Hate fractions? 12-year-old girl just solved the problem

Stories like this make me realize how vulnerable and lazy we've become.  We're one EMP pulse or solar flare away from a generation of drooling idiots that couldn't create light or heat without burning something.

Fix the name of the app. It is called "Fraction Calculator Plus". Will make it much easier for people to find in the iTunes app store.

Excellent. The more you rely on devices like this to handle things kids used to do in their heads half a century ago, the longer I stay in work. My chances of retirement have gone down the hole, but I'll be able to keep my job until I decide I'm done, because, after all, my replacement would be more expensive and less industrious.

 

The next 2 decades are going to be hilarious.

Recently I was in a library when their computer system went down.  The librarian didn't have a clue how to check out my book without a scanner.  I suggested she just write everything down and enter it later, she refused to do that and they closed the library until the thing was fixed.  THAT was pathetic.

Did you try a pencil, you know it's that yellow wooden thing with a rubber tip on one end and a black tip on the other. We are all screwed when the power goes out.

Children should learn the basic ways of solving math problems before relying on calculators to solve simple math problems i.e addition, subtraction, fraction and even beginning algelbra. I think that's the problem in today's generation. In Asian countries, Japan, Korea, Philippines, India, they teach algebra as early as 2nd graders with no calculators. You know what else motivates students in Asian countries, teachers post everybody's grades and standing in each class for everyone to see. This encourages and motivates students to study harder.

 how many of us actively worry that we, or our children, don't know how to hunt, grow our own food, milk a cow, sew our own clothes, build a house or a car, all things that are far more important to our survival as a species? I'm guessing not very many of us.  how is a calculator app that calculates fractions any different, or worse, than any of that? How many times have we said to ourselves, "Wow I really wish I didn't have a washing machine so I could spend all day washing clothes".  We don't.  I hope that we all continue to learn what is appropriate for the era in which we are living. The world is a dynamic place; it  morphs and we adapt.

I would hope that before children are allowed to use calculators they would be encouraged to learn these things in their head. If they would for any reason loose the use of a calculator at a time when they needed to figure things out it would be helpful to know how to do it. Technology is great to make things easier for them, but it shouldn't take the place of a good basic learned knowledge.

There are a lot of calculators that do fractions already. They've been around for decades. HP makes them and so does Texas Instruments and Casio. There just weren't any for Microsoft tablets. 

What happens when solar flares or whatever take out our technology? I can't even fathom it. Bunch of zombies wandering around staring at blank devices.

wow!  you know what is even sadder than living in a world where people lean on technology to solve simple math problems? Living in a world that considers it OK to put down a 12-year-old on a blog for having created something with her father which is rather innocuous (that means harmless ; )), when you consider all of the things she could be doing out in the world. Adults, if we want to teach our young people good and right ways, please be respectful. It's OK to disagree without being rude. Every single person reading this blog relies on technology. It doesn't mean that we are stupid.

I think that's a brilliant idea. I can do the math if I need to,  but if I'm in a hurry it would be very handy to have the app on my phone.

Here's an idea.   Go metric and never deal with fractions ever....

Ah the internet, people hating on a 12 year old kid, making snide comments about girls and math. What a bunch of skank garbage. Try it in public and decent folk will give you some smack down. 

Just read this and offered the app to my 12 year old daughter.  She said, no, Fractions are easy....

Great, now add this to audio books and the voice recognition app, we can finally rid ourselves of that pesky learning to perform math, read, spell and write. Hopefully in the future, humans will be mercifully free of having to think at all. Nobody will ever again be burdened with the curse of using their heads for anything other than watching reality TV and mindlessly follow rules.

Every calculator I ever owned does fractions. All a person needs to know is what the line between the numerator and denominator means. That is, unless a kid is required to produce an answer as a quotient with a remainder, but that's only early elementary school arithmetic. Remainders may be correct, but they are useless for any practical math. More appropriate is giving the answer as a decimal with correct significant digits.

I'm just curious how many of the people that are hating on this girl and her dad are actually capable of doing a problem involving fractions on paper right now?  Yes, learning the methods are important, but if you learn them and forget them and just rely on a calculator in your life now, those fundamentals you learned however many years ago have rendered themselves useless and now you rely on that same kind of technology this girl and her dad came up with.  It continues to amaze me how hypocritical people are and how much they just want to hate on others.   

You have to be able to show the proof of the solution.

 

Otherwise you are not actually doing math - you are just a monkey with a device that does it for you. later on, after acquiring a fundamental understanding of formulaic process, and yes, that includes fraction solving, using machines for calculation can open up major doors in scientific development - but unless you get how the process works in the formative phase of your education, you are just going to be a data entry hack.

 

there is a reason top mathematicians still use chalkboards.

Or, kids could just use paper and pencil for arithmetic, which helps them learn to do arithmetic in their heads.  Save the calculators for trigonometry and calculus.  

Try it, you'll like it.  You can't see the corrective underline once posted, mores the pity, but you can when you're typing it.  Take the hint?

You know folks, when you type something and a little red mark shows up under your word (like this wodr), it's most likely SPELLED WRONG!

This reminds me of the tip calculator or fuel mileage apps.  It's mind blowing how many people get through college and have a hard time with such basic calculations.  Same problem with measurements.  Someone told me recently that they don't even teach handwriting in school anymore.  Technology is great, but it's making us dumb.  People need to learn these things first, before being allowed to use technology.

It was easy as pi

And this is a news story?? KOMO should subscribe to the AP or some other major news organization so they can publish REAL news stories.

Sad state of affairs. Nothing new, though. Fourteen years ago I went to use a 10% discount at a Godfather's Pizza. Took two cashiers almost 10 minutes to figure it out. It was priceless... and tragic.