Steven Strogatz on math, from basic to baffling.

At this stage in the series it’s time to shift gears, moving on from grade school arithmetic to high school math.

Over the next few weeks we’ll be revisiting algebra, geometry and trig. Don’t worry if you’ve forgotten them all — there won’t be any tests this time around, so instead of worrying about details, we have the luxury of concentrating on the most beautiful, important and far-reaching ideas.

Algebra, for example, may have once struck you as a dizzying mix of symbols, definitions and procedures, but in the end they all boil down to just two activities — solving for x and working with formulas.



Solving for x is detective work. You’re searching for an unknown number, x. You’ve been handed a few clues about it, either in the form of an equation like 2x + 3 = 7, or, less conveniently, in a convoluted verbal description of it (as in those scary “word problems”). In either case, the goal is to identify x from the information given.

Working with formulas, on the other hand, is a bit like art and science. Instead of dwelling on a particular x, you’re manipulating and massaging relationships that continue to hold, even as the numbers in them change. These changing numbers are called “variables,” and they are what truly distinguishes algebra from arithmetic.

The formulas in question might express elegant patterns about numbers for their own sake. This is where algebra meets art. Or they might express relationships between numbers in the real world, as they do in the laws of nature for falling objects or planetary orbits or genetic frequencies in a population. This is where algebra meets science.

This division of algebra into two grand activities is not standard (in fact, I just made it up), but it seems to work pretty well. In next week’s column I’ll have more to say about solving for x, so for now let’s focus on formulas, starting with some easy examples to clarify the ideas.

One day last year, my daughter Jo realized something about her big sister Leah. “Dad, there’s always a number between my age and Leah’s. Right now I’m 6 and Leah’s 8, and 7 is in the middle. And even when we’re old, like when I’m 20 and she’s 22, there will still be a number in the middle!”

Jo’s observation qualifies as algebra (though no one but a proud father would see it that way) because she was noticing a relationship between two ever-changing variables: her age x and Leah’s age y. No matter how old each of them would get, Leah would always be two years older: y = x + 2.

Algebra is the language in which such patterns are most naturally phrased. It takes some practice to become fluent in algebra, because it’s loaded with what the French call “faux amis” — false friends that sound right in one language (in this case, English) but mean something horribly different when translated into another (here, the symbols of algebra).

For example, suppose the length of a hallway is y when measured in yards, and f when measured in feet. Write an equation that relates y to f.

My friend Grant Wiggins, an education consultant, has been posing this problem to students and faculty for years. He says that in his experience, students get it wrong more than half the time, even if they have recently taken and passed an algebra course.

If you think the answer is y = 3f, welcome to the club.

It seems like such a straightforward translation of the sentence, “One yard equals three feet.” But as soon as you try a few numbers, you’ll see that this formula gets everything backwards. Say the hallway is 10 yards long; everyone knows that’s 30 feet. Yet when you plug in y = 10 and f = 30, the formula doesn’t work!

The correct formula is f = 3y. Here 3 really means 3 feet/yard. When you multiply it by y in yards, the units of yards cancel out and you’re left with units of feet, as you should be.

Checking that the units cancel properly helps avoid this kind of blunder. For example, it could have saved the Verizon customer service reps (discussed in last week’s column) from confusing dollars and cents.

Another kind of formula is known as an “identity.” Whenever you factored or multiplied polynomials in algebra class, you were working with identities. You can use them now to impress your friends with numerical parlor tricks. Here’s one that impressed the physicist Richard Feynman, no slouch himself at mental math:

“When I was at Los Alamos I found out that Hans Bethe was absolutely topnotch at calculating. For example, one time we were putting some numbers into a formula, and got to 48 squared. I reach for the Marchant calculator, and he says, ‘That’s 2300.’ I begin to push the buttons, and he says, ‘If you want it exactly, it’s 2304.’

The machine says 2304. ‘Gee! That’s pretty remarkable!’ I say.

‘Don’t you know how to square numbers near 50?’ he says. ‘You square 50 — that’s 2500 — and subtract 100 times the difference of your number from 50 (in this case it’s 2), so you have 2300. If you want the correction, square the difference and add it on. That makes 2304.’ ”

Bethe’s trick is based on the identity

(50 + x)2 = 2500 + 100x + x2.

He had memorized that equation and was applying it for the case where x is –2, corresponding to the number 48 = 50 – 2.

For an intuitive proof of this formula, imagine a square patch of carpet that measures 50 + x on each side.

Then its area is (50 + x) squared, which is what we’re looking for. But the diagram above shows that this area is made of a 50 by 50 square (this contributes the 2500 to the formula), two rectangles of dimensions 50 by x (each contributes an area of 50x, for a combined total of 100x), and finally the little x by x square gives an area of x squared, the final term in Bethe’s formula.

Relationships like these are not just for theoretical physicists. An identity similar to Bethe’s is relevant to anyone who has money invested in the stock market. Suppose your portfolio drops catastrophically by 50 percent one year and then gains 50 percent the next. Even after that dramatic recovery you’d still be down 25 percent, because 0.5 times 1.5 equals 0.75.

In fact, you never get back to even when you lose and gain by the same percentage in consecutive years. With algebra we can understand why. It follows from the identity

(1 – x)(1 + x) = 1 – x2.

In the down year the portfolio shrinks by a factor 1 – x (where x = 0.5 in the example above), and then grows by a factor 1 + x the following year. So the net change is a factor of

(1 – x)(1 + x)

and according to the formula above, this equals

1 – x2.

The point is that this expression is always less than 1, for any x other than 0. So you never get back to even.

Needless to say, not every relationship between variables is as straightforward as those above. Yet the allure of algebra is seductive, and in gullible hands it spawns such silliness as a formula for the socially acceptable age difference in a romance. According to some sites on the Internet, if your age is x, polite society will disapprove if you date someone younger than (x/2) + 7.

In other words, it would be creepy for anyone over 82 to eye my 48 year-old wife, even if she were available. But 81? No problem.

Ick. Ick. Ick…

NOTES:

For sticklers, Leah is actually 21 months older than Jo. Hence Jo’s formula is only an approximation. Obviously!

Feynman tells the story of Bethe’s trick for squaring numbers close to 50, in:

R. P. Feynman, “Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!” (W.W. Norton and Company, 1985), p. 193.

The identity about the effect of equal up and down percentage swings in the stock market can be proven symbolically, by multiplying 1 + x by 1 – x, or geometrically, by drawing a diagram similar to that shown above. If you’re in the mood, try both approaches as an exercise.

The “half your age plus seven” rule about the acceptable age gap in a romantic relationship is discussed here.

Thanks to Carole Schiffman and Grant Wiggins for their comments and suggestions, and to Margaret Nelson for preparing the illustration.

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