Academic priorities 245

solution was

So, suppose we have the equation:

12x^2 - 37x - 31

I take it that you would find the solution 37 +-- sqrt(2857) -24 adequate?

I would consider that form of an answer to be a correct answer to such a question and I wouldn't really have a problem with questions that are essentially asking for the quadratic formula and a little arithematic.

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I thought we were talking about matriculation from high school, i.e. 12th grade?

have than

Continuity, I'd expect to see around junior or senior year of high school.

I

Los Alamos was 50 years ago, and I don't mean to trivialize what was done, because it was quite impressive. However, today the ability to do such computations would be buttisted by a computer. IMHO in that situation, a good understanding of mathematics (and numerical analysis) is far more important than being able to grind through stuff in your head. Obviously, it's great if someone can compute solutions of some nasty equations, but it isn't going to substantially advance our knowledge. Maybe if you can compute the solutions to various PDEs, then it might be interesting...

or developing that teachers. school.

I thought we were talking about kids graduating from high school on to college?

quadratic for.

Knowing the name of something is not so important as understanding it, that being said, lack of basic arithemetic skills is very disturbing. I don't have any numbers on these things, do you?

David