Math

Just heard on the radio that a local math teacher had been voted Alberta's "teacher of the year" because he made math "fun".  Now there's an oxymoron -- math and fun in the same sentence. 

Apparently there are two kinds of brains:  the math kind and everyone else's.  I have the "everyone else" brain.  Thanks to my scientist and math genius father, I managed to scrape through high school math and snagged a 50 on the final grade 13 provincial exam.  I really think I failed, but was pushed through when the school reviewed the provincial grade.  Afterall, Nancy always had perfect homework, how could she have failed the final?!  Must have been a case of nerves, or "that time of the month".  The reason I always had perfect math homework was because my Dad could not go to bed until he had done it.  I would find it completed and accurate at the bottom of my bed every morning. 

Math was a complete mystery to me.  Except for algebra, which relies on logic (something I do possess), I had no clue about analytic geometry, trigonometry or calculus.  What the hell was trigonometry?  No teacher ever walked into the room on the first class in September and said, "We are now going to learn trigonometry.  This is what trig is, this is what it is used for, this is why we learn it."  No, the teacher just walked in and started on about pythagorean identity, inverse trigonometric functions, law of sines, law of cosines, vectors and polar coordinates (no, that's not from my "else" brain, got all that from googling "trigonometry").  My Dad used to do calculus for fun and recreation.  Feature it!?  Remember the high school math club?  As if you didn't get enough math torture in regular class, no these kids had to form a club to get more.  Why play basketball when you could do math?

Googling "trigonometry" a few minutes ago still told me nothing about its purpose.  I seem to vaguely recall it had something to do with being able to navigate a ship by the stars.  Yeah, I'm really going to be doing that on my next cruise.  Here's what I read:

"The most familiar trigonometric functions are the sine, cosine, and tangent. In the context of the standard unit circle with radius 1, where a triangle is formed by a ray originating at the origin and making some angle with the x-axis, the sine of the angle gives the length of the y-component (rise) of the triangle, the cosine gives the length of the x-component (run), and the tangent function gives the slope (y-component divided by the x-component). More precise definitions are detailed below. Trigonometric functions are commonly defined as ratios of two sides of a right triangle containing the angle, and can equivalently be defined as the lengths of various line segments from a unit circle. More modern definitions express them as infinite series or as solutions of certain differential equations, allowing their extension to arbitrary positive and negative values and even to complex numbers."

Got that?  Imagine hanging out with people who think that's fun?! 

Every year at exam time my friends would line up so my Dad could tutor them in math.  He loved it.  It must have been a shock to him when I became a writer.  Nevertheless, he was always my biggest cheerleader.  B said a while back, when someone was criticizing him, "Hey, buddy, get in the race or hand me a water bottle."  That's what my Dad always did.  Adored the guy.