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The pendulum has now swung the other way on the misconception by the general public of mathematicians being great at mental arithmetic, and it's become a meme f
by Ragib_Zaman 7y ago
The pendulum has now swung the other way on the misconception by the general public of mathematicians being great at mental arithmetic, and it's become a meme for some mathematicians to take some pride in being average or poor at mental arithmetic. In my experience, most mathematicians (or anyone working in a quantitative field) don't have issues quickly approximating 1.6 * X.
- pvg 7y agoIt seems to have swung from the old joke of "von Neumann summed the infinite series" to exactly the same place.
- hackermailman 7y agoAnybody who's taken CS 101 can estimate 1.6 * n too since they spend half the year in base2 or base16. It's 1(n) + 6(n)/10 since we're using base 10. For example, 5mi to ~8km: 1(5) + 6(5)/10 = 5 + 30/10 or 5 + 3.
- OJFord 7y agoThat's how I was taught to do it in primary school, yes it's simple, but I don't see what bases 2 or 16 have to do with it?
- lonelappde 7y ago10*X km is Y-base-16 miles, for single digit numbers.