I am delighted to see another book by Danica Mckellar, Hot X: Algebra Exposed", with somewhat a provocative title.
Full of flowers and girl-talks, this book will be fun for high school students. Instead of x and y, how about some flowers and stuff! Way to go Danica! I want your autograph :)
REALLY, girls (AND boys), that high school algebra is not that hard. Why do schools require you to learn this stuff? It adds your problem solving ability! With a little algebra, you can solve a lot more problems!
To me, the climax of Algebra is the quadratic formula... whoa, without it, we can't do much beyond baby equations. It opens door to the imaginary world (with a negative discriminant)
Ok, what IS an algebra anyway? chances are: your high school teacher may not be able to give you a very good answer. Dealing with unknowns such as x and y? Well, an algebra is a study of operations and its operands (Gee, I can't even give you a very good definition either)
In your math life, you just don't deal with numbers! You may deal with other things that are composed of numbers, such as matrix, and the rules may change. A × B is not B × A in the matrix operations.
Besides an autograph, I'd like to ask Danica, how many more books do you want to write? A teenage girl's guide to calculus would be very interesting. Danica, how about host a TV show about math, call it More Wonder Years. I will watch and record every episode!
1 comment:
Yes, the quadratic equation is a gateway to higher math; kids before 10 should know and understand it well. Kids should go, complex numbers? no problem.
Some kids unfortunately will never click and *get* it.
This is because many teachers fail and unable to present pre-algebra. Kids get lost.
Winnie(!) does a lot of good with these books. Thanks Winnie.
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