Math Made Simple
by DR Wolfe
Introduction:
I was listening to a liberal talk show one day when I heard a angry, young black man call in, and say “Math is racist!”
And I thought how sad. I’ve always loved math, and thought how glad I was that math came easy to me. But I wish I could tell this young man that math isn’t racist, but maybe some people who teach math seem racist. Or sometimes, like Mr. Forester from Anchor Bay, they really are bigots. So from personal experience I can understand why anyone would feel this way.
Math instructors are usually arrogant, and usually able-bodied white males. Along with this, the fact that studying math as a career can instill this feeling of superiority over others, who don’t understand math. I suspect most teachers would try very hard to hide this self-confidence and superiority. But to most struggling student, hoping that the problem would be explained more simply so that they can understand, will feel this supremacy from their teacher, whether is was an able-bodied white man, or anyone else.
When I was a student at the University of Central Florida in Orlando I had a trigonometry teacher who like to hit the bottle before class. I would always have questions about the lesson after class, so I got to smell his breath up close. And even though it was a 7:00 a.m. class, it became clear he liked to drink in the early mornings.
And I wouldn’t mind, if it made him more gregarious and easier to talk to, since I usually had a good relationship with most of my math teachers. Maybe he hadn’t had enough to drink to overcome his inhibitions. Honestly, as someone who smokes marijuana regularly, I don’t know and I shouldn’t complain to much, without knowing why he needed to drink before class.
It made him more introverted, and he got more morose as the semester went on. Eventually he became unapproachable, so I dropped the class after three or four weeks. And as a consequence, I had to unfortunately let my very attractive Russian trig tutor go. And then I changed my major again, and no longer needed to take trigonometry. And a few years later I passed trigonometry with an “A”, at a different university.
So let me say, math is not racist, or arrogant, or better than any one else, although some of the math teachers you’ve had may have been jerks. If you feels this way, that math is stupid, I think it’s because nobody’s ever explained it in a simple, understandable way. Because math and chemistry are in everything.
You see since I’m completely blind, and always tried to break things down to their simplest form in my mind, I, perhaps arrogantly, think I can explain it better than most. For example, without using any diagrams, since diagrams that aren’t drawn by you only serve to confuse you, I can help you understand these problems. I think I can verbally explain how most important basic math concepts work. And I promise to let you draw all the diagrams we need, while I explain.
I would challenge you to read this first chapter before putting this math book aside. Hopefully, I can make it fun, or at least interesting. For example, since I believe cannabis and sex workers should be legal for every adult, I will use many examples from these two industries to explain each problem.
While my degree isn’t in mathematics, I’ve taken over twenty math courses, from computer math to statistics, from trigonometry to calculus, and there is no math book that explains the problem verbally, without diagrams and charts. They say people need these graphics to visualize math, but I don’t think that’s true, at least not with older kids and adults. And if you are using an audio book, that’s even better!
So I promise, other than a few symbols, I’ll never use a chart or table, or any other type of graphic to explain how to solve a problem. And sometimes it can be fun to solve math problems, and to figure out something as complicated as calculus, which I will explain in the last chapter.
So I hope you will forgive me for the tital if you think it’s disrespectful, But I believe the content of this book will show you it’s true character, to educate others. And what is more important?
If you want to learn math, perhaps this book will help you to better understand basic mathematics, in a fun and entertaining way.
Grab a piece of paper and preferably a pencil and eraser, or just something to write with, and let’s get started!