It's been many years since I took my last Math Class, and I find myself thinking back to High School. I can picture the classrooms where I took Algebra and Geometry. I can remember where many of my friends and classmates sat too. (In a graduating class of 39 kids, it's really not that difficult to do.)
I also remember the feeling of fear; fear of being called on to come up to the board and show an answer, fear of not having the correct answer, fear of being laughed at. My dad used to try to help me with my Math and if any subject made me cry, it was Math. Well, that or Phy Ed., but that story is for another time. I can still feel that feeling of sitting at the kitchen table trying not to cry over Math problems that I could not wrap my mind around.
Some things in life change and some stay the same. This week we've been learning about sets and operations on sets. Again, I find myself back at the kitchen table trying to wrap my mind around a Math topic and, well, trying not to cry. I'm finding that there are symbols that are very new to me. I realize that their meanings simply need to be memorized, much the same as the multiplication sign, the minus sign, the plus sign and others.
Here is a list that I found that is helpful for understanding the meaning of these symbols:
Table courtesy of: http://enpub.fulton.asu.edu/powerzone/fuzzylogic/chapter%202/chapter2.html
Sets are basically collections; numbers, objects, anything that can be put into a category. Georg Cantor was a German Mathematician who came up with the idea of sets in Mathematics.
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