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Thread: Useless knowledge we're forced to learn, have never used and have now forgotten

  1. #91
    Join Date
    Jan 2006
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    Midlands, SC- SW VA
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    I'm not sure what is "useless knowledge?" If you mean knowledge that you do not put to use, as I suspect, then I couldn't disagree more. The process of acquiring knowledge is itself useful. When you put your mind to work, even if it is the act of memorizing or remembering, you are, in effect, using your brain. As with almost any other part of your body, disuse is unhealthy. Now, having said that, too many teachers concentrate on the "what" rather than the "why." One should use the "what" in order to explain the "why." That is where intellectual discipline enters.
    Personally, I think that college students who have not taken math (calculus or higher) or studied grammatical syntax have missed out on magnificent tools which provide mental discipline. There was a good reason for requiring Latin and calculus in high school, and it is painfully obvious that the end of such requirements has done our country a disservice.
    No one has the right to demand aid, but everyone has a moral obligation to provide it-William Godwin

  2. #92
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    Jul 2010
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    Northern Kentucky
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    what good is math. if the students can not write
    hand writing seems to be a dying art among the students of today schools

  3. #93
    Join Date
    Mar 2003
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    Upland CA
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    5,547
    Ray,

    Some public schools in my area have stopped teaching cursive handwriting. They teach the kids to print and that's it.

    Rick Potter

  4. #94
    Quote Originally Posted by "Shore retired all twenty-six batters he faced, for which he was credited with a [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfect_game"
    perfect game[/URL] until the 1990s."
    Wasn't the issue that all 27 batters were retired in order in a perfect game. Then it was changed to not letting any batter reach base. By that definition you can't walk a batter or hit them and still get a perfect game. Don't forget that ll the fielders have to play an errorless game also.
    Every morning I seize the day - but I lose my grip when I grab my coffee. <*//><

  5. #95
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    Jan 2010
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    Weston, CT
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    274
    mmmm have you considered decaf?

  6. #96
    Join Date
    Jan 2007
    Location
    Madison, WI
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    67
    One day long ago I was bored and decided to memorize "Pi" to 50 places. Never used it beyond the usual 3.14 but I'm still hoping!

  7. #97
    Join Date
    Jan 2007
    Location
    central PA
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    1,774
    Quote Originally Posted by Jon Knauft View Post
    One day long ago I was bored and decided to memorize "Pi" to 50 places. Never used it beyond the usual 3.14 but I'm still hoping!
    That's fuuny, as I decided to memorize the square root of 17 (no idea why), but I only went to about 10 decimals or so......
    Let's see: 4.1231056276 ... that's as much as I remember anymore
    that was at least 35 years ago. Funny how the brain works (or doesn't) sometimes.

  8. #98
    Join Date
    May 2008
    Location
    Newport News, VA
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    852
    I have followed this thread with interest.

    Going right back to the topic of the thread, the information that sticks in my mind was learning to interpolate logs. We learned to interpolate logs at a time when scientific calculators were dirt cheap. It used to drive me crazy that my math teacher was teaching me to interpolate from a log table, while my chem teacher just assumed we would punch it up on our calculators.

    I think this ranks up their with cursive writing. Cursive looks nice and you can write faster in cursive, but when it comes down to it, I can type far faster than I can write in script. Moreover, when I am at a chalkboard, I can print much faster than I can write in cursive.

    So, on the one hand, you have to look at the utility involved in these matters. Will society fail if we cannot interpolate logs or not write in cursive?

    And that brings us to one of the other major points in this thread. There are plenty of things that we learn that we may not individually realize the utility of, but we, as a society, need. I can honestly say that I have never interpolated a single log since 10th grade, but we need, as a society, to know what logs are and we need practitioners that know how they work. (Honestly, I am not certain I can make the same justification for cursive -- sorry.)

    Cheers,

    Chris
    If you only took one trip to the hardware store, you didn't do it right.

  9. #99
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    Sep 2006
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    Shenandoah Valley in Virginia
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    919
    Info that we consider useless today MAY be very important tomorrow.... I took typing in high school just to be in a class of all girls (1962)... 4 years later I was working for Western Union on computers and the simple (useless at the time I learned it) fact that I knew how to position my hands on a keyboard was very beneficial to know...
    (Incidentally, I was thrown out of typing class before the second semester)

  10. #100
    Join Date
    Jan 2010
    Location
    LA & SC neither one is Cali
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    Quote Originally Posted by Jon Knauft View Post
    One day long ago I was bored and decided to memorize "Pi" to 50 places. Never used it beyond the usual 3.14 but I'm still hoping!
    I never bothered past what my "best" calculator displayed 3.14159265

    Funny, I was hanging out at a freinds house and noticed he had a collection of slide rules, he still uses them and waxed poetic about the advantages over a calculator, I zoned out after 15 seconds...
    Of all the laws Brandolini's may be the most universally true.

    Deep thought for the day:

    Your bandsaw weighs more when you leave the spring compressed instead of relieving the tension.

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