's take a step back though. Multiplication is the operation which came about as a convenient (read lazy) way to collapse multiple instances of addition:
3 + 3 + 3 + 3 + 3
6 + 3 + 3 + 3
9 + 3 + 3
12 + 3 = 15
Now, say I inherit some wealth and decide to pay back my five generous friends. If I have twenty-one pieces of candy to share among them, how I go about this depends on which division operation I choose to use.
If each candy is rather small, I would revert to what I learned in the first grade, known as integer division or whole number division.
21 ÷ 5 = 4R1
This means that each friend would get four pieces of candy, and I would be left with one to do with as I please. If instead each piece can be split, I would go the route of "normal" division or floating-point division and be able to give each of my friends four whole pieces and a fifth of another.
