Wherein a SC cannot do complex math

[powerboy]

Yeahhhhhh, I am not sure that I would be an SC or not. Because math and I, hate each other.

[Chromatix]

I've found it worthwhile to know my times-tables - not always up to 12, but up to 9.

At a pinch though, you should learn how to double and halve quickly. When you can do that, you can also do multiples and divides by 5 easily, because it's half of 10.

Triples and thirds are the next good step forward. To start with, you can double and add another one. If you can do 2, 3 and 5, most numbers have these as factors, or have other numbers very close by as factors, so you can construct them. For example, 6 is "made of" 2 and 3.

Also, learn your squares. Then you know that, for example, 7x7 = 49, and you can add the eighth 7 to make 56.

An alternative way of figuring 8x7 is to know that 8 is also 2^3. Any computer geek worth his salt knows the first sixteen powers of two (2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, 1024, 2048, 4096, 8192, 16384, 32768, 65536). So you can multiply by 8 by doubling three times. You can also do it by multiplying by 10, then subtracting one double.

[Kyree]

I've found it worthwhile to know my times-tables - not always up to 12, but up to 9.

At a pinch though, you should learn how to double and halve quickly. When you can do that, you can also do multiples and divides by 5 easily, because it's half of 10.

Triples and thirds are the next good step forward. To start with, you can double and add another one. If you can do 2, 3 and 5, most numbers have these as factors, or have other numbers very close by as factors, so you can construct them. For example, 6 is "made of" 2 and 3.

Also, learn your squares. Then you know that, for example, 7x7 = 49, and you can add the eighth 7 to make 56.

An alternative way of figuring 8x7 is to know that 8 is also 2^3. Any computer geek worth his salt knows the first sixteen powers of two (2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, 1024, 2048, 4096, 8192, 16384, 32768, 65536). So you can multiply by 8 by doubling three times. You can also do it by multiplying by 10, then subtracting one double.

.........

*Blink*

did anyone else's mind glaze over reading that?

[Kiwi]

Every person that I know, including me and my mother, that sucks at math also cannot wrap worth a damn.

I can do retail math... does that make sence (count back change, add figures in my head as I scan them, make change but I think that came from practice.

I failed every single year of math in Highschool apart from one, and always by 2%.... thats so frustrating!

However I am a fantastic gift wrapper (I spent a year in a gift shop and did nothing else) its about practise I swear!

[mscrybaby]

.........

*Blink*

did anyone else's mind glaze over reading that?

I m a number mind and love math but my mind got confused and I gave up reading that.

I keep in mind my two, threes and five times everything and then I add or subtract the get the right number.

[Chromatix]

Don't mind me, I got my GCSE Maths four years early.

I was just summarising ways of making mental arithmetic easier for at least a subset of multiplication problems. The trick is to deal with the simple and common cases first, then learn how to string them together to cope with more complex and rarer ones.

I suppose what you really need is a good short-term memory. If you don't have that, you'll always be hopeless at pure mental arithmetic. Sorry.

[Becks]

I have to admit I'd probably ask the same question - my brain freezes up if I have to do maths and this would take me a couple of minutes to work out, easier to ask!

Same here.

Sometimes math and I don't get along.

[persephone]

I'm a human calculator. Math is very easy for me (I hate it -- HATE it -- but it's easy). Numbers just make sense to me.

However, I do realize there are people whose minds just do not process numbers correctly and there is nothing wrong with that. My sister jokes that she has math dyslexia cause numbers just don't make sense to her at ALL.

When registers are down and someone's having to figure out change or, like in the example above, a customer would want a total, I would try to just smile and give them the amount without making them feel stupid.

But I can see, if you get that question a lot, how annoying it would become. Any question, over over and over, gets very annoying.

[RecoveringKinkoid]

.........

*Blink*

did anyone else's mind glaze over reading that?

Actually, I was looking for the emoticon that showed a smiley with x's for eyes and a string of drool coming out of one side of the mouth.

No kidding, as an experiment, I tried to focus on all that and follow it and halfway through it I could actually feel something in my head clenching and starting to ache.

By the time I got to that string of stuff at the end, I was laughing and shaking my head. Cromatix, you're funny.

What I keep in mind to help me do calculations is the fact that the database guy's desk is right over the partition wall and he's good at math.

Persephone, you're sister might really have "math dyslexia." It's real, and it's called dyscalculia. 6% (at least) of people have it. If you or she want to know more, PM me.

[cinema guy]

Call me crazy, but I've got a theory that the gene that's for math and the gene for wrapping presents are somehow linked. Every person that I know, including me and my mother, that sucks at math also cannot wrap worth a damn.

I have a degree in maths, but my present wrapping skillz are lacking.

[RecoveringKinkoid]

Yeah, I'm just the opposite, I have a freaking math based learning disability, and I can wrap a georgeous gift. Tight corners, perfect seams, artistic ribbon work.

Of course, this time of year, when I have to a million of them, I'm just as sloppy as the next guy.

[Imogene]

Every person that I know, including me and my mother, that sucks at math also cannot wrap worth a damn.

See, a lot of the numbers type people I've known in my life absolutely love to do origami, and that's often just one step removed from wrapping presents.

I used to could do origami... but, with only one good hand, it always turns out badly now...

My sister in law watched me wrap a present the other day, and she actually complimented me on it. Meanwhile, I'm sitting there, thinking: "This looks terrible..."
And my sister in law hardly ever compliments anything I do.