A lot of people are having trouble with this math problem that requires some basic algebra
This is interesting and also shows you how basic skills need to be retained for life, and exercised somewhat. The fact we went from 80 percent to 60 shows our glorious education system is not working.
But yes, our education system is going down the toilet.
It's no wonder we have so many voters in this country who vote Democrat!
"Math: I rely on my computer or calculator.
Spelling: I rely on my spell-check."
When do you rely on your brain?
Do you even have a brain?
Shouldn't you be able do simple stuff in your head? When I was in school during the Stone Age, we learned addition, subtraction, multiplication and division by rote. No consulting a device needed. Now, everything seems to be through the use of a device. Are you saving your brains for some other more esoteric function?
[snark]
What is it that you engineered? Pinto gas tanks? Chernobyl control systems? Modern math education curricula?
[/snark]
We covered all of what was necessary for solving the proffered problem in freshman high school math class. And it is all symbols, not words.
Care to engineer something practical with words? A family is driving their car to visit Disneyland and coming home after several days. Their home is right near to the Applebee’s in Goodyear, Arizona, so it’s 350 miles each way. If they expect the gas cost in Arizona and California to average $2.50 per gallon and their vehicle gets 35 miles per gallon, how much will the gas cost for the trip?
I kept the numbers simple enough (though totally realistic) to not need a calculator to work it out. If you can’t solve that in five minutes or less, don’t make any engineering claims. Answer hint: Ulysses S. Grant.
How about this one from a story called Escape! in Asimov’s I, Robot book?
If one and a half chickens lay one and a half eggs in one and a half days, how many eggs do nine chickens lay in nine days?
I could show (clearly) how to answer that one in under a minute on an old school blackboard or a modern dry-erase white board. Your thoughts about this one? Okay, setting it up the first time is what makes this difficult.
Set it up and include the units, which multiply or divide just like everything else (most non-engineers don’t realize this—in case non-nerds are looking), the answer is:
9 chickens × 9 days × (1½ eggs/1½ chickens)/1½ days
Rewriting, bunching the numbers and bunching unit pairs together:
9 × 9 × (1½/1½)/1½ × eggs × chickens/chickens × days/days
Consider that a/a = 1 for all values of a, including units (non-zero, finite values).
1½/1½ = 1, chickens/chickens = 1, and days/days =1
So far:
9 × 9 × (1)/1½ × eggs × 1 × 1
Multiplying by 1 doesn’t change a value, and rewriting 1½ as an improper fraction of 3/2:
9 × 9 × 1/(3/2) × eggs
Consider that to divide by a fraction, you multiply by its reciprocal. Or 1/(a/b) = b/a
We’re down to 9 × 2/3 of 9 in units of eggs. 2/3 of 9 is 6.
9×6 eggs = 54 eggs.
QED (Quite Easily Derived). Maybe its Quod Erat Demonstrandum.
After finishing five years of engineering school, we all said: "Just think: five years ago I couldn't even spel enginer, and now I are one."
9 - (3x3)+1. reason the fractional division rule: when dividing by a fraction invert the fraction and multiply. so 1/3 becomes 3
this leads to 9 - 9 + 1 so the answer is 1.
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Oh, wait . . . :-)
All industries that are systems that provide private goods are troubled: the healthcare system, education system. We don't have a grocery store delivery system, landscaping system, or electronics design/mfg system. So we have less problems in those areas. If we tried to have a grocery distribution system, it would turn into some variant of Venezuela's grocery distribution system.
I've had an amazingly positive experience with the public school in my area. If it weren't a system, I'd keep paying them as long as they do what I want. You and I wouldn't need to discuss which school does a better job , any more than we need to discuss which mobile data carrier is best. We'd just pick what works and buy it. People wanting it to be a "system" really annoys me. It seems like they either want to abdicate their own choice, maybe b/c they feel life has too many choices, or they want to be the one running the system, telling everyone else what to do.
When they call the hoards of people wanting to buy something and sell something, aka a market, a "system" it sounds like the person talking wants to control it. It implies there are a set of specs that someone else wrote defining desires outcomes, rather than just whatever people feel willing to part with their money for.
This is a pet peeve for me. Thanks for listening to my rant.
Maybe it is the difference between actual instance of some action which would be considered to be the cause in that instance as to a general situation where something occurs and something not involved in the action is considered to be the cause of the action, something like the cause of cancer is water since water is involved in every person who gets cancer but really is correlation.
To keep from going crazy, perhaps it is best in most cases to just say consistency is a necessary and sufficient condition for existence. If it exists it is consistent and if it is consistent it exists. A little difficult there for mental patterns though they too do not exist unless consistent whether chemical or some other process and must be non-contradictory.
Can you run a truck on nine tires instead of 18?
If the vehicle is traveling at 50mph in relationship to the road how fast is the tire moving?
In modern terms. The store clerk is handed a purchase at $21.95 two tens and a five. Sales tax is 7%. The cash register is broken.
How long does it take to figure out the bill and make change of one dollar fifty cents and one penny.
1.51.
Best answer. I'll have to ask my teacher about that when I start Senior Year next fall.
Not to be Pedantic and really don't want the useless penny but....you know how we nickle dime Nazi's are.
The second part is - since the cash register is broken except for opening the drawer.....
write it on a piece of paper.
Item desciption and price
$25 minus (21.99 x 1.07 = 23.5293. rounded up to the next highest penny. 23.54) = 1.46
Easy way?
21.99 round to 22. 2 x 70 plus 70+ 14 cents = 23.54 change is 1.46
Two ways That second method used the Mark 1 Mod 1 brain. No waiting until September.
It struck me we all have those little speed tricks squirreled away. Any additions? for practice I figure the bill at the supermarket. Keeps the brain cells limber.
the current system and I know I'm leaving stuff out is national debt is the sum total of all the T Bills of various varieties whee the government is the banker. and various other parking places. One is funded by savings and wealth in excess of current need. and loans for major items such as houses and by spending where a single tax occured. one time. and that with a single deduction variously called the Right To Life Exemption. The major difference was income tax was confiscatory and end user consumtion minus RTLE was voluntary.
At that point in time the what was it called Fair Tax was computed at 30% to cover current government needs and obligatory payoffs such as military retirement and social security.
It also relied on a real debt limit. Short of war and natural disaster - no phony declared emergencies - government could not go in debt and whatever could not be funded with current income flow was not done. Be it war, freeways, rapid transit, welfare etc. With the amount of obligated and unfunded programs now on the table it might be as much as fifty percent? I don't really know I'm doing a SWAG. Unless the debt was repudiated which is exactly what they did in 2008 and will do this next time around. So that's going to happen anyway.
The main difference is control. One the citizens and their spending habits controlled government and in the other Government and it's spending habits controlled everything.
Actually with income tax you get screwed every day of every year as taxes are embedded any time something is sold, bought, pay checks issued. It' all adds up until the final purchase of some goods or services. Then it comes due if not collected and transmitted along the way. Sales Tax. That's the Commie Mommie's favored VAT Tax. which subtracts value - iyou have to pay more to get the same thing.
One is based ont the assumption the government owns everything and allows the citizens to earn a taxable portion called wages. The other is based on the assumption the citizens own everything and agree to pay a set percentage mnus the /Right to Life exemption to fund certain government programs.
Two refinements are the No Funding No Mandate rule where government says all sewer systems must be replaced every 50 years and upgraded every ten but doesn't fund the requirement there fore it's not mandatory. OR funds it and it is mandatory.
The second refinement is all spenidng bills must have the following ont he cover sheet and adhere to what is found there. Name, Description and Scope,. Constitutional cite that allows such an expenditure, Funding Source and funding limit.
I guess a third refinement is No earmarks or anything not related to the story ont he cover sheet allowed as Christmas Tree add ons but in any case the whole pig trough is automatically under the No Funding No Mandate provision and the percentage of allowed end user consumption tax. Getting to long and I'm sure I forgot some important parts.
I liked the citizen controlling by what he/she spends AND the anti pig trough/no funding no mandate provisions. Some of those were retirement funds, personal health insurance funds which added to the RTL exemption and some other odds and ends. Ahh yes the payoff and phase out of current entitlements.
Inthe end it's all a sales tax anyway but paid for with after taxed (income) and added taxed (sales and VAT) collection methods.
Therefore there is no income tax at any percentage including Flat Tax.
The major difference between a small reduction in gross tax paid is in the area of control.
Income tax is confiscatory or as I put it fascist in nature Government decides and it varies only as a function of your salary as it changes.
End User consumption tax citizen end consumer decides what and when to buy or not to buy and in what price range.
Government is not allowed to go into deficit except for declared wars or natural katrina style disasters. Those two costs are automatically the top of the list for next years budget.
Entitlements are phased out and the nearest thing go an income tax is phased in. 5% minimum for retirement NOT in a government controlled but in a controlled account. So no IOUs.
One additional would be medical care account at 5% minimum
The only deduction is the Right To Life the amount needed to survive. Government has zero right to take that which is needed to survive.
That's it.
Government takes what comes in through auto matic cash register transfers end of day, week month whatever.
That's what they get to spend. If they want more money they have to improve the market place not put more chains on it.
BUTthey retain the basic duties of military and police, judicial, and setting standards The unit that sets standards recommends congress approves, judicial handles any court issues, LEA enforces in separate branches.
Nets out at an immediate 30% reduction in government employees. Watchi me cry ha ha
When inflation, devaluation and debt repudiation became so huge the French issued new money. One new franc was equal to ten old francs. Which still left the problem of the elderly and those on unfunded retirement programs. Waking up to find your $5,000 a month reitement income had become $500.00 but the loaf of bread at $2.00 new money wa still $20 old money. was a hard choice and it did bring on fixed prices on staple items. If $5.00 was chosen as the price for a loaf of bread it was still five times greater or put another way the buying power was now 20% of that planned for. So far ours has taken around a one third not an eighty percent cut with no COLA adjustment.
That's just the first go round. At some point those debt notes will come due from the last bail out. The old folks still can't work even assuming there were jobs. Military get job preference for many situations. That 30% I mentioned in the initial presentation of the end user consumption tax will be forced up at least to 50%. When it reaches the same amount as the present system - why bother changing? At some point the debt will be so huge there will cease to be a point to even pretend to pay it off. other than by stealing from not only Grandpa and Grandma's retirement account but for the worker bees of ALL income levels as welll through inflation, devaluation and debt repudiation. That last means when they cause a decrease in buyiut they do not repay and do it openlyng power they don't count it in COLA. They steal but do not repay the theft knowing you will still vote for them.
Therefore I propose anyone who votes for Trump or Hillary the two remaining socialists be dubbed the Dumb Ass Party the perfect name for the combination of Republicans and Democrats.
Margaret Thatcher first said, "Socialism works until you run out of Other Peoplel's Money."
Nancy Pelosi is thought to have said but some attribute this to Clinton and Reid - "Then you take the rest of what they have as long as we pay the Protective Echelon first. Homeland "Security is not for everyone."
I have a younger brother who was a whiz at algebra, graduated magna cum laude from the University of Alabama and is now a retired Lockheed engineer and has more money than I do.
A lot more money.
Looks like our Commander-Of-(Other-Assorted)-Grief failed to in his own words to Joe the Plumber "spread the wealth around."
I still marvel over how the media went way out of their way to pick on an unlicensed plumber due to what Candidate Obama said to that man.
See? See how I steered away from the subject at hand?
By the way, my moneybags little brother has for over two decades bought five tickets per home game so up to four people can tailgate with him and see the game for free.
Moocher me quit going two years ago due to health problems.
Do you want to know what they are? La, la, la!