• skisnow@lemmy.ca
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    6 days ago

    This is one of those “you won’t need it, but the smart kids will” things.

    I’ve used Pythagoras at least four times in my professional life, and not one of those occasions was the problem presented to me in the form of a neat “Here is a right-angled triangle; what is the length of this hypotenuse?” that I could have then looked up in response if I didn’t already know.

    • atomicbocks@sh.itjust.works
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      6 days ago

      Right, but that’s not the point I’m trying to make. The point I’m trying to make is during any of those times was there a point in which you couldn’t look up what the Pythagorean formula was?

      • skisnow@lemmy.ca
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        6 days ago

        I feel like you haven’t understood my point either. If I didn’t already know Pythagoras, I wouldn’t have known that it was a valid solution to the problem I had, therefore I wouldn’t have known to look it up.

        • atomicbocks@sh.itjust.works
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          6 days ago

          No, that was literally my point. That it’s more important to know how to find information and where the correct information is then it is to memorize the exact information. Knowing Pythagoras and having the formula memorized are two very different things especially for things that get more complicated than Pythagoras.

            • atomicbocks@sh.itjust.works
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              6 days ago

              Getting what? You’ve literally just been saying the same thing I have except you seem to be under some weird insistence that knowing Pythagoras means having the formula memorized even though I’m talking about more general than just Pythagoras or even math formulas. You are the one who brought up Pythagoras in the first place. But sure, calling me thick seems like a great way to end this conversation. Bye.