4 ms·

This is a great example of why I hate 'word problems' in math. The person writing the problem is probably trying to demonstrate a nice mathematical property and

This is a great example of why I hate 'word problems' in math. The person writing the problem is probably trying to demonstrate a nice mathematical property and engage the reader, but what they are doing is confusing the hell out of people and providing a frustrating experience. Almost every piece of information you get from this hypothetical scenario is useless. Everything you know about ants, rubber, gravity, energy etc is suddenly a distraction from the extremely narrow set of ideas which the author allows to be relevant to the problem. As someone who really really likes knowing material properties, insect physiology, and basic physics, while caring little for abstract mathematical properties, this kind of problem seems perfectly designed to tweak my nose.

Dirlewanger 13y ago
This problem is all over the place in Wikipedia. Almost every page with any kind of math on it assumes you're in grad school for a Master in Mathematics. And I'm pretty sure any injection of a lay person explanation will anger those who know the source material. Annoying but it is what it is with regards to Wikipedia...
- ceautery 13y ago
  Couldn't agree more. The WP:NOT page seems to address this with "Wikipedia is not a manual, guidebook, textbook, or scientific journal", but with how prevalent maths jargon appears without anything layman-accessible describing what's being talked about, it seems like an uphill battle.
segmondy 13y ago
Stop making excuses. Learn to comprehend. Here's the problem "An ant starts to crawl along a taut rubber rope 1 km long at a speed of 1 cm per second (relative to the rubber it is crawling on). At the same time, the rope starts to stretch by 1 km per second (so that after 1 second it is 2 km long, after 2 seconds it is 3 km long, etc). Will the ant ever reach the end of the rope?" What is so hard and frustrating about figuring this out? If you over think it, blame yourself. This has nothing to do about ants, rubber, gravity, energy, it's a simple question, solving it is not so simple. But if you think of it in a simple form, you can intuitively see that the ant can reach the end of the rope.
- lowboy 13y ago
  I think that parent's complaint is that we come into the word problem with loaded expectations from our real life experience, and these distract from the core of the word problem. I don't see a way around it, but it's a valid complaint about word problems that involve unusual scenarios. The "One train leaves blah, other train leaves blah, find where they cross paths" word problem is in tune with the real world, whereas an infinitely stretchy rubber band with an ant isn't.

Dirlewanger 13y ago

This problem is all over the place in Wikipedia. Almost every page with any kind of math on it assumes you're in grad school for a Master in Mathematics. And I'm pretty sure any injection of a lay person explanation will anger those who know the source material. Annoying but it is what it is with regards to Wikipedia...

ceautery 13y ago
Couldn't agree more. The WP:NOT page seems to address this with "Wikipedia is not a manual, guidebook, textbook, or scientific journal", but with how prevalent maths jargon appears without anything layman-accessible describing what's being talked about, it seems like an uphill battle.

segmondy 13y ago

Stop making excuses. Learn to comprehend. Here's the problem "An ant starts to crawl along a taut rubber rope 1 km long at a speed of 1 cm per second (relative to the rubber it is crawling on). At the same time, the rope starts to stretch by 1 km per second (so that after 1 second it is 2 km long, after 2 seconds it is 3 km long, etc). Will the ant ever reach the end of the rope?" What is so hard and frustrating about figuring this out? If you over think it, blame yourself. This has nothing to do about ants, rubber, gravity, energy, it's a simple question, solving it is not so simple. But if you think of it in a simple form, you can intuitively see that the ant can reach the end of the rope.

lowboy 13y ago
I think that parent's complaint is that we come into the word problem with loaded expectations from our real life experience, and these distract from the core of the word problem. I don't see a way around it, but it's a valid complaint about word problems that involve unusual scenarios. The "One train leaves blah, other train leaves blah, find where they cross paths" word problem is in tune with the real world, whereas an infinitely stretchy rubber band with an ant isn't.