Mathhater/phobe, so pls be patient and use itty bitty words in the explanation, at abt a 2nd grade level if you can.
WHY on earth did my HS teachers (years ago) have such a fixation on doing things the hard way? IIRC, they were insistent that we bisect angles with JUST a straightedge and compass (goodness knows why!). Or see if triangles were identical or congruent or whatever the heck it was with some weird angle-side-angle or angle-angle-angle arguments (every triangle I EVER saw had 3 angles and 3 sides; what the ^%^#$*# were they talking about, anyway?).
It's been years, and I'm **still** wondering. What's the practical reason for doing things in such a bass-ackwards, round-about way, instead of just grabbing a protractor or other doodad and just MEASURING the darned thing?
I'm being utterly serious here. If it's **that** important to bisect or trisect an angle, why not use reasonably accurate ("within tolerances") and readily available tools to do it?
Help!
2006-10-03
05:04:41
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11 answers
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asked by
samiracat
5
in
Mathematics