[COFF] [TUHS] Photos of University Computer Labs - now off topic
Dr Iain Maoileoin
iain at csp-partnership.co.uk
Fri Dec 24 05:09:18 AEST 2021
On 12/23/21 6:02 PM, John Cowan wrote:
> C _arithmetic_ meant 'number theory', and so the part concerned with
> the computation of "ambition, distraction, uglification, and derision"
> (Lewis Carroll) was _elementary arithmetic_. (Before that it was
> _algorism_.) When _higher arithmetic_ got its own name, the
> _elementary_ part was dropped in accordance with Grice's Maxim of
> Quantity ("be as informative as you can, giving as much information as
> necessary, but no more"). This did not happen to _algebra_, which
> still can mean either elementary or abstract algebra, still less to
> _geometry_.
>
> In addition, from the teacher's viewpoint school mathematics is a
> continuum, including the elementary parts of arithmetic, algebra,
> geometry, trigonometry, and in recent times probability theory and
Hey that was 50 years ago! topics like Matrices, subjects like Algebra,
Geometry, so things like Integration+ Differentiation, integration by
parts, simple statistics etc.
Arithmetic was of the form "A customer buys 2 pairs of gloves at 1 and
6pence halfpenny per pair and a hat for a crown. She pays with a
guinea; what is the smallest number of coins in change you can give
her." (a guinea was 21shillings, 12 pence in a shilling, a crown was 5
shillings etc etc). I think I would be better called mental
arithmetic. We had ounces and pounds, and stones and hundredweight.
Inches, hands, feet, yards, chains, furlongs, miles etc. So perhaps
arithmetic was a more required learning?
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