And there's more than one way to skin a function. I clicked onto this site in the first place in the process of preparing a crash course for a friend who has to pass a math equivalency test in route to her art degree. My first, algebraic, attempt was a dismal failure; it makes sense to me because I think analyticly, but she thinks visually. So now we're gonna play the graphing game. Same data, different representation.

BTW, maybe I'm too smitten with the concept of the Renaissance man, but yes, I think everyone should study math, regardless of discipline. The practical applications are indispensable even if the transcendant beauty is not appreciated. And besides that, there's far too much specialization as it is. See George Bernard Shaw. Good luck with math, don't give up; if you can handle 1+1=2, you can handle 1+x=2, or even DxDy(y=x+1)=1. Bear in mind that math was only developed as a crutch for a species to obtuse to accept void and unity as is.

Please, please, for all that's holy, USE PUNCTUATION!!!
This goes for you and for the girl that started this discussion.
And about math, I don't have anything else to say that hasn't been said already, so I'll just be silent.
All I would like to add is that people who don't like something because it's "too hard" for them make me sick.
It's your fault that the world is the way it is.
Yours faithfully;
Pilar.

Cheers :)

It is really 64x, that is what the conventions will tell you my fried. 64x looks better anyway.....

I was a lucky one. in elementary school one of the kids dads was a mathematician, and he would come to our class once a week and show us something really cool. proofs are cool. I saw my first one when I was in 3rd grade, it changed the way I looked at the world.

math strives to find simple ways of understanding the world. math can make hard problems easier.

for example, if you add all the numbers from 1 to 100 what is the answer... it would take ages doing by hand right? 1+2+3.. how boring right? but there is a clever way of doing it.

1 + 2 + 3 + .... + 100 = S (the number we want to find)

100 + 99 + 98 + .... + 1 = S (change the order and still get S)

by adding the two lines we see:

101 + 101 + 101 + .... + 101 = S+S = 2xS

but there are 100 nummbers being added on the left so

2xS = 101x100

divide both sides by two and S = 101x50 = 5050

I think things like that are neat, and there is no reason intereseting things can't be taught at elementary school. math does not suck, what school systems do to math sucks.