Monday, November 26, 2012

Geometry

Today, we started a unit on the baffling topic of geometry. The source of the bafflement is the insistence on using the same letters to describe various things. For instance, the two points, A and B, can describe a line segment, AB, a line AB, or a ray AB. Worse yet, the ray AB is not to be confused with the ray BA, which is a different thing entirely. On the other hand, the line and line segment AB is the same thing as the line and line segment BA. Yeesh. Math is supposed to be precise. This doesn't seem precise at all. Why don't they use one set of letters to describe one thing.

And don't get me started about planes. While I like paper airplanes, the geometry planes are an entirely different matter.

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