Mathematics Survey

What does mathematics have to do with Hinduism? Well, just as the basic principles of Hinduism lie in the Vedas, so do the roots of mathematics. The Vedas, written around 1500-900 BCE, are ancient Indian texts containing a record of human experience and knowledge. Thousands of years ago, Vedic mathematicians authored various theses and dissertations on mathematics. It is now commonly believed and widely accepted that these treatises laid down the foundations of algebra, algorithm, square roots, cube roots, various methods of calculation, and the concept of zero.

Vedic Mathematics

Sutras: Natural Formulae

The system is based on 16 Vedic sutras or aphorisms, which are actually word-formulae describing natural ways of solving a whole range of mathematical problems. Some examples of sutrasare “By one more than the one before”, “All from 9 & the last from 10”, and “Vertically & Crosswise”. These 16 one-line formulae originally written in Sanskrit, which can be easily memorized, enables one to solve long mathematical problems quickly.

Why Sutras?

Sri Bharati Krishna Tirtha Maharaj, who is generally considered the doyen of this discipline, in his seminal book Vedic Mathematics, wrote about this special use of verses in the Vedic age: “In order to help the pupil memorize the material assimilated, they made it a general rule of practice to write even the most technical and abstruse textbooks in sutras or in verse (which is so much easier – even for the children – to memorize)… So from this standpoint, they used verse for lightening the burden and facilitating the work (by versifying scientific and even mathematical material in a readily assimilable form)!”Dr L M Singhvi, the former High Commissioner of India in the UK, who is an avid endorser of the system says: “A single sutra would generally encompass a varied and wide range of particular applications and may be likened to a programmed chip of our computer age”. Another Vedic maths enthusiast, Clive Middleton of vedicmaths.org feels, “These formulas describe the way the mind naturally works, and are therefore a great help in directing the student to the appropriate method of solution.”

A Simple & Easy System

Practitioners of this striking method of mathematical problem-solving opine that Vedic maths is far more systematic, coherent and unified than the conventional system. It is a mental tool for calculation that encourages the development and use of intuition and innovation, while giving the student a lot of flexibility, fun and satisfaction. Therefore, it’s direct and easy to implement in schools – a reason behind its enormous popularity among educationists and academicians.

Try These Out!

• If you want to find the square of 45, you can employ the Ekadhikena Purvena sutra (“By one more than the one before”). The rule says since the first digit is 4 and the second one is 5, you will first have to multiply 4 (4 +1), that is 4 X 5, which is equal to 20 and then multiply 5 with 5, which is 25. Viola! The answer is 2025. Now, you can employ this method to multiply all numbers ending with 5.
• If you want to subtract 4679 from 10000, you can easily apply the Nikhilam Navatashcaramam Dashatah sutra (“All from 9 and the last from 10”). Each figure in 4679 is subtracted from 9 and the last figure is subtracted from 10, yielding 5321. Similarly, othersutras lay down such simple rules of calculation.

Citation

American Netflix – Simple Guide to Accessing Alternative Media Sites, James Fellows.

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Let’s face it. You need math for everything. Everywhere you go you need a little math. Whether it is buying groceries, buying a drink, going out on a date, or filling up on gas, you basically need it for almost everything in life. If you aren’t good at math, it is never too late to learn. You can always get a teacher or take classes that will teach you the basic mathematics you need to get by in life.

You can use math for programming and other skills also. One use for math can be for becoming a pilot. In order to become a great pilot you need to know how stuff works through mathematics and other aviation knowledge. You need to practice the use of math and flying through a flight simulator. A program that’s great to learn flying on is the Pro Flight Simulator which will teach you about the basics of flying. It might not seem like it, but in order to become a pilot, you need to know a lot about mathematics. Math comes into play when you read instruments and panels on an airplane and also, when some of the controls don’t work.

So, you need math for almost everything that you do. You even need some math when driving a car. The speedometer uses math to calculate how fast you are going and how much time it will be to arrive at your destination. You simply cannot get by in this world without a little bit of math! So, dust of those mathematics skills and put it to some use. You can use a calculator if you want, but get used to using your head as well.

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Ever since I can remember, I have disliked math. It probably started around junior high when we did more than just add, subtract, divide, multiply, etc. The concepts got more abstract to me and I had a hard time wrapping my head around them. By the time I got to Geometry in high school, forget it. I couldn’t tell you anything about a triangle today except that it has three sides. I have no idea how I made it out of that math class alive.

I got A’s in most of my math classes (except Geometry, I think I got a B), mostly because I wanted to do well in school and get good grades. I would just study and learn what I needed to know for the tests and then promptly forget . Surprisingly I was pretty good at Algebra but I don’t think I could solve for “x” if someone put a formula in front of me at the point in my life.

Let’s fast forward to today. I work in the marketing department at a credit card processing company. I have a great job that I absolutely love. The only time I have ever needed to use math was to show the percent of change in the number of new merchant accounts that we acquired year over year. Besides, the payment processing industry really revolves around the only kind of math that I like: the addition and subtraction of money.

In school I was always a bit afraid of going out and getting a job in the “real world” because I wasn’t strong in math. My teachers would try to scare me into learning it because they threatened that I would “need it later.” Well, that’s just a big joke to me now. I have never had to apply any high level math concepts in my career and I am doing quite well, thank you. Plus, if I ever need some math-related help, I have my dear friend the search engine to point me in the right direction.

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When was the last time you sat down to really look at your monthly expenditure? More specifically when was the last time you worked out the math on your non essential monthly expenditure? This starts to get very interesting for those of us that happen to be smokers. If you smoke a pack a day, going off an average price of $7 per pack, you will be spending on average $213 per month.

This is a fair amount but seeing this figure doesn’t always have an impact for many people. Well, how about doing the math on that figure over a 5 year period? $12,780. Now we have your attention! If you have been a long time smoker just think what you could do with this amount of money or even just half of it. A luxury family holiday maybe? Down-payment on a house? There is a lot you could do!

This might seem to over simply the fact that there is still the small issue of giving up the smokes. There are many options but one of the latest alternatives to tobacco that has given many people positive results is the e cig. Thousands of people have made the switch and a large percentage of them have managed to kick their nicotine habit altogether. Look out for an honest e cigarette review and you won’t go far wrong, it can be a little daunting at first due to the large number of brands out there but stick with it. Their are different price ranges and an initial outlay for the equipment but once you have this all you need to do is buy the cartridges that contain the nicotine.

Take a step back, think about the money you could save and what you could invest that money in.

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Math has always come naturally to me which has allowed me to spot good and bad mortgage deals from a mile away. It’s also given me an advantage when working with customers in the mortgage and real estate business over the years.

First time home buyers may become confused and overwhelmed when applying for a mortgage loan due to all of the calculations that should be reviewed and explained throughout the loan application and disclosure process.

I always recommend borrowers use a mortgage calculator with taxes. This will allow them to figure their principal, interest, taxes and insurance payment. This total payment is also known as a PITI payment. Some online calculators will even factor in the mortgage insurance too.

A trick I learned early on to make applicants feel at ease is to get out a note pad and write down the important closing cost figures and monthly payment calculations as they are explained to the customer. This helps them better understand their mortgage rate quote and closing costs. Many borrowers will ask to take the notes with them along with their disclosure forms.

Time value of money calculations are complicated, most people use computers or financial calculators to figure monthly payments. In the old days brokers carried printed rate table charts with them to quote monthly mortgage payments. A simple way to figure monthly interest on the fly is to multiply the loan amount times the interest rate and then divide by twelve. For example 100,000 x .12 (12%) is 12,000. This is the annual interest on a 12% loan for $100,000. Dividing 12,000 by 12 months gives you a monthly interest payment of $1,000.

Over the years I think many individual’s math skills have declined due to the abundance of personal electronics. Imagine what would happen if we had to calculate everything longhand.

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Although no formal educational requirements are necessary to land security guard jobs, there are basic skills that will be measured and tested in applicants for these jobs to determine how fit they are for the job.  Both the job applicant’s physical and mental abilities are evaluated before they are hired to become security guards.

One of these important basic skills is mathematics.  Basic mathematical abilities are required to be able to land a job as a security guard.  Those who are not good in geometry, algebra, and trigonometry do not have to worry.  Most of the time, all that is required is knowledge of basic arithmetic as well as other basic skills like counting, measuring, and converting.  All these are tackled in security guard courses offered either on a short-term certificate course or as part of a two-year associate degree course.

Elementary as it might seem, number concepts such as reading and writing numbers, whole numbers, fractions, and percentages as well as operations like rounding off, adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing whole numbers are tackled in security guard courses.  These mathematical concepts and operations are applied to security guard tasks like logging in information about goods, property, or money in their watch and making incidence reports among others.  The following gives a short description of the kind of math skills that are necessary for particular security guard jobs:

1. Counting skills – security guards handling petty cash accounts would need money-counting skills to keep track of funds in their possession.  Those who are assigned in warehouses might also have to record quantities that are brought in and out of the building they are watching and make an updated tally of how much goods are in storage at any given time.
2. Measuring skills – some security job assignments require guards to make various measurements.  This may be hourly temperatures in controlled storage facilities, odometer readings for freight and transportation services, or fuel consumption in factories or manufacturing facilities.  Security guards would have to learn how to make readings using instruments like thermometers, odometers, and liquid or gas gauges.  There are times when they also have to learn how to convert these readings in to the required measurement system, such as converting a Celsius reading into a Fahrenheit reading.
3. Estimating skills – this is another important mathematical skill especially for security guards assigned in armored trucks or in banks.  Security guards are often required to make estimates as to the value of goods damaged or stolen from the facilities that they are guarding.  Estimating time and distance are also important skills for security guards who might be required to recreate or retrace a timeline in an accident or crime report prior to investigation by the police.

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Until recently many of the larger webhotel companies have been using raw data to monitor how much bandwidth a user have been using, these algorithms don’t take into account things like text and image compression, cache optimizations on the server and other servers along the way to the destination. As it is now 1MB data equals 1MB of traffic bandwidth on most webhotel providers.
That is starting to change here in 2012 as more and more companies are switching to one of the new algorithms which have been made in order to give a more realistic picture of the actual bandwidth a user has been using. Here at billigwebhotel.net they have been taking a closer look at one of new webhotel algorithm and found it to be a lot more effective than the old way of calculating bandwidth use. It shows that customers ofte pay 20-30% more for their bandwidth than what they actually use which can be save some of the larger customers quite a lot on webhotel costs if they switch to a host using one of these new algorithms. Here in 2012 we can expect more and more webhotels to start implementing this algorithm and in 1014 it is expected that around 90% of all webhotel providers will be using this method for calculating bandwidth use for the customers. We can expect to see a lot of the major clients move to a different webhotel if their current one isn’t upgrading to this function in order either get more bandwidth or save money on their current traffic use.

Math professor Paul Smith claims that this is one of the most interesting uses of math he has seen in recent time and is surprised that is has not been implemented before now, but suspected that a lot of webhosting companies was more than happy with their old model and didn’t want change anything as it would mean they could charge their customers less for the traffic they use.
There are still plenty of room for optimizations to these algorithms and in addition to more and more server optimizations also being implemented we would not be surprised to see the bandwidth cost reduced with about 50% over the next 2 years at most of the larger webhotel providers on the Internet. So if you are looking for a professionel webhosting solution, with daily backups, 99% uptime and enough space for all your files, stay away from most of the cheaper web hosting solutions and pay a little more for an enterprice solution. Ofte it’s only a few more bucks per month, but you get so much more for those extra money.

Source: billigwebhotel.net

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Students the world over have been told again and again by their parents to stick at the math and science subjects in school, as they typically lead to better career prospects and salary than the arts or humanities subjects. Is this a realistic assessment or just another example of misguided common perception when it comes to careers?

Essentially it depends on your perspective on what constitutes a successful career. Robert Kiyosaki, author of the famous wealth creation book Rich Dad Poor Dad, argues that anything more than basic education is unnecessary for wealth and prosperity. To give a little background on the book, Kiyosaki compares his two fathers (biological and step-father), one of which has a PhD and esteemed academic career but remains relatively poor, the other who had little education, but built great wealth through his own business. The author champions mindset and personal wealth creation over traditional schooling.

On the other hand, for the majority of students intend to go on into paid employment, having a math and science background certainly does help to keep their options open. For example, medical jobs are widely known to pay more than writing jobs- and earning the ultrasound technician salary requires the same amount of time in college as does copy writing, but medical training usually requires a background in high school math and science.

Many students reason that they hate math and science, and wouldn’t want a job that involved them anyway, but this is wishful thinking. There are many great jobs that do require math and science, which may seem boring and frustrating in the training phase but exciting and well-paying in the actual employment phase. It would be a shame to ditch the subject in high school, just to find out later on that your dream job requires those credits.

Unfortunately high school has a way of making these essential subjects seem distasteful to young people. It would help to think of them thus: rather than the “hard” or “boring” subjects, they are a study of the building blocks and logistics of life and the working universe. Try to see the practical applications of mathematical and scientific principles in the world around you. Try to think from the perspective of someone who hates their boring dead-end job, wishes they could understand the world around them better, and would feel lucky to be supported in spending all day learning about it. Out of high school, you may never again have the opportunity.

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You wouldn’t normally consider firewood and firewood storage, with all the chopping and manual labor involved, to be heavily influenced by math, but you would be wrong! Firewood is generally sold in a unit known as a ‘cord’. A cord of firewood is 128 cubic feet of firewood, which in general terms is a pile of firewood eight feet wide by four feet tall by four feet deep.

So when you’re purchasing your firewood rack you need to strongly consider how much is the most firewood you’ll be likely to purchase at any given point in time. You also need to consider the dimensions of your yard and how much space you want to take up for firewood storage.

It’s also essential to consider that a log of firewood that you intend to burn will not be four feet long (the depth in the calculation above); it is much more likely to be two feet long. So that naturally changes the other dimensions necessary to store a full cord of firewood. Most people do not advocate piling firewood higher than four feet, so that naturally means the width of the firewood rack needs to be adjusted.

Since the depth was halved, the width now needs to double to store the full 128 cubic feet. So in fact, if you want to store one cord, your firewood rack needs to be sixteen feet wide! That’s a lot of real estate space just for storing firewood. Because of that, most people purchase an eight foot wide rack that will store one half a cord of firewood (64 cubic feet).

Colin Williams

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