NT math is like trying to see in the dark

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I'm not trying to be corny with semantics, but define NT math. Honestly, I don't even know what that's supposed to mean. Math is either right or wrong, so I dunno of any other way to do it.

I'm about 5 months or so older than 'new' (post-Sputnik) math. I view math as a tool; give me one way to solve the problem, I'll solve it, and be done with it.

But the whole emphasis (at least when I was in school) was how many different ways are there to solve one bloody equation!...

I was left with the feeling that math is arbitrary and capricious, instead of the exact and methodical science I feel it should be.

Geometry was a problem for me; I saw the solution. Don't ask me how to explain it, but the gears whirred in the noggin, and I'd see the answer. Explaining step by step was beyond me.

Never got past college-level statistics, which was a lot easier (mainly looking up things in tables).

I still do multiplication from left to right, when I'm doing it in my head....

This is one of the reasons that trigonometry annoyed me at first. My thinking is so concrete that I honestly couldn't relate it to anything useful until I had absorbed enough of it to put it together for myself. I have essentially dug information out of the subject that I'm not supposed to know until a BS and several years of dedicated study later. Now I just do trig problems for personal enjoyment, but it would have been much easier for me if the concrete premises of it had been explained to me first. The instructors have always told me that it would just bore the other students and waste their time, though, so I try to be forgiving.

In 7th grade a pre-algebra teacher told the class "We solve by steps(and display them) because in harder maths that is the only way to do it."

I've had almost as many mathematics courses as her and I can assure you there are many ways of getting the answer. For me, I fill my short term memory with the problem and solve at many times the speed of a normal student and that's calculus I, II, for long division I can solve to an arbitrarily high level of accuracy as fast as I can write the numbers. The thing that trips me up the most is having to write down the steps, because I feel like it's taking an eternity to solve.

I had a really hard time with math all thru school until 10th grade. That's when we studied geometry and I just had some sort of natural affinity for it, I found it very easy and it made total sense to me. The weird thing was that here I was, someone who had previously had struggled with algebra (getting C's mostly) now helping out the kids who the year before had been getting A's in algebra but were now struggling with geometry.

Conversely though, with algebra and other forms of math, if the rest of the class got something right away, some new concept the teacher was introducing, I'd really have to struggle to learn it. BUT, if the rest of the class was having a hard time with it, I'd get it right away and then whatever came before it that I was having trouble with would suddenly snap into focus for me and I'd "get it".

I'm always doing maths differently than everyone else. My teacher says that in order to expand algebra like say (x+11)(x-9) you have to multiply the first parts of both brackets together which would x*x which equals x^2, then multiply the first part of the first bracket with the second part of the second which would be x*-9 which equals -9x, then multiply the second part of the first bracket with the first part of the second which would be 11*x which equals 11x, and then multiply the second parts of both brackets together which would be 11*-9 which equals -99. Then I'm supposed to simplify it by grouping together all of the like turms, so the first bit would be x^2 since there is only one x squared part left, the second bit would be -9x+11x which is 2x, and the final bit would be -99 since there is only one non algebraic term. Then I have to finally group together all of the answers which would yield the answer x^2+2x-99.

But why go through all that when you can just add the 2 numbers together and then multiply them to get the final answer of x^2+2x-99 in seconds. Every time I see a question about expansion, or any maths related question, I know the answer instantly while all the other NT's (there’s another aspie in my class that works the same way and at the same speed as me) have to take about 5 minuets just on one question.

@ robo37

I think that is an excellent way of doing it and thanks for sharing with us. People who love playing around with numbers invariably develop shortcuts that work for them. Extrapolating new ways of achieving the correct answers, especially if they are more efficient---requires turning the problem over in your head and looking at it from a different perspective.

It seems to me that people with math ability tend to have a file of skeletal results for each type of exercise or problem. Then all they do is plug in values to those skeletal formulas they carry around with them in their brain. But for most NTs this isn't an option. It is quite enough for them to remember one set of rules they can use to solve the majority of exercises or equations. The situation is that when you throw one at them in a slightly different form, they don't know what to do with it. Whereas you and your friend would simply extrapolate a few general principles from your mental file of possible results...And you would have a pretty good idea how to solve the new problem in a different form.

My father was nearly a math genius and he tried to show me how he solved math problems. He was a very good teacher but I think you have to find your own ways of doing it, and not rely on how other people do it. I think it requires a kind of intuitive leap to figure out your own more efficient way of getting the correct answer.

@ Kangoogle

Not necessarily. robo37's explanation of how to solve the problem conventionally proves he knows how to do it that way, should it be required. If you can properly teach a thing, surely you know how to do it. And he can teach it. At more advanced levels, he may either revert to solving the conventional way or develop a brand new short-cut for dealing with the next level.


@ robo37

But don't listen to me robo37. Kangoogle knows a lot more about these things than I do.

At some point I realized that I do mental math backwards. I add from left to right and do some other things that are harder to explain. But the point is it works, and I can do it fairly quickly, so I don't see what the problem is. In school I was more or less forbidden to use this kind of creative math - I had to do it the textbook way and show my work and blah-blah-blah. And the problem sets! *headdesk* I guess other people learn things by doing them many many times? Not useful to me at all. Just very, very tedious.

I took one math class in college. The professor thought I was a genius because of my spatial intuition. But ultimately I only got a B. Oh well.

I am absolutely horrible at math. It really started hitting me in seventh grade, and I failed it for the first time in eighth grade. That was pre-algebra. I re-took pre-algebra in my first semester in college and failed it once again. However, I ironically got a B+ in Algebra I/II in ninth grade, so I don't know what was going on there. And I got a decent grade in Geometry in tenth grade, but that was only because I was cheating and never got caught once the entire time...