this post was submitted on 23 Jan 2024
887 points (95.7% liked)

Memes

45581 readers
2118 users here now

Rules:

  1. Be civil and nice.
  2. Try not to excessively repost, as a rule of thumb, wait at least 2 months to do it if you have to.

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
 
top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] Mostly_Gristle@lemmy.world 118 points 9 months ago (11 children)

Student: "Hey, a shortcut! Let me first just walk around the long way so I can measure the length of the other two sides, multiply those lengths by themselves, add them together, and find out how much extra walking I've saved myself by taking the shortcut. Boy, this shortcut sure is saving me a lot of effort. Hooray Pythagoras!"

[–] fmstrat@lemmy.nowsci.com 41 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Just because you do something so crazy fast in your head it seems obvious, doesn't mean you didn't do the thing you did with the thing.

[–] lars@lemmy.sdf.org 25 points 9 months ago (3 children)

That’s beautiful who said that

[–] danc4498@lemmy.world 15 points 9 months ago

Couldn’t have said it the way he said it better if I said what he said myself.

[–] fmstrat@lemmy.nowsci.com 9 points 9 months ago (2 children)

That guy in that place with the thing that time.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] Anticorp@lemmy.world 8 points 9 months ago
[–] mexicancartel@lemmy.dbzer0.com 21 points 9 months ago (1 children)

The hypotnuse is shorter than the other two sides combined. That is the usage here though

[–] CileTheSane@lemmy.ca 52 points 9 months ago (1 children)

"the shortest distance between two points is a straight line" is what is being used here. It forming a triangle is incidental.

[–] mexicancartel@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 points 9 months ago

Ah yes some euclidean space

load more comments (9 replies)
[–] DanglingFury@lemmy.world 74 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (4 children)

There's a college in Chicago, i think it's IIT maybe, that used aerial photography to map out the student cow paths, then they redid all the sidewalks to incorporate those paths.

Edit: they ended up adding a building in a grassy area and maintained all the hall/walkways of the building in line with the sidewalks/cowpaths. Kinda neat.

[–] sverit@feddit.de 60 points 9 months ago (3 children)
[–] Anticorp@lemmy.world 8 points 9 months ago
[–] Kase@lemmy.world 6 points 9 months ago

My old college looked a lot like that! I wouldn't be surprised if they were copying their idea

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] Crashumbc@lemmy.world 16 points 9 months ago

This has happened at a LOT of colleges. Penn State's quad is crisscrossed with paths that they paved.

[–] Sabre363@sh.itjust.works 14 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I'd be surprised if students didn't immediately make new paths off the new sidewalks

[–] kameecoding@lemmy.world 25 points 9 months ago (4 children)

why would they, desire paths happen because the initial pavements aren't designed well.

[–] volvoxvsmarla@lemm.ee 13 points 9 months ago (2 children)

We had that in my local park. There was a huge field that everyone walked through because it was much quicker than going around. So they finally made a sidewalk there (not with tarmac though, more like gravel and sand mix). Just a couple of weeks later there was a new path just parallel to this one. My guess is the problem was that the field was a bit hole shaped (sorry I don't know a better term in English) and this, as well just the nature of the sidewalk, led to it accumulating water puddles, and also it just turned into sandy/stoney mud when it rained. For bikes it was also just more comfortable to ride over the grass than over gravel. But it still felt like an asshole move.

[–] mindbleach@sh.itjust.works 5 points 9 months ago
load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (3 replies)
[–] Trollivier@sh.itjust.works 13 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

I love this type of urbanism. Some cities also study how cars behave in winter by looking at the tracks in the street, and they realized cars actually needed much less room on street corners than they thought.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] cashews_best_nut@lemmy.world 47 points 9 months ago (4 children)

I wish I was taught about the usefulness of maths growing up. When I did A-level with differentition and integration I quickly forgot as I didn't see a point in it.

At about 35 someone mentioned diff and int are useful for loan repayment calculations, savings and mortgages.

Blew my fucking mind cos those are useful!

[–] thehatfox@lemmy.world 24 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

That's one of the big problems with maths teaching in the UK, it's almost actively hostile to giving any sort of context.

When a subject is reduced to a chore done for its own sake it's no wonder most students don't develop a passion or interest in it.

[–] lolcatnip@reddthat.com 11 points 9 months ago (7 children)

In the US it's common to give students "word problems" that describe a scenario and ask them to answer a question that requires applying whatever math they're studying at the time. Students hate them and criticize the problems for being unrealistic, but I think they really just hate word problems because because they find them difficult. To me that means they need more word problems so they can actually get used to thinking about how math relates to the real world.

load more comments (7 replies)
[–] TimeSquirrel@kbin.social 19 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Hated Algebra in high school. Then years later got into programming. It's all algebra. Variables, variables everywhere.

[–] lhamil64@programming.dev 18 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Ehh I wouldn't say variables in programming are all that similar to variables in algebra. In a programming language, variables typically are just a name for some data. Whereas in algebra, they are placeholders for unknown values.

[–] emergencyfood@sh.itjust.works 8 points 9 months ago

Machine Learning is basically a lot of linear algebra, which is mathematically equivalent to solving simultaneous equations.

[–] onion@feddit.de 9 points 9 months ago (1 children)

The other use is as a door-opener; Learning these maths fundamentals enables you to pursue a stem degree

[–] cashews_best_nut@lemmy.world 11 points 9 months ago (6 children)

as a door-opener

You say that but they still need to teach you the "why". For example I did A-level maths which was a door to learning discrete maths in uni. Matrices, graphs, etc.

In 20yrs as a software dev I never used any of it. Only needed basic arithmetic.

To this day I've got no bloody clue what the point of matrices are.

[–] lobut@lemmy.ca 7 points 9 months ago

I used them in computer graphics and game programming. As a regular software dev, not so much.

load more comments (5 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] Doublepluskirk@lemmy.world 42 points 9 months ago (2 children)

One of my favourite names for anything is these being called 'desire lines'. It's so whimsical.

[–] statingtheobvious@lemmy.world 57 points 9 months ago (3 children)

Indeed! “Desire paths” is the name I heard. There’s a community, too: !desire_paths@sh.itjust.works

[–] Aussiemandeus@aussie.zone 15 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (2 children)

Unfortunately theres no posts for 4 months.

Time to go get myself so photos

[–] BossDj@lemm.ee 8 points 9 months ago

If you're not opposed to stealing from Reddit, desire paths was one of my favorite subs before the shitification

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] 7eter@lemmy.ml 6 points 9 months ago

thats a lovely community - thanks!

[–] PhreakyByNature@feddit.uk 5 points 9 months ago

Now my migration to Lemmy feels complete.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] RunAroundDesertYou@lemmy.world 38 points 9 months ago (6 children)

Idk, this really doesn't have to do anything with Pythagora's Theorem

[–] Transporter_Room_3@startrek.website 22 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Beyond the general "hehe funny meme" Some seem to think there's some kind of math going on in people's heads other than "shortcut"

The knowledge of Pythagoras or math doesn't factor in here at all. Toddlers do this.

Having the knowledge just gives you fancy words for the resulting coincidental shape.

[–] TimeSquirrel@kbin.social 6 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Having the knowledge just gives you fancy words for the resulting coincidental shape.

Isn't that basically all of physics? Just an abstract concept to describe something that sort of fits the rules we extrapolated from observations so far.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] Kruemel@feddit.de 8 points 9 months ago (2 children)

The way is sqr(2)=1.4 instead of 2.

[–] 7eter@feddit.de 34 points 9 months ago
[–] XTL@sopuli.xyz 9 points 9 months ago

It's also a straight line between points, so nobody really cares just how much shorter it is.

[–] yetAnotherUser@feddit.de 7 points 9 months ago

Yeah, it's just the triangle inequality.

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] YeetPics@mander.xyz 30 points 9 months ago (2 children)

That footpath looks like a brachistochrone curve. Interesting.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] rainerloeten@lemmy.world 20 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (2 children)

I think this is more a case of the triangle inequality in metric spaces, as you don't have to calculate any particular edge to see the shortcut, as well as that it applies to any even non-rectangular triangle.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] lseif@sopuli.xyz 20 points 9 months ago (3 children)

all the student needs to know is c<a+b, not the actual formula or theory behind it

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] eestileib@sh.itjust.works 17 points 9 months ago

Triangle Inequality also!

[–] Gestrid@lemmy.ca 14 points 9 months ago (4 children)

Now, I'm wondering if we have a thriving Desire Paths (that's what these paths are called) community somewhere on here.

load more comments (4 replies)
[–] KpntAutismus@lemmy.world 10 points 9 months ago (3 children)

this is actually the one thing i am glad to have learned in math class. saves me a lot of guesswork sometimes.

load more comments (3 replies)
load more comments
view more: next ›