If brains was lard, would you have enough to grease a pan?

Learnin’ Your Gozintas and Other Ciphers
By Joseph Walther


I happened to be browsing the books at Barnes and Noble this past Wednesday, when I spotted a McGraw-Hill published book, “everyday math DeMYSTiFieD: A SELF-TEACHING GUIDE” by Stan Gibilisco. This is the exact title of the book, spelling and all! Regardless, whenever I see a book claiming to simplify, demystify, or otherwise idiot-proof something, I have to check it out. I usually do this by taking the book from the table, opening it to a random page, and see what it says. Stand-by, Pilgrims, for a book report.

I want you to be honest with yourselves. If you saw a book with the words, “everyday math” and “demystified” jumping from its cover, what would you think it’d be about? Yep, that’s what I thought, too. I said to myself, “self, here is a book about going to the grocery store, balancing the checkbook, figuring that tip at the restaurant, determining how much you really save with that sale, along with a whole host of everyday consumer math problems.” In other words, this had to be—I thought—something practical for the average person.

There, at the top of page 122, “Convert the following quadratic equations into factored form with real-number coefficients.” leapt from the page. I’ve listed the equations below. I’m not making this up.

x^2 – 2x – 15 = 0
x^2 + 4 = 0

So, this is why people were all abuzz at my local Dunkin Doughnuts this morning! It makes perfect sense now. Who would have ever guessed a relationship between quadratic and simultaneous equations and that great coffee and doughnuts? Freshness… it’s what it’s all about. You go, quads!

My heart began to race madly. Quickly, I jumped to the beginning of the first chapter. With bulb-lighting clarity Stan ripped into such cryptic, “everyday” math topics as sets, set intersection, set union, subsets, proper subsets, disjoint sets, and coincident sets. With unabashed and child-like glee, he proceeded with his quest to unhinge the mystery of other math stuff. He plunged head first, tossing caution to the wind, into the quarry pit of murky subject matter. He seemed unfazed by the prospect that many of us don’t give a damn about this stuff. Otherwise, how else do we explain why there are so many “ology”, history, and philosophy majors in colleges and universities.

Why, on pages 8 and 9, he tore away the cone of secrecy around decimal, binary, octal, and hexadecimal number systems. He did it in such a way as to make the reader believe that the very existence of humanity depends on understanding this stuff. In fact, if any of you has ever used a calculator and/or computer, this book will forever change the way you look at such tools. Um, by the way, did any of you know that the “radix” point and the decimal point are actually the same? I didn’t and it confused the hell out of me. Stan, in all of his exuberance, failed to mention this as he kept referring to the radix point in his binary examples. I immediately dashed off an email so he can address this faux pas in the next addition.

On page 15, Stan says, “One of the most interesting things about rational numbers is the fact that they are ‘dense’!” I don’t know about you folks, but I could feel my pulse quicken big time when I read this. What a relief. People tell me that I am dense all of the time. So knowing that rational numbers are dense made me feel good. It was close, but for a few fleeting seconds, I thought I was going to experience one of those spontaneous orgasms. Even so, it took all of the effort I could muster just to keep myself from rushing out and telling everyone I saw about the joys of rational number density.

On page 78, Stan got into time measurement. Kowabonga! I thought I knew a thing or two about what constitutes a “second”. Like a collision between matter and antimatter, this book annihilated those misconceptions. Stan briefly discussed what you and I have so stupidly assumed to be the definition of a “second:” 1/60th of a minute. Silly us! Stan explained how sloppy this definition is and that a better definition is “1/86,400th of a mean solar day.” While he insisted that this is still a very good definition, he further explained that a more exact and formal definition for what we normals call a “second” is, “the time taken for a certain isotope of elemental Cesium to oscillate through 9,192,631,770 (9.192631770 x 109) complete cycles. Oh my GAWD! I got that feeling again and almost had to change my underwear.

I am not going to go through the book page-by-page. Believe me; it certainly demystifies a lot of stuff. For whom, I am not sure. Anyone with an insatiable appetite for understanding the geek speak behind such topics as algebra, more algebra, plane and solid geometry, probability and statistics, trigonometry, and general measurements, will love this book. I had a hard time, however, trying to figure out just what the book had to do with “every day” math. This stuff almost never comes up at the mall or at parties.

I mean, like, I’ll bet that roughly 70% of the world’s population will live most, if not all of their lives, without ever having a need to get into quadratics, number systems other than decimal, or worry about a definition for a time measurement called a second.

So, I conducted my own survey. It’s not scientific but it made me feel a lot better. I called fifteen math teacher friends of mine. They teach math at both the secondary and collegiate levels. I told them the title and asked what each one thought the book was about. Seven of the fifteen had already read the book and thought it was the greatest thing since popcorn. The other eight told me that it probably covered the basics of algebra, trig, geometry, etc. However, I noticed that not one of them could look me in the eyes as we spoke.

The same afternoon, I asked twenty more people I know—normal people, not math teachers—what they thought. I held the book in front of each one. I then asked what each participant thought the term, “everyday math” referred to. All of them had the same idea. While they said it in different ways, each agreed that “everyday math” referred to percentages, fractions, and decimals, along with the addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division of these things. At least two of them referred to it as “grocery” store math.

I don’t know what this tells you about math teachers in general, but it tells me that the ones I spoke to are from a planet called “Clueless Minor”. The others, the normal people, seemed quite sane and content with themselves. And they looked me square in the eyes as we spoke, just like they had nothing to hide.

Folks, math is important. I don’t mean to infer that it isn’t. If you are young and intend to build bridges, program microcomputers, design buildings, send people and space ships into the unknown, and develop medical cures for humanity’s ills, Stan’s math is what you need. Buy the book. However, the term, “everyday math” is still a crock because he shouldn’t have called it that. He should have called it “everyday math for nerdy smart-assed people destined to make the news.”

Most of us, however, should concentrate our efforts on simply knowing how to figure 15 or 20% of the restaurant bill so we don’t stiff a hard working waiter. Knowing how to balance a checkbook is nice, also. Knowing we won’t get arrested for bouncing a check is invaluable in terms of the peace of mind we experience. When we see a 25% off sale sign at the mall, it really feels great knowing how much we’ll have to pay in cash or charge to the old plastic, without a need to move our lips while counting on our fingers. In addition, if we use the plastic and pay over time, knowing how to figure the actual purchase price by factoring in the credit fees might result in us not using Visa or MasterCard. We could save a fortune.

The clerks at Barnes and Noble ask all customers if they’d like to purchase a discount card. A customer spends $25 a year to join the discount club and thereafter receives a 10% discount on all purchases during the year. The ability to assess the offer’s value, quickly and mentally, is something far more important than knowing the joys of rational number density.

Knowing these things is important to all of us. This kind of knowledge would go a long way towards eliminating the need for pictures on the cash registers at McDonalds. If someone shows promise for that other math stuff, fine. We should encourage such people to be all that they can be, but if you don’t know how to do these things, Stan’s book won’t help. It just sits out there like a turd in the punch bowl. Don’t buy it.

We don’t hear a lot about number systems or algebra when we order food at restaurants or take our automobiles in for repair, or compare the prices of various products and services. In fact, Jonas Salk almost failed out of college because of calculus. What a dummy, huh?

This past Friday evening, I stopped for something to eat at a small family restaurant. My bill came to $12.98. The waiter didn’t seem impressed when I converted it to 1100, the binary equivalent. But because of Sister Charles Edwards’ precision with a ruler across the knuckles back in elementary school, I was able to instantly figure that a 20% tip came to about $2.60, which did impress the waiter. Oh, that would be 000010 in binary for you nerdy types.

Tune in next week, same time and station. Here are some of the more pressing issues we are working hard to bring you. Do aliens believe in God? Herb, an alien friend of mine, is talking to his superiors about granting me an interview. All we can do is hope! Why is the Delaware General Assembly, most members of which are not aliens, so secretive and good ole boyish? Or, maybe something even juicier will come along instead.

In the meantime, what in the hell is Cesium and why does it oscillate? Is this something dirty? Also, remember that 11001011 gozinta 1110101101 four times, binarily speaking, of course.

Joseph Walther is a freelance writer and publisher of The True Facts. Send email to: TheTrueFacts@comcast.net