“
A TYPICAL American
school day finds some six million high school students and two million college
freshmen struggling with algebra. In both high school and college, all too many
students are expected to fail. Why do we subject American students to this ordeal?
“
Personal Finances
Basic algebra is quite necessary to stay afloat financially.
Expected income much overcome expected expenses, there’s no way around it.
Conventional Business
Operations
For any business model, practical estimates of expected
earnings and expenses require some understanding of Probability Theory which
requires basic algebra. E.g. a coffee shop would not make enough to overcome
fixed daily expenses every single day, but would keep operating if the expected
average daily revenue is greater than expected expenses.
Winning at Games
Whether it’s soccer (Game theoretical solution for soccer penalty kicks) or poker, winning, or simply Not-Losing
requires effective strategies; Nash
Equilibrium mixed strategies, a big part of Game Theory.
Typical Prerequisite for Game Theory: Linear Algebra
Typical Prerequisites for Linear Algebra: All Calculus
Series
Typical Prerequisites for Calculus: Basic Algebra and
Trigonometry
Lastly, Quantitative
Politics
It’s a bit ironic that Andrew Hacker,
the writer of Is
Algebra Necessary? and a professor of Political Science, missed
the growing field of Quantitative Politics,
which is pretty closely tied with Game Theory.
