What's The Purpose Of Learning High School Level Math?

Hi, this is De Alowski for that question and answer series. Somebody wrote in, "What's the purpose of learning high school level math?" I don't know. I think cuz otherwise, you know, you'll end up using your time poorly. So, now I let's be fair. If you're considering becoming an engineer or uh some sort of a profession where you need math, I understand 100% why you need these kind of things. I guess if you're going to be a computer programmer, etc., you know, but um uh there are certain gumaras where it'll definitely help you when you come to the gum and arran where it talks about making a circle around the city and then squaring it, you know, and how to figure out uh the circumference versus the area. I'm sure that would definitely come in handy. I know if you want to figure out uh the various permutations of letters like the yud k vk the way you calculate the different combinations the formula 1 * 2 * 3 * 4 whereas if you wanted to do l kim it would be 1 2 3 * 4 * 5 it means 125 different combinations so uh some of these things will help um I'm not sure why you need the geometric proofs I have been in uh you know education for close to 50 years and I've been asked many questions over the years but never did anyone ever ask me are the base angles of an isosesles triangle congruent to which I would respond yes and then they'd say to me but can you prove it and I'd say yes I can prove it three ways I can drop line AD and bisect angle A and then use side angle side Um, I could uh bict the line uh BC and then I have side side. Uh, I could do uh it doesn't matter. The point is I've never needed this. So, there are definitely areas, but to be fair, I didn't go into the um into the hard sciences, you know, that require math and science. I I went much more into uh you know the the areas that require people skills and there are people who may have mastered uh uh mathematics and aren't very good at uh English um speaking in composition or in history or things like that that I like to think that I did pretty well in. So uh um in England it's very interesting in England they have what are called the O levels and the A levels. So when you reach a certain point in high school so you take the O levels and that's the basic. If you want to continue onwards you take the A levels and you're only going to take the courses that you think you might need depending on what you plan on doing in life. So that definitely would make uh make a difference. Um, you could argue that all knowledge is good for you and it sharpens your mind and uh, you know, it'll help you in um, it'll help you in gam or in kilam or in other areas like that. It could very well be. Um, but uh, I don't know. Any equation that begins with solve for x, I'm I'm out. I I don't have x. I don't need x. I'm doing quite fine. But there is a concept of what they used to call a liberal arts education where you should know everything. The more that you're exposed to, knowledge can only help you. But obviously it all depends on where you're going and what you're going to use it for. Um, there was a movie called Peggy Sue gets Married and she basically gets hit on the head and she wakes up and she's a teenager again and she's in high school and they're taking some kind of a math test, you know, and she hands in a blank paper and they said, "What did you do, Peggy Sue?" And she says, "I know for a fact I'm never going to need this, but you don't know. You don't know what you're going to need." You know, I remember they had this problem said to a kid, you have three apples and you have to divide it among eight people. What do you do? He says, make applesauce. Anyway, uh so uh so like I say, all knowledge is valuable, but if you're saying, do I need it? It really depends on what you decide to do in life. And since we don't always know where our interests lie, it's good to study many different things.