Comics I Don’t Understand

Mathamatically Synchronicitous

Cidu Bill on Jan 26th 2009

From Jeremy’s Sunday funnies

Filed in Bill Amend, Bill Bickel, Fox Trot, Luann, comic strips, comics, humor, synchronicity | 13 responses so far

13 Responses to “Mathamatically Synchronicitous”

Cidu Bill Jan 27th 2009 at 12:19 am 1

Of course the fallacy in the Fox Trot is that unless Paige can show her work, the teacher probably won’t give her credit for the answer. There are kids who just “get” the answers to these questions, and the school system isn’t designed to deal with them.
Arvy Jan 27th 2009 at 12:50 am 2

Actually Bill, the real fallacy is in the other strip. Nobody talks like that. It sounds like that comic was written by a textbook editor.

As a teacher (and a pretty progressive one, who is accepting of all different learning styles), I can make a case for asking Paige to show her work - and no, it’s not about just making sure she isn’t cheating.
Powers Jan 27th 2009 at 07:48 am 3

Bill, what’s the fallacy? Peter’s just trying to show Paige that she’s not really incapable of doing math. I don’t see anything fallacious in that.

Or did you mean “irony”?
Lola Jan 27th 2009 at 07:58 am 4

ooooooh, here we go. My mom used to warn me that there were three things you should never bring up ….. religion, politics, and what constitutes irony. By her standards, Morissette is a terrorist.
Chaz Larson Jan 27th 2009 at 10:42 am 5

It’s not about showing work. Paige reads the original problem with X and Y and sees it as an incomprehensible mess, complaining that she can’t do math.

Peter recasts the problem; X as shirts, Y as sweaters, and now, since the problem has relevance to her and her life, she solves it instantly. She doesn’t realize the two are the same problem. She still thinks she doesn’t know how to do math.
Brent Jan 27th 2009 at 12:32 pm 6

Chaz, the bit about showing work is an aside… this isn’t a CIDU.

The thing about not being able to show work is that on a test, is that will only get you 1 of 3-5 marks. Showing your work and getting the answer wrong will typically do better (unless you’re completely wrong from the start). Sometimes, if you know enough of the material (but not exactly what you should be doing) you can BS an answer and score a few points. Multi-point Math questions and English essay questions are alike that way… you can do surprisingly well with a few scraps of knowledge and a quick wit.

Looking at this system, my math intuition instantly says “multiples of 15″. And a quick check of the likely culprits reveals the answer.

But that’s not going to help me when the numbers aren’t so nice as to suggest the answer… at that point I need to know how to go about solving equations. And that’s what they test you on… it would be a mighty long test if they put down all possible forms of question for the given material just to test to see if a person can solve all of them (intuition or not). It’s much easier to make people show that they know methods that can solve any sort of question on the topic… even if it means doing an insane amount of work for an answer that’s trivial. In 2nd year Statistics, one assignment had us doing a page and a half of integration to calculate a mean that was obvious… it was an exercise in applying Calculus, not getting a number.
Elyrest Jan 27th 2009 at 01:14 pm 7

Oh Brent, now my head hurts and that’s not ironic.
Mark Jones Jan 27th 2009 at 01:57 pm 8

Oh, great, all you other commenters let me be the anal-retentive jerk who points out that “mathematically” is misspelled in the title. Sorry, Bill…
ty Jan 27th 2009 at 04:29 pm 9

What strikes me is the contrast between the clever structure of the Foxtrot strip with the clumsiness of Luann.
Dan Jan 27th 2009 at 05:24 pm 10

They both make sense (of course), but I think the second one has the weaker punchline. Nice setup, though.
Mark in Boston Jan 27th 2009 at 11:14 pm 11

I remember a FoxTrot strip where Jason (Paige’s math-obsessed little brother) finds the area of Farmer Brown’s rectangular field using calculus.
Mark Jones Jan 27th 2009 at 11:50 pm 12

I thought about this some more, and I think that showing work wouldn’t actually be a problem for Paige–after all, she *does* understand how to do the math. Her problem is that she doesn’t understand the relationship between the scenario Peter spelled out and the equation.

Once she gets that x = shirt and y = sweater, she wouldn’t have a problem.
CitizenGeorge Feb 8th 2009 at 06:21 am 13

I think I remember that Jason uses algebra, not calculus, to determine the area. Calculus would pointless. What I like about FoxTrot is the utter silliness and the humanity of the characters (and the “boxes-and-circles” drawing). The strip took a bit of getting used to (this, from someone who spent years learning to appreciate Drabble), but I usually find great enjoyment in it (I failed algebra the first time through, by the way). The LuAnn strip is clumsy. I have never been able to get into it.