Getting to know

*Individual Report: Algebra (Group presentation)

               

Algebra here, algebra everywhere, we have been collaring it since high school, but do we really know what algebra really is? We are only confined to the knowledge of the term “Algebra”.  Have you ever wondered of digging deeper into algebra? We started our discussion of getting to know more algebra.

 Simple, we introduced algebra as an easy discipline. I myself think that algebra is not a hard nor an easy subject. Some of it, I like and some are not. We first define algebra: a generalized arithmetic, a representation, a generalization of what is in the real world. We relate it in life, (love life), work, studies, agriculture and a lot more that involves generalization and computations.

There are a lot of topics that cling into algebra: functions, relations, practical applications, economics and many more to mention. Algebra makes everything flow smoothly.

As we go through our discussion, we prepared some questions in our game. Our game is like a quiz show of the different topics in algebra and how far we remember it.  Say for instance, getting the area of the isle surrounding a pool given the other measurements. It may sounds complicated but it only needs a comprehension of the problem and the aid of algebra, we can able to get the area without even really measuring manually the isle.

We had a debate on whether algebra is used in daily life. I stand as pro. Well, for me, I consider it as part of my whole thing and that follows of my daily living. There are people who stand contradicting to what I believe because for them, practicality in life no need for any algebra. I respect their notion of algebra. What I’m upto is not just the notion of "practicality", "simple and basic living", I wanted more than that.

Great example of representing algebra is the money game by our group mate. In this game the other students were given some equations then they have to see a generalization from it of how does the equations make true. Example: violet * gold = yellow; silver+ silver+ silver+ silver+ silver = gold; orange * gold = violet; blue* silver = blue.  The answer is that the colors represent the value of money. If we’ll try to look at it, it’s mind puzzling, but if you’ll know the idea behind it, you’ll get to appreciate it. And it’s indeed amusing, and that what makes up algebra.  

I’ll be not talking about the contents of the algebra subject, I believe you know it already. I just wanted to impose here that nothing to be afraid of when it comes to algebra. Learn to love it and it will love you back unconditionally. Algebra has something to do with our daily living.  It makes our life easier consciously or not.