Do we have any Geometry Whizzes out there?

[Stephanie]

How do you determine the circumference of a circle? The reason why I'm asking is that I'm planning on creating a circular garden bed around each of the two trees on my front lawn. I want them to be equal in size - I still have to determine how far away the the brick border will be from each tree (radius). If I know how to figure that out, it'll help me determine how many paving bricks I need to buy.

Thanks!

[Stormsfury]

I used to could do this but I think this will help you more.

http://www.aaamath.com/B/geo612x4.htm

[ColdFront77]

Yippee! - I knew it had something to do with pi. I basically knew the equation too, the site Stormsfury posted reinforced that.

[Stephanie]

Thanks! I remember that lesson from school! Like they say, "if you don't use it, you'll lose it"!

I saved the site as a bookmark too!

[pojo]

if you geometry or any kind of math comes up...let me know...I'm the math wizard of the family.

[OtherHD]

OMG Stephanie. All this time, I thought it was a myth that math could be applied to real life.

[breeze]

LoL, I'm sitting here thinking....hmmmmm....I just make more
trips to buy more bricks...???

Duhhh for me!

[JQ Public]

lol yeh. anyone need calculus help? I can try

[Amanzi]

My geometry skills = a square has 4 sides and a circle has none :o:

[azskyman]

3.14 x diameter


pi x d


az x sky x man

[ColdFront77]

I wish I learned Calculus and Trigonometry and it's uses in meteorology. I took Algebra, Geometry and as far as I can remember at this time, Algebra II in high school, for some reason.

[gator]

Math isn't as much numbers and formulas as it is a method for solving problems. You determine what you have and what you are looking to find out, and then you determine what *magic* needs to happen inbetween in order to overcome whatever obstacle has until that point prevented you from moving forward.

I do agree that many schools teach math in a non-meaningful way, and thus many people are inclined to think of math as useless - something that lives up to that ageless saying: "When are we ever gonna use this?".

While I agree that there is a sizable portion of the high school math curriculum that the world could live without, it is designed so that students who are preparing for careers in scientific fields may seamlessly transition into more complicated mathematics in the college environment.

I suppose that it is possible someday for the curriculum to better reflect the real-world applications of math problems, and it is indeed happening as time goes on - being a math teacher, I have been to the national conferences for math teachers and have seen the new text books and materials available - things that are much more friendly than the books we grew up with.

I think people will always complain about math. It's an easy target. It can't fight back. But, the fact remains, we will all use math in our lives... some of us will just get more use out of it...

Just my two cents...

- gator.

[Stephanie]

Thanks for all of your replies!

OtherHD - I remember saying the same thing in school. Even word problems didn't really help, because I couldn't relate to the problem at the time!

I guess the best thing that we got out of school, whether we've retained the info or not is that we've been exposed to it and we realize that when the time comes when we do have a problem that is relevant, we can at least look it up and get re-familiar with it again!

[ColdFront77]

I enjoy math. In school, I got A's and B's. I use simple, mainly adding and dividing when calculating the speed of precipitation [on radar]. I've always been interested in using more advanced math in the science of meteorology sounds like fun.

[coriolis]

Stephanie, if the tree is big and the border is not much bigger, you'll get an error by measuring to the tree. You need to measure to the center of the tree.

If the tree is small or the border is big, don't worry about it.

[Stephanie]

Thanks Coriolis! I'll keep that in mind, but both of the trees are small.

[WidreMann]

I really love Calculus; it's just absolutely amazing the things you can do with it. For example, it is almost impossible to find the formula for the volume of an 10-dimensional sphere without calculus, but with it, it is quite easy (especially once you find the system). And then there are vectors, derivatives, gradients, integrals. You can find the sums of infinite series, rates, differential equations, etc. All of them so very powerful and useful in so many different fields.

[pojo]

widreman...then could you do my homework for me (or atleast try to help me with it) I have to take the full series of calc and I've had problems from the get-go. I'm fine with Trig, but once integration and diffeq come into the pic...that's where I lose it. I made it through Calc 1, but Calc II has been a nightmare for me. (Although I am trying, my professor knows that I am struggling, but she also is watching me try my hardest on what I can.)

[WidreMann]

It took me a while to fully understand integrals. They bothered me from the start. It didn't make sense that taking the anti-derivative would just happen to give the formula for area under the curve. I had to talk with the teacher for a while to finally understand why and how.

[ColdFront77]

I am aware that calculus and trigonometry are used in other fields, besides meteorology... but I know that there are some useful ways it is used in weather forecasting, etc.

Perhaps we will get into some math problems here, the subject is both on topic and off topic, after all. 8)