We are officially done with week number 3. Thus, we are 1/12 done with the school year. We continued to learn about limits and continuity. I understand how to do it, and I did well on the last quiz so I am feeling good. The homework lately has been light and easy, a breeze if you will. I feel like I am mindlessly machining my way through any limits problems, as though it's not going to be super useful but in case it is, I will be prepared. Today we were introduced to the salt and pepper function. Its one of those things that I just never thought of. It really is mind boggling how the closer and closer you zoom in, the graph doesn't change. There are still an infinite number of points infinitely close to each other. the function reminded me of that function, I believe it was sin(1/x) or something similar where the waves just got tighter, and tighter, and tighter, and infinitely closer to 0. Math is fascinating.
One thing that I thought was interesting was how we did the homework without a calculator. I feel that it improved my understanding on functions and asymptotes and that stuff. It is really cool to look at a function, anaylize it and understand how it works, then type it in your calculator to check your reasoning and it is the exact same thing that you had in your head. I feel that many math classes just teach you to be robots at solving specific equations in specific ways with your calculator. There really isn't much thinking involved in it, and I think that this is more important than just being able to solve problems. I also like techno Fridays. Fun stuff.
One thing that I thought was interesting was how we did the homework without a calculator. I feel that it improved my understanding on functions and asymptotes and that stuff. It is really cool to look at a function, anaylize it and understand how it works, then type it in your calculator to check your reasoning and it is the exact same thing that you had in your head. I feel that many math classes just teach you to be robots at solving specific equations in specific ways with your calculator. There really isn't much thinking involved in it, and I think that this is more important than just being able to solve problems. I also like techno Fridays. Fun stuff.