Hem hem.

[stoney321]

Allow me to explain the (possibly not obvious) reason why this fails.



Tracey is right with her answer, barring the "always" statement regarding rational and irrational. There is an exception, and that would be Pi squared, which remains irrational.)

At first glance, I thought the test makers had it wrong, (the mathematical sentence is correct) when I saw her next comment was wrong, which I would call a trick question because only half of the problem is wonky. And of course, the commenters on the blog where this was posted LOL'd about "hahaha, women and math = fail!" and then continued to comment on how the actual MATH was wrong.

(1.4142135623730950488016887242097 + 2.8284271297461900976033774484194)² = 18. :D

HEY TEENAGE BOY:
FAIL.
Love, former FEMALE vice-president of Mu Alpha Theta.

Comments

[poshcat.livejournal.com]

Your math skillz always get me hot, because I'm so bad at math. I'm trying to help Grade 8 Kitten study for finals right now, and I am sooo lost. Fricking negative integers. Hee! Of course, this is just me and has no bearing on women and math as a whole. ::tickles your circumference::

[bitchygrrl.livejournal.com]

Oh they will know lots of failure in life if that is their attitude.

[stoney321.livejournal.com]

*rounds you to the nearest whole number*

Negative integers - there's a trick to it, but once you learn the rule, it becomes easy peasy. I LOVE this guy's math help site and send my kids to it all the time. Simple, to the point.

Speaking of points... *tangents your cosine*

(And evidently I'm fine with math, but suck at HTML...)

[stoney321.livejournal.com]

Especially in the dating arena...

[bitchygrrl.livejournal.com]

Mmmhmm. They will miss out on dating smart hotties like you.

[kseenaa.livejournal.com]

Even though you are speaking in a language I can't even understand (=math) it makes me happy you kicked the ass of the teenage boy! :-D

[a2zmom.livejournal.com]

What they meant was "She's a person" since most people don't realize that adding two square roots and then squaring them is not equivalent to adding two squared square-roots together. (If I could figure out how to print a square root sign, this would be a lot easier.)

[stoney321.livejournal.com]

I was JUST looking up some plants for you, R! Expect an email in a mo'. *G*

[dovil.livejournal.com]

NUMBERS ARE HARD!

*bakes muffins*

On this area unfortunately I'm a walking stereotype, thank goodness there's smart mathsy lady girl women like you out there.

[darlas-mom.livejournal.com]

I'm surprised a narrow-minded person like that didn't add "and not Asian." As long as he's going to perpetuate stereotypes in offensive jokes, he might as well go for the gold. ::snorts::

That said, I'm average at math. But I worship people who are good. ;-)

[stoney321.livejournal.com]

I firmly believe that girls our age and older tend to not excel in math(s) because girls weren't SUPPOSED to be proficient. I was fortunate to have lady math teachers who were great at explaining the language of math.

It's the language of love. Geeky, glasses-adjusting, IMing love.

[stoney321.livejournal.com]

He threw out an answer that made me rear back with the "huh?" And then I got a pencil.

:D

[stoney321.livejournal.com]

I need to relearn all the higher maths - I've completely forgotten how to do Calculus-level problems. But square roots? Pah. 'Tis child's play! :D

[lynnenne]

I notice that their current president, past president and president elect are ALSO female. Pardon me while I :P at all the failboys.

ILU.

[stoney321.livejournal.com]

Mu Alpha Theta was AWESOME. If only my school had had Mathletes...

ILU2.

[trinfaneb.livejournal.com]

Did you ever watch "Freaks and Geeks," which features the once and future high school mathlete Lindsey Weir? Great show and wonderful dvd set.

[a2zmom.livejournal.com]

I took 4 semesters of honors calc. All theory. I can just about integrate N to the X at this point. I have forgotten all of it! (We started with close to 100 people in that class. By the fourth semester, we were down to 12.)

[dwivian]

I was Mu Alpha Theta, too.... did the state competitions, and even went out of state.... loads of fun!

I'm compelled to answer the actual question, though....

( 2^½ + 8^½ )² is, in fact 18. But the comment was about squaring square roots and getting rational numbers. The reason she's wrong about the generalization (such as you can see it), relates to the middle term of a binomial expansion of ( a + b )². 2ab, in this case, is 2*2^½*8^½, which has the fortunate answer of 2*16^½, and that's rational. Since a*b is a square, the root is trivial. Other numbers won't necessarily be so kind. In fact, MOST other integers won't be quite as nice.

Her gender, which itself may be rational or irrational, aside, the problem is kinda neat.

[stoney321.livejournal.com]

I thought I addressed that the real question they intended was the "always irrational" element, which I think is tricky (given that this is a middle school level problem from .. and 8th grade exam?) because the mathematical equation is correct, but her statement is wrong.

We didn't get to do competitions when I was in - how fun! (Only two people were allowed into Ac Dec for math, and since the Pres. had a GPA of 5.1 and was a genius, I didn't get the A student slot. *G*)

[dwivian]

Yeah, but when I see a math problem, even if it was answered, I've got this compulsion to work it myself... I did too many of them in my youth... :)

Competitions are weird.... you do standard test types, then you go into a room where they put up a problem, and first two or three to solve it, correctly, get points. I never won the final award, but I was happy to have points at all. Some of those problems were brutal.

[samsom.livejournal.com]

I *almost* got that, and that scares me somehow.

[maybe1ce.livejournal.com]

Me no likey the math.

Me likey sexism even less.

[anelith.livejournal.com]

You are such a *star*! And a role model for kids like my friend C. I adore you.

*draws hearts around you*

I can't BELIEVE those people on the blog who thought this "She's a woman" answer was so funny. Makes me want to put my head down and cry.