If you don't like mathematics, why?

I dunno if I can say I "hate" mathematics. I just suck at it. Was my worse subject in HS. Since I'm not good at studying either I guess that made it worse.

I failed for it, all my grades were good, except of mathematics .. So I had to do a lower profession. Ah well ..

Shadowplay said: ↑

I respect mathematics because I think it's the closest thing we'll ever come to truth. Like staring God right in the face. The only reason I dislike studying it is because I'm too thick to understand it.

I agree with the above except that I wouldn't say I dislike all math. I enjoyed the math I was good at.

jneal25 said: ↑

I suck at remembering formulas. I also have a hard time doing math in my head, I constantly have to put stuff on paper where I can see it.

Yes! I'm the same way. I would have been good with formulas and I would even have had fun with them if I could just remember.

philly2bits said: ↑

I've heard some people say that math problems and equations and things like that are almost like reading a story. They can see things like plot and characters and how they intact just like reading a book. They probably love math for that reason.

I only see numbers though. 😕

I used to be quite bad at it... well relative to most of my classmates at least. I only understood it more when I took it at university level. If I recall correctly, the ancient Pythagoreans have a saying that "everything is number"... I believe that there's a lot of truth in it. And yup... to me at the time, reading maths is like reading the plot of a book. But of course, there's some things that I really cannot understand. When I need to memorize, it's not fun anymore. But when I actually understand, I don't need to memorize... It becomes more than just numbers.

I don´t like it because most of what I learned I never used. I like the practical stuff I can use like algebra and trig. Those are very useful when designing a robot or something. Plus I´m more right-brained I think.

chris11 said: ↑

Hey, I was just wondering why some people detest mathematics as much as they do. I personally love it. My suspecsion is that most people have a very poor idea of what mathematics is.

I don't hate maths. I just can't seem to figure out the correct answer. Yes, my maths suck. Not poor idea. It just that... every person Capacity is different. Example, i think my brain is like pentium II. slow and out-dated. Maybe, your's is like Core2Duo. A few is like i7 processor.

Mathematics (during most of my schooling) was actually my main reason for living!. I probably haved not loved anything in life like i loved mathematics. It was an experience, it was company, it was real, it was life (for me).
Maybe why i loved it so much, and was so good at it it (almost straight A's from primary-->high school, endless test/exam %'s in the 90s, many 100s), was probably due to the fact that my mind thinks in a maths/logical-type way (which could explain why people/socializing/feelings/etc were "completely unfathomable" to me!).
Maths (& almost all) schoolwork was in fact "play" for me, so never going out & having a social life did not barely matter to me, as i was doing what i loved, & what i felt was my purpose in life.
Also i developed an almost equal love for the subjects Physics, & to a slightly lesser extent Science, Biology, Technical Drawing, Accounting and Economics (probably due to the proportion of maths in them). I was so proud that i achieved the highest mark in the 6th-form end-of-year Physics test of 96% (& was highest in country i was told!).
Then after high school, i went to polytechnic, studying electronics & computer technology. (I recall a fond memory of feeling (temporarily) very satisfied with myself when the tutor announced that i was the single person to achieve 100% in a major exam!). So i transfered my love of maths into all of that stuff.
After my 2 years of polytechnic, and the 20 years since then, i have really just "mucked around" with life, finding/losing various jobs here-and-there, all the while in my spare time doing heaps of programming, which i still love to this day. 😀

Edit: Have just re-read the title "If you don't like mathematics, why?" and realise that maybe i shouldnt have made my post, as i DO like mathematics!. Never mind, done now - i have presented the "other" side of the argument (lol)

I didn't like it because I was never that good at it and that was probably because it simply didn't interest me much... especially when I started calculus.

As someone else has said, I like math that's practical to me.
Math has always been my worst subject in school even when I was younger. Despite doing so much to try and understand it, I just couldn't. I had to use my fingers to add and subtract and I was hopeless at multiplication and COULD NOT do long division. I'm still pretty awful and won't play games that require me to add or subtract quickly.

I did enjoy taking my time figuring out simple algebra, though.

I had a teacher one year (who was nice, but tended to pick on certain students which I didn't like) who made people do math problems on the board in front of the class. I had to do it a few times and it was terrible! I was always the last one to finish or the one to say 'uhh...I don't know.'

I like the answers mathematics can bring to answering applied questions in the real world. In particulary statsitics and it use in testing significance levels in hypothesis testing. I also like the pattern recognition software and the maths they use to group sites with similarities.

In summary I don't love mathematics myself but I do appreciate the applied applications it can bring to science.

Malady said:

I always loathed it because I have dyscalculia, was above average in most other subjects but have no mathematical ability whatsoever. When I see numbers it's as if my brain shuts down.

Malady is running on Pentium II like me. LOL

thesmallestloser said: ↑

Mathematics (during most of my schooling) was actually my main reason for living!. I probably haved not loved anything in life like i loved mathematics. It was an experience, it was company, it was real, it was life (for me).
Maybe why i loved it so much, and was so good at it it (almost straight A's from primary-->high school, endless test/exam %'s in the 90s, many 100s), was probably due to the fact that my mind thinks in a maths/logical-type way (which could explain why people/socializing/feelings/etc were "completely unfathomable" to me!).
Maths (& almost all) schoolwork was in fact "play" for me, so never going out & having a social life did not barely matter to me, as i was doing what i loved, & what i felt was my purpose in life.
Also i developed an almost equal love for the subjects Physics, & to a slightly lesser extent Science, Biology, Technical Drawing, Accounting and Economics (probably due to the proportion of maths in them). I was so proud that i achieved the highest mark in the 6th-form end-of-year Physics test of 96% (& was highest in country i was told!).
Then after high school, i went to polytechnic, studying electronics & computer technology. (I recall a fond memory of feeling (temporarily) very satisfied with myself when the tutor announced that i was the single person to achieve 100% in a major exam!). So i transfered my love of maths into all of that stuff.
After my 2 years of polytechnic, and the 20 years since then, i have really just "mucked around" with life, finding/losing various jobs here-and-there, all the while in my spare time doing heaps of programming, which i still love to this day. 😀

Edit: Have just re-read the title "If you don't like mathematics, why?" and realise that maybe i shouldnt have made my post, as i DO like mathematics!. Never mind, done now - i have presented the "other" side of the argument (lol)

You know... you can actually use your programming and other skills to make a very good career working for yourself... If you've not already done so... Creating games, custom content, web page, freelancing... etc...

Wouldn't say i hated maths but then again i cant say i like it either lol.. im gonna need to be getting to grips with it again very soon when i start home schooling my daughter in September. I did ok at it in school, my problem is that nothing ever stuck, it all just got pushed to the back of my head because i never really had to use much of it when i left..

I envy people that are really good at it, my hubby is amazing at math.. makes it all look so easy.. Id love to be able to be great at it..

I used to be so happy when i was in Maths class, top set for 5 years oh yeaaaa...but i grew to hate it a lot as i got older i guess that was mainly for all subjects in school though haha

Well I'm not interested in it, and I've never been good at it (especially Algebra *shudders*); it took me longer than other people to register the problem-solving steps. (I was a pro when it came to the Pythagorean theorem though 😀) I think it's just not for me, I've always been a Humanities-inclined person.

I suffer from dyscaulcia, which makes math nearly impossible to understand.

I loved math in school and got A's easily. Everything just clicked and seemed so easy.

I dropped out of High School from SA though and regret it.

I always hated math in school even when I understood it. I was in advanced classes in middle and high school, but it still made me miserable. I'm personally just much more of a language, history, social sciences kind of person. I think it just has to do with what you're interested in.

chris11 said: ↑

Hey, I was just wondering why some people detest mathematics as much as they do. I personally love it. My suspecsion is that most people have a very poor idea of what mathematics is.

I hated maths in primary and high school...and still do to this day. Basically, I don't understand maths...it's like another language and I find maths nothing but boring.