What? I honestly couldn't remember!

[Nurian]

My wife and I were talking about me going back to college when this exchange happened:
Wife: Of come on! You're not that bad at math!
ME: Honey, I flunked Remedial math.....TWICE!
Wife: Oh please. Just try this: How do you find the area of a triangle?
Me: ..........mapquest?
Wife: ..You're screwed.

[dalesys]

Wife: Oh please. Just try this: How do you find the area of a triangle?

Is it near Bermuda?

Can I go there?

Now?

[RecoveringKinkoid]

Yeah, back when I had a job, the answer would have been "Uh...ask the database guy?"

Now, I got nothing. The answer would be "uh...I don't?"

[Eisa]

Um...does it have anything to do with the Pythagorean Theorem? Or the 1/2 the base times the height thing?

Cuz if not, I have no clue.

[Food Lady]

I don't even understand the question.

[MoonCat]

My answer would be, "I didn't need to know that when I was in school, and I don't need to know it now."

[ArcticChicken]

Hey, being good at math and remembering the formula to calculate the area of a triangle are two separate things. I've never gotten anything less than an "A" in college level math, and I can't remember how to do it. Though now that Eisa mentions it, I'm pretty sure it's the half the base by the height thing.

[Greenday]

(1/2)bh

Anywho, I used to be surprised at how little math people actually knew but by the end of college, I realized two things. 1. I'm just really damn good at math. 2. Most people have little need of math beyond really basic algebra.

[jedimaster91]

I had about a semester and a half of physics in college all so I can remember one stinking formula: exponential decay equation*. And I've only used it once since graduation when we got a new flood source and had to calculate the residual activity in the old one to send it back. Still had to look up the half-life of Cobalt-57, though. I learned how to do a lot of equations and calculations by hand, but most of them are either done on the computers (like Iodine-123 uptake percentages) or we have a chart (Adenosine doses).







*
Where N(t) is radioactivity at a certain time and N0 is original activity

[Seshat]

If you want to paint a triangular bit of wall, the area of a triangle matters. (Lets you buy the correct amount of paint.)

If you want to be sure a DIY table is square, you can use pythagoreas' theorem to make sure of it.
(Or you can just measure along one side for 3 units, along another side for 4 units, and mark both. Then measure from one mark to the other. If it's square, it will be 5 units long. The units themselves don't matter: inches, centimetres, feet. Even a set-of-3-inches; so 9, 12 and 15 work too.)

Math can be useful in everyday life. OTOH, most DIY instructions I've ever seen include a reminder of the useful-math you'd need.