Re:Mathematicians Discover New Way for Spheres to 'Kiss'
by eszed on Friday January 17, 2025 @01:27AM
(#42734665)
My pleasure! I'm no one's idea of a mathematician, but I enjoy employing arithmetic tricks and shortcuts like this one.
A few years ago I had an in-depth conversation with a (then) sixth-grader of my acquaintance, and came away impressed with the "Common Core" way of teaching maths. His parents were frustrated with it, because it didn't match the paper-based methods of calculation they (and you and I) had been taught, but he'd learned a bunch of these sorts of tricks, and from them had derived a good (probably, if I'm honest, better than mine) intuition for arithmetic relationships.
A few years ago I had an in-depth conversation with a (then) sixth-grader of my acquaintance, and came away impressed with the "Common Core" way of teaching maths. His parents were frustrated with it, because it didn't match the paper-based methods of calculation they (and you and I) had been taught, but he'd learned a bunch of these sorts of tricks, and from them had derived a good (probably, if I'm honest, better than mine) intuition for arithmetic relationships.