In a statement, the council rationalized the reduction by stating they wanted to reduce the content load on students in light of the Covid-19 pandemic. On June 1, India cut a slew of foundational topics from tenth grade textbooks, including the periodic table of elements, Darwin’s theory of evolution, the Pythagorean theorem, sources of energy, sustainable management of natural resources and contribution of agriculture to the national economy, among others. These changes effectively block a major swath of Indian students from exposure to evolution through textbooks, because tenth grade is the last year mandatory science classes are offered in Indian schools.
And just like that, 1 in every seven kids in the world got royally fucked.
Right?
Let’s see, Pythagorean theorem, is what, a couple thousand years old, and a single statement, right? And it’s the foundation of geometry and trig. Hell, I regularly say it in my head (a2+b2=c2) when trying to figure out spatial relationships, for dumb stuff no less (will this table fit on my patio with room to walk around it?).
It’s how you ensure anything you’re trying to make square is square. In framing (shed, house, deck, whatever) it’s used to ensure you setup your string in the proper orientation and don’t end up with a parallelogram.
And the Periodic table… The bloody basis of understanding chemical reactions and physics.
I guess if you’re not teaching the Periodic Table, there’d be no hope if understanding evolutionary theory, since it’s predicated on chemical behaviour.
Seriously… the Pythagorean Theorem is the single most important piece of practical math that can be easily taught to everyone.
And I just recently used it to measure the length of christmas lights I need for my roof, being 15 years out of school.
I’m a software engineer and I think one of my personal favorite random applications of Pythagoras/ trig was in my data visualization class back in scool. The assignment was to take a dataset of Soviet space launches with dogs and display it in an interactive approachable manner (ie less rigorous data science and more local science center), so I thought it would be fun to show rockets for each lauch and animate them rotating around the earth. Queue the trig to place each icon an appropriate distance (scaled to the launch height in my data), angle, and spacing from the earth.
I’ll admit it doesn’t come up all that often (in web development), but it’s nice to have that foundational knowledge to dredge up when I need it.
And yet I’ve never needed it once in my life.
Wish instead of learning bullshit math, I was taught how to repair stuff around my house that I use everyday or a million other useful life knowledge.
The primary reason to teach math is to instil a form of logical reasoning. For instance, Phytagoras theorem is typically the first introduction to formal proofs. It’s literally the antidote to much of the stupidity we are currently observing in the world.
Having said that, your response is particularly idiotic because Phytagoras theorem plays a crucial role in home improvement projects. The fact that you have never applied it in real life is likely why you cannot repair stuff in your house.
More generally, I use the knowledge I have attained from physics and mathematics when I repair stuff at home. Maybe the reason you have trouble with these things is because you didn’t pay attention in school?
It’s so easy, and the more the you advocate for removal of “useless” knowledge the happier these people are to get rid of it. And no, they won’t replace it with the other stuff. Good workshops in schools ain’t cheap but the people willing to fuck over their whole country sure are.
Besides, I never took a shop class and I figured out how to do so many things including complicated car repair and fixing my dishwasher. Your problem isn’t that one thing is useful and the other isn’t, it’s what appears to be your inherent lack of curiosity. Being exposed to information is a good thing. Plenty of people much smarter than you are very thankful for it, no need to be bitter.
I think perhaps it’s lack of utility is more on account of the user than it is on the uses…
I use it all the time. If you need a right angle, 3-4-5 gives you one, and that’s Pythag, baybeee.
@PlasticLove This is a country that plans to send people into space in the next few years. Even basic trig in the unis matter.
You think the average citizen there is going to be sending people into space next year or something?
This isn’t something people need as general knowledge, schools are better used to prepare people for life.
Schools are better used to prepare people for your life, you mean.
FTFY
Honestly though, you don’t know what you don’t know, right? So nbd. But yeah, home improvement goes a lot smoother when you know your basic geometry math. So genuinely, I wish you were taught both.
The first uses of the hypotenuse theorem came centuries before Pythagoras, unknown exactly when it came to be. Pythagoras just happens to be credited to be the first to document it.
http://5010.mathed.usu.edu/Fall2021/BDzierzon/history.html
Edit: Noting that the http site doesn’t seem to load in Android WebView mode, fuck Google Chrome, it loads in Firefox though.
The Pythagorean theorem is no foundation of anything. It is just one solution to one problem that nobody else had solved before.
Archimedes has built the foundations that you are talking about.
Just for clarification, so less people use it wrong:
a² + b² = c² (a*a + b*b = c*c) is the Pythagorean Theorem.
a2 + b2 = c2 would be a+a + b+b = c+c.
when i’m away from my computer’s compose key, i put the exponent after a term to do it in plain text, and would write the latter as 2a+2b=2c.
That is taught in lower grades. The article is misleading. What is actually dropped is a specific advanced topic on the Pythagorean theorem.
Well it says mandatory, hopefully it still stays in most schools. Absolutely fucked tho