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In my school, I was lied to by teachers instead of just saying "we will get to that later" or something. For example: Q. how much is 3 - 5? A. nothing because

In my school, I was lied to by teachers instead of just saying "we will get to that later" or something. For example: Q. how much is 3 - 5? A. nothing because you cannot take 5 out of 3. Q. how much is 2 divided by 3? A. nothing because you cannot divide 2 by 3. Q. what are the roots of the quadratic function ...? A. this quadratic function doesn't have roots because you can't take the square root of a negative number I believe it's possible to not lie when teaching math, but I guess it's harder to do.

JadeNB 6y ago
To be sure, there is a habit to make the teacher's life easier by lying, and I certainly believe you when you say that you were lied to; but all of these can be rescued, as a sequence of decreasingly incomplete truths, just by adding quantifiers. Since the human brain is (excessively) good at ignoring quantifiers, a skilled teacher (not me, in this context—I'm a college teacher, so am not claiming that this is the right language for primary schoolers, just that it's true) can speak truthfully without impairing the pedagogy: Q. how much is 3 - 5? A. taking 5 out of 3 does not give a whole-number answer. Q. how much is 2 divided by 3? A. dividing 2 by 3 does not give an integer answer. Q. what are the roots of the quadratic function ...? A. this quadratic function doesn't have real roots because you can't take a real square root of a negative number
- Viliam1234 6y ago
  > A. this quadratic function doesn't have real roots because you can't take a real square root of a negative number This one is actually true. If someone tells you they have a square root of a negative number, just laugh at them and tell them it's just imaginary.
StandardFuture 6y ago
To be fair, this is not a lie. The teachers were unknowingly giving you a Type-Theoretic answer. The answer to your questions change dependent on the Number Type you are calculating with. :)

JadeNB 6y ago

To be sure, there is a habit to make the teacher's life easier by lying, and I certainly believe you when you say that you were lied to; but all of these can be rescued, as a sequence of decreasingly incomplete truths, just by adding quantifiers. Since the human brain is (excessively) good at ignoring quantifiers, a skilled teacher (not me, in this context—I'm a college teacher, so am not claiming that this is the right language for primary schoolers, just that it's true) can speak truthfully without impairing the pedagogy: Q. how much is 3 - 5? A. taking 5 out of 3 does not give a whole-number answer. Q. how much is 2 divided by 3? A. dividing 2 by 3 does not give an integer answer. Q. what are the roots of the quadratic function ...? A. this quadratic function doesn't have real roots because you can't take a real square root of a negative number

Viliam1234 6y ago
> A. this quadratic function doesn't have real roots because you can't take a real square root of a negative number This one is actually true. If someone tells you they have a square root of a negative number, just laugh at them and tell them it's just imaginary.

StandardFuture 6y ago

To be fair, this is not a lie. The teachers were unknowingly giving you a Type-Theoretic answer. The answer to your questions change dependent on the Number Type you are calculating with. :)