Why Learn Math?
What happens
- A teacher finishes explaining the area of an equilateral triangle; a student asks why they have to learn it if he will never use it.
- The teacher answers that education is not designed for one student's personal use. The question is whether you want to live in a society where the subject is taught.
- One society can work out what a bridge can hold, calculate interest and program video game graphics; the other is full of people as dull as the student.
- The student raises his hand again: in the second society, is math replaced by an extended recess, or just more history?
Why it lands
The argument is a familiar one in software teams: why learn the fundamentals, or the parts of the system you do not work on? The student's last question is the comic's way of admitting that a good argument rarely persuades the person it is aimed at.
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