Difficulties in Math

12/17/2012

0 Comments

 
   Being humans, everyone in this school should have struggled with one thing or another in their math class. What have I struggled with the most so far, and why?
   The main thing I have struggled with this year is inequalities. I understood the simple graphing part and all, but when we started doing huge equations with negatives and distributive properties, I started getting lost. I was really threatened by the large amount of numbers in each problem, and sometimes didn't even attempt to do it. How did I overcome this struggle? It was pretty simple... I just had to study and redo some of the problems. I began asking questions, and it all came clear to me and I easily understood it.
0 Comments

Pythagorean Theorem

12/10/2012

0 Comments

 
Picture
   The phythagorean theorem is a method of figuring out the length of one side of a right triangle. The method is a^2 + b^2 = c^2. The opposite side of the right angle in the right triangle is c. You have to find the missing length of a side. 
   A good reference to the pythagorean theorem is the picture to the left. The two legs can be either a or b, so it doesn't matter which is which. The hypotenuse, which is on the opposite side of the right angle, must always be c.
0 Comments

Square Roots 

12/3/2012

0 Comments

 
Picture
   Square roots are similar to exponents. When you have an exponent, you multiply the base number by the exponent. For example, 4^2 is 16 because 4 times 4 is 16. Square roots are pretty much the same thing. The square root of 64 is 8 since 8^2 equals 64. The square root of something with a base number and an exponent is always going to be 2, because the number has to be multiplied by itself only once. Why is it called a square root? What could be another name for it? Here are some ideas and suggestions.
    A good reason why square roots may be called square roots is because an exponential number with an exponent of 2 is squared. For example, 5^2 can be said "five squared". The root part of it is because the base number is the root of the so called "square roots". Is there another name that this can be called by? Well, there actually is another name for "square roots". It can be referred to as a radical. As for a new name, I don't know if there could be one that would make sense.
0 Comments