Here’s a tweetstorm that demands respect:


And now the storm:

  • First: don’t disrespect geometry and don’t effin disrespect parallelograms – particularly IN a parallelogram…
  • The SIGN is a parallelogram (rectangle) as is the WINDOW. Structurally the building is held up with triangles & parallelograms…
  • The graphic software used to MAKE the sign contains maths that deals with vectors & hence PARALLELOGRAMS…
  • EVERY season is PARALLELOGRAM season if you live in a built environment or use technology. I’m bloody glad I learnt about parallelograms…
  • Imagine if I’d spent my time learning about taxes at school instead of parallelograms…
  • 1 it would all be out of date now & 2 be about the wrong country & 3 be so vague as to be irrelevant to my current life.
  • Oh & 4 be as dull as shit. Whereas geometry is truly amazing…
  • …now no offence to accountants in general. I admire all maths related disciplines & accountants are unfairly maligned as dull…
  • BUT don’t shit on a different field of maths for cheap laughs…
  • ‘But it is just a joke’ no it is a shitty joke that perpetuates a shitty idea: that only ‘useful’ maths is worth learning.
  • ‘Useful’ is a shitty standard for general education. Drama, literature, art, music we learn because they are good in themselves…
  • ‘Oh but STEM is different!’ No! Name a dinosaur – go on. I bet you can name several correctly with the right technical name…
  • …how come? Most people will never need to deal with actual dinosaurs. But we learn about them because they are FUN and weird & freaky…
  • People who succeed in maths & related areas find pleasure in maths. ‘Useful’ has its place but it is not as powerful as pleasure.
  • …and tying down a subject whose power is its abstractness with ‘useful’ means that it will always fail…
  • ‘When will I use this’ I don’t know because you haven’t lived your life yet!…
  • Anyway. Moral: don’t disrespect parallelograms.

Quite so. The problem with parallelograms is that they’re a con. They tell you that finding the area is simple: it’s base · height. Easy peasy!

But what’s the height? Crap. The length of the sides isn’t enough to figure that out. You need to know the angles too. And then you have to apply some trigonometry:

So there you go: the area of a parallelogram is a · b · sin α. Greek letters! Blecch. So sure, respect the parallelogram, but only because such a simple looking thing requires more math than you’d think to figure it out.

No worries, though. You’ll need it when you take physics anyway.

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate