Re: [COFF] [TUHS] Photos of University Computer Labs - now off topic

[Dr Iain Maoileoin <iain@csp-partnership.co.uk>]

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On 12/23/21 6:02 PM, John Cowan wrote:
> C _arithmetic_ meant 'number theory', and so the part concerned with 
> the computation of "ambition, distraction, uglification, and derision" 
> (Lewis Carroll) was _elementary arithmetic_.  (Before that it was 
> _algorism_.)  When _higher arithmetic_ got its own name, the 
> _elementary_ part was dropped in accordance with Grice's Maxim of 
> Quantity ("be as informative as you can, giving as much information as 
> necessary, but no more").  This did not happen to _algebra_, which 
> still can mean either elementary or abstract algebra, still less to 
> _geometry_.
>
> In addition, from the teacher's viewpoint school mathematics is a 
> continuum, including the elementary parts of arithmetic, algebra, 
> geometry, trigonometry, and in recent times probability theory and

Hey that was 50 years ago! topics like Matrices, subjects like Algebra, 
Geometry, so things like Integration+ Differentiation, integration by 
parts, simple statistics etc.

Arithmetic was of the form "A customer buys 2 pairs of gloves at 1 and 
6pence halfpenny per pair and a hat for a crown.  She pays with a 
guinea; what is the smallest number of coins in change you can give 
her."  (a guinea was 21shillings, 12 pence in a shilling, a crown was 5 
shillings etc etc).  I think I would be better called mental 
arithmetic.  We had ounces and pounds, and stones and hundredweight.  
Inches, hands, feet, yards, chains, furlongs, miles etc.  So perhaps 
arithmetic was a more required learning?


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