I have this theory that Americans suck at math because they insist on sticking with the imperial measurement system and so nothing makes mathematical sense - Americans intuitively just think in every day units qualitatively. Whereas the rest of the world uses metric, so base 10 math just comes naturally.
Source: I am a US STEM professor. Our students suck at math.
When I was 16, I went to high school in California for half a year as an exchange student. I am from Germany and as a junior, I would have had something like my 4th or 5th year of chemistry in school, but out of necessity (or laziness) I took beginner’s chemistry.
For exercises I had been paired with two girls who used to try to make fun of me (I think; I never really figured out what their deal was), and asked me stupid questions about myself or Germany. I remember they once asked laughingly whether I like oranges because I was wearing a t-shirt with an orange print.
Well, then one day, there we go. Converting exercises. You have students from 9th to 12th grade in groups of 3-4, trying to convert imperial measurements to metrics. And then metrics to metrics. Basically, for a couple of weeks, we just converted stuff like 14 cm to mm or dm. I forgot so much about my time abroad but the most vivid memory I have is of the girls looking at each other (after a couple of days and repeated explanations) and one says “the decimal system just makes no sense” and the other one quietly and slowly nods in agreement. I ask them how it makes no sense. “Well it just makes no sense.” It’s just base 10 everything and the rest is practice, it’s not different from inches to feet. “No but you see this makes sense. There are 12 inches in a foot”, continued by a list of how many shmekels make up a whoopsiedoodle and how many dingelings fit into a hybotron.
I understand how you first have to get accustomed to new units and how conversion might need practice when you aren’t familiar with the prefixes, especially when you aren’t too experienced in the stem field. But I am still flabbergasted by the statement that having a system where everything is just base 10 and then you shift the decimal point around makes no sense. We are talking about fellow juniors here. How do you make it to age 16/17 never having heard of a decimal point or having trouble with base 10 conversion? HOW CAN YOU SAY IT MAKES NO SENSE?! It’s the simplest, most logic based system there is!
And base 3 sometimes (yards). When taught well, there’s a ton of value in learning to quantify the world in a variety of base systems.
Not uniquely American, but thinking in base 7 (weeks), base 12 (years, hours, feet), base 60 (minutes), base 3 (yards), base 10 (the default unless told otherwise), etc. really helps you adapt and estimate a number of other, unrelated, things.
It’s closer to a binary system, since it’s iterative division by two. Half inch, quarter, eighth, sixteenth and so on.
People do the same thing in metric, but they just prefer to write 0.125 cm instead of 1/8 cm.
Imperial units are a bit more heavy on rational numbers instead of decimal.
The base 12 stuff comes up with things that were historically cut in halves as well as thirds.
It’s all highly composite numbers, since they’re easier to work with if you’re doing repeated division in your head. Ten is only divisible by 2 and 5 before you start to get a lot of rapidly growing decimal parts. 12 is divisible by 2,3,4,6.
If you’ve got a balance, a knife and a stone we all agree on the weight of (let’s call it a pound stone), it’s easy to measure our a half or third of a pound, and halves or thirds of any other portion I can produce.
Over time, common divisions got names and a system of units was produced that was entirely inconsistent but liked 12 and 60 because of ease of use, and powers of two because you can just keep cutting them in half.
It’s all moot since we can use a scale now instead of a balance with a rock, and we can trust measuring tapes instead of repeatedly bisecting a plank, but it at least gives context to why it prefers fractions and numbers like 12 and 8.
I have this theory that Americans suck at math because they insist on sticking with the imperial measurement system and so nothing makes mathematical sense - Americans intuitively just think in every day units qualitatively. Whereas the rest of the world uses metric, so base 10 math just comes naturally.
Source: I am a US STEM professor. Our students suck at math.
When I was 16, I went to high school in California for half a year as an exchange student. I am from Germany and as a junior, I would have had something like my 4th or 5th year of chemistry in school, but out of necessity (or laziness) I took beginner’s chemistry.
For exercises I had been paired with two girls who used to try to make fun of me (I think; I never really figured out what their deal was), and asked me stupid questions about myself or Germany. I remember they once asked laughingly whether I like oranges because I was wearing a t-shirt with an orange print.
Well, then one day, there we go. Converting exercises. You have students from 9th to 12th grade in groups of 3-4, trying to convert imperial measurements to metrics. And then metrics to metrics. Basically, for a couple of weeks, we just converted stuff like 14 cm to mm or dm. I forgot so much about my time abroad but the most vivid memory I have is of the girls looking at each other (after a couple of days and repeated explanations) and one says “the decimal system just makes no sense” and the other one quietly and slowly nods in agreement. I ask them how it makes no sense. “Well it just makes no sense.” It’s just base 10 everything and the rest is practice, it’s not different from inches to feet. “No but you see this makes sense. There are 12 inches in a foot”, continued by a list of how many shmekels make up a whoopsiedoodle and how many dingelings fit into a hybotron.
I understand how you first have to get accustomed to new units and how conversion might need practice when you aren’t familiar with the prefixes, especially when you aren’t too experienced in the stem field. But I am still flabbergasted by the statement that having a system where everything is just base 10 and then you shift the decimal point around makes no sense. We are talking about fellow juniors here. How do you make it to age 16/17 never having heard of a decimal point or having trouble with base 10 conversion? HOW CAN YOU SAY IT MAKES NO SENSE?! It’s the simplest, most logic based system there is!
ok how about this america abopts the metric system but every moves on to base 12.
Fifth grade prepared me for base whatever, bring it on
Non-integer base, anyone?
2i is also fun
I have a theory that Americans are great at math because they regularly work with base-12 systems.
And base 3 sometimes (yards). When taught well, there’s a ton of value in learning to quantify the world in a variety of base systems.
Not uniquely American, but thinking in base 7 (weeks), base 12 (years, hours, feet), base 60 (minutes), base 3 (yards), base 10 (the default unless told otherwise), etc. really helps you adapt and estimate a number of other, unrelated, things.
That would be cool if true. But then they use measures like subdivisions of an inch in base 8 increments.
It’s closer to a binary system, since it’s iterative division by two. Half inch, quarter, eighth, sixteenth and so on.
People do the same thing in metric, but they just prefer to write 0.125 cm instead of 1/8 cm.
Imperial units are a bit more heavy on rational numbers instead of decimal.
The base 12 stuff comes up with things that were historically cut in halves as well as thirds.
It’s all highly composite numbers, since they’re easier to work with if you’re doing repeated division in your head. Ten is only divisible by 2 and 5 before you start to get a lot of rapidly growing decimal parts. 12 is divisible by 2,3,4,6.
If you’ve got a balance, a knife and a stone we all agree on the weight of (let’s call it a pound stone), it’s easy to measure our a half or third of a pound, and halves or thirds of any other portion I can produce.
Over time, common divisions got names and a system of units was produced that was entirely inconsistent but liked 12 and 60 because of ease of use, and powers of two because you can just keep cutting them in half.
It’s all moot since we can use a scale now instead of a balance with a rock, and we can trust measuring tapes instead of repeatedly bisecting a plank, but it at least gives context to why it prefers fractions and numbers like 12 and 8.