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[NJW2000]

Triangle numbers: ones you can arrange into triangles like this:

.
. .
. . .
. . . .

=1,3,6,10

Sqaure numbers can be arranged into squares.

Sometimes mathematicians can make stuff less intuitive than it need be for non-mathematicians...

[Helgoland]

Sometimes mathematicians can make stuff less intuitive than it need be for non-mathematicians...

Well, if you want to go beyong the 'Oooh, shiny!' phase, you sort of need to do further abstraction. Mathematicians don't want to make stuff more complicated for others, they want to make it easier for themselves. And 'can be arranged into a triangle' is so spongy a notion that it's a bitch to work with.

[ArKFallen]

The equation is also easier to use to get a bunch of examples than "make a triangle like this". I can either just replace 'x' with a number and run that basic algebra or spend half an hour arranging dots. This is the same reason I stopped using my fingers for math, it takes too much effort and time for too little result.

[IcyTea31]

Triangle numbers: ones you can arrange into triangles like this:

.
. .
. . .
. . . .

=1,3,6,10

Sqaure numbers can be arranged into squares.

Sometimes mathematicians can make stuff less intuitive than it need be for non-mathematicians...

But can you tell how many dots are in, say, the 317th triangle? By using the function, we get 317*318/2 = 50403. It would take quite a while to solve that just by drawing and then counting the dots.

[NJW2000]

Yeah, no shit, I've actually had to use big numbers before too.

But tbh, all that looks like doublespeak to people who don't alread get invovled in reasonably complex maths, or can't - if you don't make people actually understand what's at work in maths, they won't be interested. The formulas should progress from the intuitive stuff.

[Bohandas]

Sometimes mathematicians can make stuff less intuitive than it need be for non-mathematicians...

Well, if you want to go beyong the 'Oooh, shiny!' phase, you sort of need to do further abstraction. Mathematicians don't want to make stuff more complicated for others, they want to make it easier for themselves. And 'can be arranged into a triangle' is so spongy a notion that it's a bitch to work with.

Yeah, especially when you're not working with whole numbers

[RedWarrior0]

And a proof (one of many) of why the formula works is itself quite nice:
Let's make our triangle easy to work with, by making it a right triangle:

Code: [Select]

example: the fourth triangular number
X
XX
XXX
XXXX
Then, we take another triangle (here with O instead of X), flip it around, and put it next to the first one:

Code: [Select]

example: the fourth triangular number
XOOOO
XXOOO
XXXOO
XXXXO
So we get an n+1 by n rectangle for the nth triangluar number. So n(n+1) is twice the nth triangular number, which gives us our formula.

[Graknorke]

An article explaining why the gender pay gap exists still decides to blame it on sexism.
It's like the giant sponge of myths, no matter how much it gets cut up it just won't die.

[Bouchart]

Why would anyone hire a man if you could hire a woman to do the same job for less?

[Lord Shonus]

An article explaining why the gender pay gap exists still decides to blame it on sexism.
It's like the giant sponge of myths, no matter how much it gets cut up it just won't die.

A pay gap between all women and all men exists. However, the gap is almost impossible to find when you compare men and women in the same job with equal qualifications and time in position. The society-wide gap has more to do with employment choices (teaching, for example, attracts far more women than men, while construction attracts more men - construction pays much more than teaching), the massive wage disparity between high-level executives and everyone else, and the fact that women are far more likely to take a few years off for child care than men are.

The only portion of that which can be reliably attributed to sexism is the second - CEOs and other high-level executives are much more likely to be men, because hiring practices ten to thirty years ago (which is when the executives of today entered the work force) were heavily biased toward white males.

[hops]

I think the solution should be to turn women into superior cyborgs.

[Bouchart]

with superior homemaking and sandwich-making skills too

[Graknorke]

Wow Cinder you can't just appropriate differently-abled culture like that. Check your privilege.

[hops]

Wow Cinder you can't just appropriate differently-abled culture like that. Check your privilege.

The processor chip implanted in my brain allow for 77.82% more efficient privilege-checking.

[Lightningfalcon]

Wow Cinder you can't just appropriate differently-abled culture like that. Check your privilege.

The processor chip implanted in my brain allow for 77.82% more efficient privilege-checking.

Check your privilege checking privilege.