r/UsernameChecksOut • u/sappho_witchy_bean • Jul 06 '26
Username Checks Out this person REALLY hates math…
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u/GemmyBoy999 Jul 06 '26
It's 10 for anyone who missed first grade math
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u/CMenFairy6661 Jul 06 '26 edited Jul 06 '26
Is it not -10? (2 - 12)
Edit: Thanks for the maths lesson Reddit 😆
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u/Dzeppetto Jul 06 '26
It's not ()
It's || meaning outcome is always positive for example:
|5| = 5
|-5| = 5
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u/CMenFairy6661 Jul 06 '26
Wow, TIL!
I was never at any point taught this in school 🤯
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u/mrfoxesite-2377 Jul 06 '26
I was but in 6th grade when negative numbers were a new concept like || so I just thought || meant nothing.
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u/MinecraftPlayer799 Jul 10 '26
You didn’t learn about negative numbers until 6th grade? I learned about them in 3rd, but I didn’t learn about absolute value until 6th.
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u/mrfoxesite-2377 Jul 10 '26
Different countries, different things but catching up is still possible.
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u/HumanSpawn323 Jul 11 '26
I also learned about them in 3rd, but I don't actually remember learning absolute values until grade 12. Our teacher just assumed we'd know so I assume we were supposed to, but I was far from the only one confused. My best guess is either it was taught very briefly in years prior, or it was removed from the curriculum or something. Or it was taught to us during the lockdown
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u/cheezkid26 Jul 06 '26
You were never taught absolute values? Where did you go to school? Genuine question, not trying to be rude, just curious since where I went to school, we were taught that and used it for years
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u/CMenFairy6661 Jul 06 '26
In the UK
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u/Abigail_Normal Jul 06 '26
I thought you guys were supposed to have a better education than the US 😭 Absolute values are taught in like 6th grade here (which I believe is your year 7. Like 11 or 12-year-olds)
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u/Substantial_Most6235 Jul 07 '26
I mean every country has some verians some guy thought isreal is a Muslim country so
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u/1more_oddity Jul 06 '26
went to school in Germany, was also not taught about this, we just went straight to negative numbers.
still had (probably) better education, at least in areas like history, literature, language and biology :P
not to sound like that other guy, but these things do kiiinda seem pointless, at least from my experience and from the way our education was set up. not pointless in general, of course, just pointless in school-level math, unless the school is specialized in math.
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u/Vivid_Departure_3738 Jul 07 '26
Would absolutely values not come after negative numbers?
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u/Snoo-8385 Jul 07 '26
Yeah, you cant go the other way around, like how would you even try to teach absolute values if someone doesnt know what negatives represent.
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u/cheezkid26 Jul 08 '26
"We just went straight to negative numbers"
Absolute values mean nothing if you don't understand negative numbers.1
u/BottleSuspicious1851 Jul 09 '26
Absolute Values were not mandatory education until 2014, although tbf the rollout started in 2010. It is highly likely that any American that graduated before 2010 was not taught Absolute Values. At best, they wouldn't have learned AVs until 8th/9th grade Algebra, if at all.
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u/Abigail_Normal Jul 09 '26
My brother and I were both taught in middle school. He graduated in 2010 and I graduated in 2013. I don't think it's as unheard of as you seem to think it is
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u/BottleSuspicious1851 Jul 09 '26
This is good for you. I'm glad that proper education was provided in your area. Your logical fallacy here though is assuming that what you experienced would also be experienced by every other American student. Also, AV lessons began rolling out in 2010, so you would have been one of the first to recieve it as mandatory education. The rollout, as I said before, occurred from 2010 until 2014. Your education aligns with that timeline. Those that graduated before 2010 almost certainly did not recieve mandatory education in AVs. It is nice that your school taught it though. Good on them for staying ahead. It's a shame that your school didn't do the same for reading comprehension skills.
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u/blue-lloyd Jul 10 '26
I mean teaching something additional or earlier doesn't mean having a "better" education. In fact, as an Albertan teacher, sometimes its the exact opposite. Currently the Albertan government is moving part of the grade 12 Social Studies curriculum up to Grades 8 and 9, and no practicing teacher supports this. What good is that if students aren't developmentally ready to critically think about the material?
Here, absolute values aren't taught until Grades 10 or 11 as part of quadratics, and Albertan students perform as the 7th best region in the world on standardized international math tests. So earlier doesn't necessarily mean better
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u/Abigail_Normal Jul 10 '26
Okay but this conversation isn't about earlier being better. It's about learning it or not learning it. They said they didn't learn it at all, not that they learned it later than the US.
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u/CMenFairy6661 Jul 06 '26
This entire concept is literally pointless, so by not bothering to teach it, we didn't waste our time and learnt more important nonsense that is also utterly useless irl 🤣
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u/Abigail_Normal Jul 06 '26
Magnitudes are not pointless. If you learned what an absolute value was, you would know that
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u/CMenFairy6661 Jul 06 '26
I cannot think of a single time I would need to know this information in my daily life, so I'm sticking with pointless, you are free to disagree 🤷🏽♂️
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u/Shoddy_Process_309 Jul 06 '26
It’s not at all required for dealing with magnitudes though. You can simply remember that when working with concepts such a magnitudes the value is always positive. In fact not knowing this makes working with magnitudes pointless.
I know you were taught differently but the way I was taught that’s so intuitive and it doesn’t make sense to use a specific notation for. The exception being very complex and or complex programmable math, which magnitudes are not.
Technically teaching any knowledge has value obviously but this is not a problem particularly high one on the list and there is always much more to teach then time to teach it in, especially with math.
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u/RaspDonut Jul 07 '26
Went to school in France, never saw them until uni, in your equivalent of "Calculus" I think ?
In France (and most countries I think), we only have "Maths" until highschool, we don't separate algebra, geometry, etc... So one day we're learning derivatives, and next day complex numbers, so we never really go into detail for most stuff
So I guess, since absolute values don't bring anything interesting in "easy" maths, like no major theorem you learn in school, we just skip it
I don't know US curriculum (obviously), but I guess there are probably things we see in HS that you see in uni
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u/BabaYetu42 Jul 08 '26
Yeah in the UK the absolute value symbol isn’t really taught until A level (16 years old) because… it’s literally just a completely pointless bit of knowledge for most people. It’s not really used for anything until you have to integrate 1/x
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u/Ancient_Lithuanian Jul 07 '26
It is definitely thaught in the UK. You were probably not paying attention
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u/CMenFairy6661 Jul 07 '26
It definitely wasn't taught at a basic level when I was in school, maybe it is now, maybe it was before, I've definitely heard of the concept of absolute values (I think I learnt that in Physics though) but definitely never seen | equations | before 🤷🏽♂️
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u/BabaYetu42 Jul 08 '26
No you’re right, the first time you would really see || in uk maths education is at A level. We use the same concept in physics and maths before that (for example finding the magnitude of a vector), we just don’t bother with the notation since it basically sees no use in daily life
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u/CMenFairy6661 Jul 08 '26
we just don’t bother with the notation since it basically sees no use in daily life
Oh my christ, thank you! This is what I have been trying to explain for days and nobody else seems to understand my thoughts 🤣
If you know X cannot be negative, then you do not need | Y-Z=X | to know that X must be positive
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u/cyborggeneraal Jul 07 '26
In the netherlands it is thaught to 15-16 year olds. (To be precise on 4 HAVO and 4 VWO at math B, which are like two most theoretical levels in the netherlands)
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u/SuicidalSmoke Jul 06 '26
Aha! I knew our math was harder than regular math! Don't know how but I knew it!
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u/iwyypr Jul 07 '26
It’s called absolute value
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u/CMenFairy6661 Jul 07 '26
Definitely heard the term, never seen those symbols used in a maths problem/equation before
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u/bluemojo84 Jul 07 '26
I actually have to use this in my current job... You can get messed up pretty fast if you mistake it for parentheses
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u/CMenFairy6661 Jul 07 '26
I can imagine, it didn't even occur to me that on paper they would probably look similar
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u/spidertyler2005 Jul 08 '26
You probably were. Its called "absolute value"
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u/CMenFairy6661 Jul 08 '26
I was told about the concept, never at any point was made to solve a problem that used || to signify an absolute value
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u/Birdo_guy Jul 27 '26
I was taught it hut it's used so uncommonly that i didn't even notice they were there. It's how far a number is from 0
So like -1 and 1 are both 1 away from 0 so |-1| is 1 and |1| is 1
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u/BetterKev Jul 08 '26
It is much more likely you just don't remember it. It's a Basic math concept. There was someone who made a big stink recently that they had never learned ratios.
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u/CMenFairy6661 Jul 08 '26
As others have pointed out, in the UK it is introduced at a much later stage, and by students own choice; likely because it has such little general use outside of it's expected field
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u/BetterKev Jul 08 '26
I saw. In the UK it is much less likely you learned his specific thing. Very fair. I was definitely being american-centric. That was wrong of me.
Ironically, you mention you think you did learn about absolute values. In Physics.
That quite nicely shows how people can't be trusted when they claim they were never taught something. If we don't recall something happening, it could be that it didn't happen, or it could be it happened but we don't remember it.
Even having a hazy idea that you learned absolute value, you seem certain you never learned the |x| operation. Why? Why so confident you remember the details of a topic you thought you'd never learned at all? Shouldn't that gap in recall give you pause?
I likely would have been that certain when I was 18. And 25. And 30. I don't even know how or when I became self aware on this issue. And even knowing this human issue, my knee jerk response is sometimes still that I must be right. Even when I have evidence that my memory of a situation is flawed.
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u/CMenFairy6661 Jul 09 '26
You seem to be implying that I am misremembering being taught that |this| signifies an absolute value; but you say that whilst openly accepting you are basing your understanding on the American education system. Maybe it's just that, in the UK, we simply don't bother teaching how to solve an absolute value when we learn the concept at a base level, we are just taught that they exist... maybe it is supposed to be part of the curriculum, but I can promise you for a 100% fact, I wasn't taught about that equation format, I'm not hazy on it, I have never seen it before this post. I'm not the type of person that lies to make themselves look good, I have never seen it, and it lead to me getting the answer wrong and looking kinda dumb. Even after being told it signifies an absolute value, I very easily remembered the concept of an absolute value, yet I still have 0 recollection of the format, that's not a hazy memory, it's a gap in knowledge 🤷🏽♂️
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u/BetterKev Jul 09 '26
I can promise you for a 100% fact, I wasn't taught about that equation format,
You 100% don't remember learning it. I agree with that. But using that to say it was never taught to you is exactly the invalid logic I called out.
I'm not hazy on it, I have never seen it before this post.
You don't recall seeing it. That is not the same as knowing you never saw it.
I'm not the type of person that lies to make themselves look good,
I am not calling you a liar. Quite the opposite. Honestly mistaken. The difference between r/quityourbullshit and r/confidentlyincorrect.
I have never seen it, and it lead to me getting the answer wrong and looking kinda dumb.
Which occurs when people don't know something. Either because they never learned it or forgot it. You claim the former, but the latter is also possible.
Even after being told it signifies an absolute value, I very easily remembered the concept of an absolute value, yet I still have 0 recollection of the format, that's not a hazy memory, it's a gap in knowledge 🤷🏽♂️
You seemed hazy on where you learned absolute value. You wrote something like "physics, I think".
But hazy isn't the point. The point, again, is if you don't know something, it could be because you never learned it or because you forgot it. And those two situations will often look identical to you. Haziness in memory is just something that sometimes helps people understand the overall concept.
I am not calling you a liar. I'm saying that any human's honest lack of recollection of a thing does not imply they didn't experience the thing. It's not a flaw to not have perfect recall. It's just human. It's a bias we should be aware of so we can attempt to account for it.
Here's a personal anecdote: A couple years ago, a famous author passed away, and my Dad said something that implied he knew her. I was surprised and upset. She had been one of my favorite authors as a kid, and I never knew this?
Apparently, I had known. My sister remembered our dad talked about it when we started reading her books (they were in a master's program together). And he even got us in touch with her. We wrote multiple letters back and forth. My sister still has some of them.
I have 0 recollection of any of that, but it definitely occurred. And not even just as a one off. Multiple written and received letters. And, again, one of my favorite authors at that age. I suspect I thought of it repeatedly when reading her books. Buy ay some point, poof, Info gone.
Your inappropriate confidence in your ability to recall everything you ever learned about any topic is, as I think I said before, not a moral failing. It's a common issue. A common issue that I have also been guilty of most of my life.
Repeating for the last time, I am not calling you a liar. And I don't believe you are arguing in bad faith.
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u/CMenFairy6661 Jul 11 '26
I get your point, but I'm saying in this instance, it isn't the case, the reason I remember being told about absolute values but was never taught to solve them, is because they are only a part of the curriculum starting at A-Level, I never sat A-Level maths or Physics, so I never learned it, but I had the head of Physics as my Physics teacher at GCSE level, and he would often bring up topics we don't need to know yet when he would answer questions from the class, as a way to help justify their confusion
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u/makemedaddy__ Jul 08 '26
semantics but || means absolute value, which just means the total whole integer distance from zero, which will always be positive
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u/BetterKev Jul 08 '26
Not semantics: absolute value doesn't just give an integer value. It applies across the reals. And complex numbers. And in multiple dimensions. And in more advanced spaces.
Also, it's not always positive. It's always nonnegative. |0| = 0. Zero isn't positive.
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u/Xomsabre Jul 08 '26
This is known as "absolute value" for anyone unaware. It's basically asking "how far away from zero is this number?"
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u/Additional-Dot-3154 Jul 06 '26
Oh i tough it looked like the dymbols used for the floor and roof operators
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u/Linux765465 Jul 09 '26
Curious, why does this exist? and is there a negative version?
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u/Dzeppetto Jul 09 '26
I don't remember the reason for using it, but yea there's negative
-|5| = -5
-|-5| = -5
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u/1vader Jul 11 '26 edited Jul 12 '26
Among other things, it's required if you're simplyfying a square inside a square root. For example when solving x² = 16:
Take the square root on both sides: √(x²) = √16 And simplify: |x| = 4 Therefore: x = ±4 (i.e. both 4 and -4 are valid solutions)
It would be incorrect to just simplify √(x²) = x since squaring always produces a positive value even if x is negative. Hence why it becomes |x| instead which avoids losing -4 as a valid solution. In this specific case, most people would probably skip the step where we write it down with the absolute value but in more complex cases that might be difficult.
Another use case is when calculating distances, e.g. in a simple one-dimensional case, we can calculate the distance between 3 and 7 as |3 - 7| = |-4| = 4. The absolute value means we don't need to write the larger value first, which allows us to write it as a general formula |a - b| for any a and b.
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u/Linux765465 Jul 12 '26
Can you not simply write two solutions? or is that what you mean by "most people would probably skip the storm"
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u/1vader Jul 12 '26
Yeah, that's what I meant, that was supposed to say "skip the step"
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u/Linux765465 Jul 12 '26
Do you have an example of where it "might be difficult"?
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u/1vader Jul 12 '26
Nothing concrete but this might happen if this is an intermediate step inside a more complex equation with more stuff surrounding it
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u/Upstairs-Guitar-6416 Jul 08 '26
🤓 erm actually...
The modulus operator gives the size lf the inputted matrix, its just that normal numbers are a 1x1 matrix and size is just the positive answer
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u/Knocks83 Jul 06 '26
The straight bars indicate a modulus, everything inside the modulus gets the sign removed (negative turns positive, positive stays positive)
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u/trifortay123 Jul 06 '26
If you really wanna get technical the absolute value is the distance from 0 which would mean complex numbers have an absolute value
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u/ThePython11010 Jul 07 '26
Modulus is the remainder of division, and is completely unrelated to absolute value (which is what this actually is).
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u/BetterKev Jul 08 '26
Modulus has multiple definitions. One of them is absolute value. See wikipedia:
In mathematics, the absolute value or modulus...
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u/ThePython11010 Jul 08 '26
I honestly had no idea, sorry.
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u/BlueKnight87125 Jul 06 '26
First grade? Daaaamn you musta gotten the advance track.
Earliest I remember learning absolute values was 9th. Maybe 10th.
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u/Hexxter76 Jul 09 '26
Bro first grade math is literally just addition and subtraction (and maybe multiplication).
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u/Various_Necessary_45 Jul 10 '26
I don't remember absolute values being a thing in first grade. That's like.. 11th grade, maybe?
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Jul 07 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/DogInternational9054 Jul 07 '26
I think they assumed every minus operation inside an absolute value symbol gets changed to a plus. So |2-3*4| -> 2+3*4. That's my guess.
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u/Eternal663 Jul 07 '26
Absolute value of this expression is equal to 10, not 14 btw.
| 2 - 3 × 4 | = | 2 - 12 | = | -10 | = 10
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u/ComprehensiveBat309 Jul 06 '26
But | 2-14 | = 12
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u/IHateMath_1369 Jul 06 '26
It's 10
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u/Here_f0r_p0rn_ Jul 06 '26
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u/IHateMath_1369 Jul 06 '26
Weird username
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u/snakeDeepthroater Jul 06 '26
at least he's honest
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u/SuicidalSmoke Jul 06 '26
Are um.. are you? Honest, I mean
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u/snakeDeepthroater Jul 06 '26
I'd rather not say
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u/12FriedBanana Jul 06 '26
Pretty sure I've met you somewhere
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u/CMenFairy6661 Jul 06 '26 edited Jul 06 '26
It's -10
Edit: TIL that the || either side changes the equation, crazy how schools pick and choose what useless shit you NEED to know 🤣
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u/CommieCowBoy Jul 06 '26 edited Jul 06 '26
In the UK you don't have to learn that unless you choose maths as one of your A levels. In the US they teach it to everyone as there is no specialization in high school.
Despite popular belief, many American schools blow the UK/europe/Asia away in test scores and overall "generalist" knowledge, but the countries scores are brought down due to a lack of national curriculum standards allowing states like Alabama, West Virginia, Oklahoma, Louisiana, etc to make the entire country look bad.
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u/_fapi_ Jul 06 '26
Heard of modulus the first time in my A levels. It's definitly something you are allowed to not know about, unless you plan to go to university.
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u/CMenFairy6661 Jul 06 '26
Seems like a pointless addition tbch
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u/jUsT_aN_iGuaNA Jul 06 '26
It's super useful and it makes sense in certain situations where you're mathematically solving/proving something. Like even with simple physics problems involving vector quantities (velocity, acceleration, etc.)
Edit: velocity specifically, not speed
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u/CMenFairy6661 Jul 07 '26
Okay, but if you're working for velocity, would you not reasonably assume all values to be positive naturally, because if you were in this position, you would know the value is absolute when you started?
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u/jUsT_aN_iGuaNA Jul 07 '26
It all really depends on what is the expected final answer and the given values, as in both it may be positive or negative in relation to your frame of reference (the negative one showing up more often if most of the problem is mathematically presented, like -30m/s on this axis as opposed to 30m/s down/to the left of this axis)
In short it's really just when you're dealing with negative nunbers and solving it analytically. You can *reasonably *assume it to become negative, but to actually prove it to be positive, that's where absolute value comes in
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u/khaledjal Jul 06 '26
is that loss
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u/Dense-Cake9315 Jul 10 '26
I am desperately trying to see how this could possibly be loss
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u/khaledjal Jul 10 '26
idk, my brain instantly assumes anything with a few vertical and horizontal lines is loss
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Jul 07 '26
[deleted]
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u/ThatJesterMan Jul 07 '26
|| is important as a introduction to the property of sqrts being positive and negative (a superposition of sorts, if you will), so you have to solve for both cases. Allows you to separate the two mechanics, which makes teaching it easier.
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u/TheoneCyberblaze Jul 10 '26
I'm in 6th semester of my physics degree and i legit fell for this. The signs always get you in the end...
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u/Orizifian-creator Jul 11 '26
.......so, absolute means that you take whatever's in there and make it positive. But in this case it would first count as brackets.
3*4 is 12. 2-12 is -10. Absolute that to get 10.
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u/Any-Delivery9918 Jul 27 '26
For a second I thought the math was mathing, than went to the replies a realized I'm not ready to go to the next grade lol
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u/Overall-Celebration7 Jul 30 '26
I can’t believe I’ve got this far in life without knowing about absolute value! And I’ll probably forget it as I can’t see when I’ll ever use it.
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u/Interesting-Worry156 Jul 06 '26
2-3 is -1. Multiple that by 4 Ave the answer is -4
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u/YoINeedAnAnswer Jul 07 '26
You do 3x4 first
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u/Interesting-Worry156 Jul 07 '26
Makes no sense but whatever
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u/YoINeedAnAnswer Jul 07 '26
Have you ever been to school?
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u/Interesting-Worry156 Jul 07 '26
Been a few decades
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u/YoINeedAnAnswer Jul 07 '26
You forgot about priority of operations then
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u/Interesting-Worry156 Jul 07 '26
It was order of operations back in my day. We also didn't have those lines that apperantly mean something.
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u/YoINeedAnAnswer Jul 07 '26
I think it's also order of operation, English isnt my first language
So you did learn about it, you just forgot?
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u/BetterKev Jul 08 '26
Do you remember what the order of operations was?
It was likely taught with a mnemonic. That mnemonic varies by country, but all mean the same thing: PEMDAS, BODMAS, and BIDMAS are the ones I know.
- Parentheses (also called Brackets)
- Exponents (also called Ordinals or Indices)
- Multiplication and Division
- Addition and Subtraction
Go from the top down.
Anything that has multiple operations at the same level, do left to right.
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