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A lot of math is based on word problems and has ambiguities from language. E.g. "Alice gives Bob half her apples and Bob gives Alice half his apples". The numbe
by singron 6y ago
A lot of math is based on word problems and has ambiguities from language. E.g. "Alice gives Bob half her apples and Bob gives Alice half his apples". The number of apples each of them has depends on whether the actions were simultaneous or sequential and whether "his apples" refers to the apples Bob just received from Alice.
It's just good teaching to highlight these ambiguous cases because they do happen in the real world when talking about mathematics.
Some ambiguities are general, but some are also aligned with racial/cultural/linguistic backgrounds. E.g. double negatives.
There exists a mathematical language to unambiguously specify these differences, but we don't make kids read the principia mathematica for a reason.
- goatinaboat 6y agoA lot of math is based on word problems and has ambiguities from language. E.g. "Alice gives Bob half her apples and Bob gives Alice half his apples". The number of apples each of them has depends on whether the actions were simultaneous or sequential and whether "his apples" refers to the apples Bob just received from Alice. That's a great example and teaches about race conditions too! But there's still a finite set of correct answers, and without showing working there's no way to teach them. And for all I know, this question might not work in languages other than English and isn't that one of the points of this whole exercise...