Once upon a time, our Mini-Brit grandson would ask my husband and me to help him with his math homework. This we were happy and able to do, drilling him with multiplication tables and division flash cards until he knew the answers to every conceivable combination of numbers.
This idyllic existence changed when our boy, now a Briteen, matriculated to seventh grade, and algebra entered the equation. I knew we were in trouble when the questions began to have multiple parts, to whit:
“James drinks three cups of water each morning and drinks two more glasses for every mile he runs.
“A) How much water will James drink even if he doesn’t run a single mile?
“B) State the formula in the form of y=.
“C) How many cups of water would James drink if he ran 6 miles?”
Math homework now reads like essays by Stephen Hawking, for example—“Solve for x: 7x + 7.6 = 3.2x.” What the H … is x? How can you add or subtract a letter? I thought “x” was a multiplication sign. You know—2 x 2 = 4. I don’t know about James, but I drink 1.5 glasses of wine for every check I write to the Briteen’s tutor.
Some of the homework problems read like an Abbot and Costello “Who’s on First?” routine:
“Solve for x.”
“Why?”
“No, not y—solve for x.”
“Is that because x is before y?”
“No, B/4y is not part of the equation, just x. Solve for x.”
“Oh, gee!”
“No, an ogee is a mathematical term used in physics to denote an inflection point.”
Oh, dear God! No wonder James drinks so much!
I didn’t always have an aversion to math and science. I used to dream of becoming a NASA scientist, probing the mysteries of the universe, all because of Star Trek. I was the same age as my grandson and in seventh grade when the show first aired. Leonard Nimoy as Mr. Spock, the science officer from the planet Vulcan, made science look so very cool.
This dream was dashed when I entered high school and had to study algebra, a class which I failed. I had never failed a class before and this was quite a blow, as well as a revelation. NASA was definitely not in my future, but summer school was, when I repeated algebra.
Fast forward to my final semester at Arizona State University. I had been accepted into the graduate program for art history, contingent upon completing my final course requirement for the bachelor’s degree—a science course with a lab.
Because I had saved this onerous task for a quick five-week summer session, I knew that geology was out. I was not about to poke around for rocks in the Arizona summer heat! Nor did I intend to dissect anything; I didn’t care what it was. That left the Astronomy 100 course, designated only for non-majors of math or physics. That cut out the competition in case the professor graded on a curve. Plus, I had watched all of the recent episodes of Cosmos with Carl Sagan and loved them! This class was perfect for me—or was it?
I sought out the professor, Dr. Per Aanstaad (a lovely Norwegian gentleman) and asked if there was a lot of math involved. “No,” he assured me. “There is no math involved in the class whatsoever.” Hooray! Sign me up!
Summer school courses were so accelerated that once you enrolled, there were no take-backs or do-overs; you were committed. I plopped myself down in the front row, ready to absorb all that I could about the solar system when Dr. Aanstaad proceeded to write “7x + 7.6 = 3.2x” and asked us to solve for “x.” Whaaaaat?!
Betrayed, I met Dr. Aanstaad after class. “You lied to me, sir! You said there was no math in this class!”
“There isn’t,” he answered.
“What was all that about solving for ‘x,’ which isn’t even a number?”
“That’s algebra,” he gently replied. Oh, yeah, physicists distinguish between math, which is addition and subtraction, etc., and abstract concepts used in algebra. Much to my horror, the course also involved geometry and trigonometry.
I had no choice. Pass this class or my graduate studies were over before they began. Dr. Aanstaad assured me that his pocket-protector-wearing teaching assistants would help me, and so would he. But I had to do the work and show up for classes and labs.
The class met weekdays at 7:30 a.m. for four hours. Labs were on Tuesdays and Wednesdays beginning at 7:30 p.m. until we completed the lab. The sun doesn’t set until nearly 9 p.m. during Arizona summers, so labs usually lasted until after midnight. I would go home and collapse into bed until time for class at 7:30 a.m. again.
Labs were held on the seventh-floor roof of the math building. There were no safety railings, just expensive telescopes and huge cockroaches. These bastards were so big you could saddle them up and ride them. It was all I could do to keep from screaming and knocking telescopes off the roof as the damned things skittered about.
Somehow, through all of this, I learned the names and locations of several of the stars and planets, managed to chart sun spots, and even solved a few equations. Exhausted, I briefly fell asleep during the final exam, to be gently awakened by a very concerned Professor Aanstaad.
Worried, I went to his office to check my final grade, which he was in the midst of calculating. He must have seen the pathetic, yet hopeful look on my face and asked, “You’re not planning to work for NASA, are you?” I promised I wouldn’t and he gave me a “C” for all of my effort. I was ecstatic!
The irony is that while attending grad school, I worked part time as an administrative assistant on a grant project awarded by NASA to the physics and geology departments at Arizona State University for the Mars Observer Project. The job ended in 1993 when the Observer failed to transmit data due to an error that resulted in the complete loss of telemetry and loads of NASA’s money! Hey, I had nothing to do with it! Apparently someone forgot to solve for “x!”
Ariel Waterman is grateful to Dr. Aanstaad for being so understanding and thanks Mr. Nimoy for Mr. Spock, who makes science look so very cool. May you rest peacefully among the stars, some of which she can still name! Solve for “x” via her editor Ryan Miller at rmiller@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Mar 5-12, 2015.