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submitted 9 months ago by sag@lemm.ee to c/memes@lemmy.ml

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[-] Mostly_Gristle@lemmy.world 119 points 9 months ago

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 42 points 9 months ago

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

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

That guy in that place with the thing that time.

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[-] Anticorp@lemmy.world 8 points 9 months ago

FMstrat

[-] mexicancartel@lemmy.dbzer0.com 21 points 9 months ago

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

[-] CileTheSane@lemmy.ca 54 points 9 months ago

"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

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[-] DanglingFury@lemmy.world 76 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

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 63 points 9 months ago

Ohio State University

[-] Anticorp@lemmy.world 8 points 9 months ago

Brilliant!

[-] 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

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[-] 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

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

[-] kameecoding@lemmy.world 25 points 9 months ago

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

[-] volvoxvsmarla@lemm.ee 13 points 9 months ago

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

"Concave?"

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[-] Trollivier@sh.itjust.works 13 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

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.

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[-] cashews_best_nut@lemmy.world 48 points 9 months ago

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)

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

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.

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[-] TimeSquirrel@kbin.social 19 points 9 months ago

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

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

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

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.

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[-] Doublepluskirk@lemmy.world 42 points 9 months ago

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

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)

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

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[-] 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.

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[-] RunAroundDesertYou@lemmy.world 39 points 9 months ago

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

[-] Transporter_Room_3@startrek.website 22 points 9 months ago

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.

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[-] Kruemel@feddit.de 8 points 9 months ago

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

[-] 7eter@feddit.de 34 points 9 months ago

6327e0d6-d250-4532-a547-c6d317b9afbf

[-] 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.

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[-] YeetPics@mander.xyz 30 points 9 months ago

That footpath looks like a brachistochrone curve. Interesting.

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[-] rainerloeten@lemmy.world 20 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

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.

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[-] lseif@sopuli.xyz 20 points 9 months ago

all the student needs to know is `c

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[-] eestileib@sh.itjust.works 17 points 9 months ago

Triangle Inequality also!