Why should I learn mathematics ?
This is an interesting question: you get very different answers,
if you ask a technician, a scientist, your uncle, your mother, or your
teachers.
Anyway, it is a (questionable !) fact, that you must learn more or less
mathematics in almost each education. In a course for carpenters I gave the following answer
to this question --- starting with a problem, giving a solution to the
problem
causing more detailed questions (typically ;-)) and ending up with some
unexpected conclusions:
.....
.....
Now, let us start with the
problem:
Given a wooden beam with a square
cross-section of length q=20cm, take this beam (of sufficient length)
to build a cube of side length s=100cm like that:
If you start cutting the edges for the cube, you will recognize, that
not all of them need to be 100cm long. Some of the edges will be
shorter because of the intersections at the corners of the cube. There
are many possibilities to assemble the edges at the corners such that
the side length of the cube is 100cm everywhere:
After having built the cube, you can measure, how much of the length of
the beam you actually needed (it is much less then 12m for the 12
edges, even forgetting the wood becoming sawdust -- we actually will
neglect the wideness of the 12 cuts in the sequel for simplicity
reasons !). As a human being, most likely, you will have estimated, or
even calculated, the length of the beam you require in advance; in
order to go sure for the outcome of your work before you waste your efforts.
Now we want to lure you into using ISAC you are visiting just now:
Please, click one of the following calculations (even if you would
build the cube in a another way):
