Sign of the times?

[mannginger]

...or just me?

Here I am in the final year of my university education and was trying to do some maths - no calculator handy so I tried to do them on paper, dragging up primary school maths.

Long multiplication fine, no worries. Long division....? Not a clue! I couldn't remember for the life of me! I also had trouble converting a fraction into a decimal.

If it's just me, give me the slating I deserve, but I'm sure there are more of us out there - my flatmates for starters!

[hut49]

What's a calculator?

[Plotloss]

Long division can fcuk off as far as I am concerned. Remember the day I finally got it at school, never have remembered it since.

Quadratic equations can fcuk off an' 'all, I remember a conversation with my maths teacher that went along the lines of 'Why are we learning these?' the inevitable response was 'Because you need them in all sorts of jobs'. I'd love to meet her now because after 10 years of programming in all sorts of markets I've never needed 'em once!

Matt.

[mattjbatch]

I've never been able to do long division so I thought it was impossible to do by hand. I'm yet to be convinced otherwise.

[mannginger]

The embarassing thing is I had to look up how to do it on the net, all of the sites were for kids. Oh the shame!

I will indulge in some ritual flagellation with silver birch twigs tomorrow at 5am to appease the teaching gods.

[HarryW]

Bring back slide rules and log tables I say , having two teenagae boys, one now at college, it amazes me that the basics are still not being taught properly.
I may be a bit old fashioned but i believe every one should be able to do basic * and / in their heads.

Harry

PS dont check may speltings tho

[alan_driver]

long division i can actually do fairly easily, long multiplication i forgot how to do. Hardest thing is adding fractions and multiplying them. I need to know off the top of my head which fractions are smaller or larger for work so im picking up all this stuff i should know from primary school.

[daydreamer]

Gets worse guys - we still get job applications from engineering graduates who don't know what calculus is - a basic tool used in pretty much all aspects of engineering design. All they say is that their calculator can do it!

I wouldn't expect too many optimised designs originating from these shores if this continues .

[FunkyNige]

Yup, final year of a maths degree and I haven't needed long division once (luckily). I can apply the Gram-Schmidt Orthogonalisation process and reduce a square matrix to echleon form, but can I do long division? Can I bcks!

[MoJocvh]

"who don't know what calculus"

had to do this for part of my HNC (Process Control)
Runge cuter(?) etc, nightmare stuff to do with flow rates through different valve profiles...still gives me shudders even now.MoJo.

[Size Nine Elm]

I have a strange affinity for numbers, and have no problems with +-*/. I have been known to do quadratic equations for fun in my spare time OK, I was lying...

[mondeoman]

Long division and decimals mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!!!

[PetrolTed]

Since spending all my days with computers my ability at mental arithmetic is now shocking. I can barely work out what change to assemble when buying a pint...

[apache]

Plotloss said: Long division can fcuk off as far as I am concerned. Quadratic equations can fcuk off an' 'all, Matt.

kin brilliant!, fell off me chair laughing, have some respek

[apache]

PetrolTed said: I can barely work out what change to assemble when buying a pint...

Flasher tells me thats a rare occasion