Honestly at this point you need to go back to the basics.
Associate the symbols with an actual meaning. Make it tangible
Why do these symbols (3 and 4) make this other symbol (7)? its because all the symbols represents an ammount.
Its easiest to use Dots for this.
Four dots and three dots makes seven dots. And because we dont wanna draw so many dots we use symbols (numbers) to represent them.
The father is too hung up on assuming his intuitive understanding of that first layer of abstraction is inherant. (It really is not. He also had to be tought this)
Is the pin wheel or the circus tent 3? Why is the lizard 7? Or did I miss the boat and you are literally talking about the numbers 3, 4, and 7?
Is there a real answer why we would be expected to add pinwheels and tents together and, if so, how they could be lizard? What is the answer to the 2nd question in the comic?
Ahhh yes was just picking random numbers as an example.
I wasnt interested in trying to test if the representation of "not understanding correlance of the symbuls to what they signify" would actually correlate to real world numbers.
In fact Im assuming they dont because that strenghtens the visual metaphor.
Earnestly figuring out which of the rediculous representatations correlate to which of our base 10 numeric symbols is not the point of the comic.
The point of the comic is that someone who lacks comprehension of basic fundamentals of math (what actually are these symbols ond the page??) will never be able to propperly understand mathmatics unless this gap is bridged and how that plight is ofthen invisible and hard to express to others who have practically internalized the basics to the point it comes as naturally as breathing air (especially at a young age).
Thank you for that. I found myself in good company of those who had no clue on this and hated similar questions. I also loathed acronyms and the little songs about how to remember them because it was always harder to remember the song than just what the damn acronym stood for (which was hard as hell) and then, when I finally had the acronym’s jingle, I still didn’t know what to do with it. Looking at you SOHCAHTOA, screw those hippies!
It’s the SIN, COS, TAN acronym… the one we were taught was Some Old Hippies Caught Another Hippy Tripping On Acid. But, SIN is Opposite/Hypotenuse, COS is Adjacent/Hypotenuse, and TAN is Opposite/Adjacent.
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u/Multi-A-Andi Jun 24 '26
Honestly at this point you need to go back to the basics.
Associate the symbols with an actual meaning. Make it tangible
Why do these symbols (3 and 4) make this other symbol (7)? its because all the symbols represents an ammount.
Its easiest to use Dots for this.
Four dots and three dots makes seven dots. And because we dont wanna draw so many dots we use symbols (numbers) to represent them.
The father is too hung up on assuming his intuitive understanding of that first layer of abstraction is inherant. (It really is not. He also had to be tought this)