This post was suggested by Greg Gutfeld’s Sept. 4 remarks on Common Core math.
Problem: What is 9 + 6 ?
Here are two approaches suggested by illustrations of Desargues’s theorem.
Solution 1:
9 + 6 = 10 + 5,
as in Common Core (or, more simply, as in common sense), and
10 + 5 = 5 + 10 = 15 as in Veblen and Young:
Solution 2:
In the figure below,
9 + 6 = no. of V’s + no. of A’s + no. of C’s =
no. of nonempty squares = 16 – 1 = 15.
(Illustration from Feb. 10, 2014.)
The silly educationists’ “partner, anchor, decompose” jargon
discussed by Gutfeld was their attempt to explain “9 + 6 = 10 + 5.”
As he said of the jargon, “That’s not math, that’s the plot from ‘Silence of the Lambs.'”
Or from Richard, Frank, and Marcus in last night’s “Intruders”
(BBC America, 10 PM).