Subjects (Like Math, History, Music, etc.) You Simply Do Not Understand And Never Will

I played flute from 5th - 11th grades, so I can read music but I cannot distinguish, by looking at the notes, what the sound should be. So I can look at a piece of music and play it on a flute (well, I used to be able to, haven't played in 30 years) but I wouldn't be able to hum the notes before playing. I always thought that was weird, something I definitely should be able to do, but just have never been able to.

Oh, and my algebra teacher didn't care if you were male or female, if you didn't understand you just "missed the boat."
I had a math teacher like that. He hated repeating himself. Not sure what it is with some teachers. I finally had a math teacher in college who could properly explain word problems to me. It was like the veil was lifted.
 
Anything dealing with computers. You can explain things to me over and over but I just can't comprehend. Used to bother me but I've learned to accept it.
 
I am baffled at how the Internet actually works. Or radio waves. Mind-boggling.

I don't get how radio waves work either. Like, how does a wave, moving through space, somehow carry the notes of the Eagles singing "Hotel California" from there to here?
 
I don't get how radio waves work either. Like, how does a wave, moving through space, somehow carry the notes of the Eagles singing "Hotel California" from there to here?

That's exactly what I mean, yes!! I too can picture the waves moving through the air. And I've studied anatomy and physiology of the ear, so I understand the vibration of the ear bones, and the tiny hairs in the ear picking up the sound, and all of that. But how in the heck does all that translate into waves from music going into space, my being able to hear it by tuning dials on my car radio, and my brain hearing the Eagle's song or whatever it is??
 


Playing an instrument and reading music. I was a musical theater major in college who could not read music or play an instrument- how sad is that! My mind could not grasp it for some reason. Now, I can hear a tune and tell you exactly what the note is and match it in perfect pitch and tone...but put it on paper and I draw a complete blank.
 
Anything music related. I am completely tone deaf, and I have zero rhythm. All other subjects that I have applied myself to, I have found that I can learn pretty easily, I just feel like my brain is wired in a way that doesn't let me process music correctly, or at all really.

Most of my friends listen to music while working, or cooking/cleaning, not me, I listen to podcasts.
 
That's exactly what I mean, yes!! I too can picture the waves moving through the air. And I've studied anatomy and physiology of the ear, so I understand the vibration of the ear bones, and the tiny hairs in the ear picking up the sound, and all of that. But how in the heck does all that translate into waves from music going into space, my being able to hear it by tuning dials on my car radio, and my brain hearing the Eagle's song or whatever it is??

I'll take a crack at it!

1. When you speak, you're physically creating sound waves. If you put a very fine film in front of your mouth you could see it literally vibrate.

2. That vibration is movement, and as you know, any kind of movement can become electricity. Which it does. Variations in sound cause minute variations in the electrical signal.

3. This electrical signal shoots up into a transmitter antenna (don't touch the antenna when it's transmitting!), which causes electrons to vibrate all along the length of it, which causes electromagnetic radiation (aka radio waves) to emanate outward from the transmitter.

4. These radio waves travel until they hit a receiver, whereupon they vibrate the electrons inside, creating an electrical current nearly identical to the original one (there's always something lost in the process). And we then use that electrical current to create the sound waves you hear from your radio. We're just doing in reverse, what we did at the beginning.

What I always find neat is the way you can tell that the signal is being disrupted when you drive past a big truck or under a bridge. Waves can't get through, and there goes my radio! Radio waves are a very physical thing, for all that they can't be seen, heard or felt. You know they're there, because of the way they behave.

(I loved being able to pick up taxi driver chatter from South America, by catching radio waves bouncing off the atmosphere, when I was working as a radio operator in Canada.)
 


Math - hate it and don't understand anything more advanced then the basic stuff. My Daddy was an engineer and loved it, my son is a computer consultant and loves it, my son is a math/science nerd and took advanced calculus in college as a cush course. If I don't have a calculator I can't even multiply past the 5s (could if I thought about it but I don't want to think about it). Oddly enough, I'm a bookeeper and it's kind of important in my job, I also have numbers dyslexia, especially if they as said to me, if they are written I've learned to always check 3 times.

Science - not a fan of that either, I just don't care. Again, Daddy, honey and my son are all fans and can spout facts and formulas off the top of their heads.

I'm more of an arts person, love history, love to read, love music (but don't know the nerd stuff just like to listen) love art, love the theater. I'm the happiest person on the earth if I'm somewhere full of history, thought I had died and gone to heaven when I visited Rome. I love to crawl around ruins and spend all day in a cemetery just walking around and reading headstones. My science/math nerd son loves the arts as well (what can I say, I raised a renaissance man) and is actually getting his degree in Anthropology and geology.
 
I guess anything artistic. Never had any talent, whatsoever, whether it's drawing, music, etc.

On the academic side, languages were never my thing. I managed through three years of Spanish, even took them as honors classes, and managed A's and B's. But it was a struggle and never just came naturally to me like I know it did for others.
 
Higher level math is a mystery to me. By “higher level” I mean anything beyond 8th grade LOL!

I earned a 4.0 in graduate school (M.A. in Education). I’m no dummy, but my brain cannot compute math.

I liked geometry in HS, but DD14’s homework looks like a foreign language to me. I swear she isn’t doing the same geometry I did when I was her age.
 
I am baffled at how the Internet actually works.

OK, there are libraries all over the world. Each library contains thousands (or tens of thousands) of books, and each book has so many pages. For example, let's say you wanted to read my book, Growing Doobie For Fun And Profit, and the only copy of that book is at the Walt Disney Memorial Library in Marceline, Missouri. The WDML can be said to be "hosting" my book. Within that book are several hundred pages; the paragraph you need is on page 420. The book can be said to be "hosting" that page.

In internet parlance, a "server" (in essence, a computer that does nothing but store data) is essentially like a library. A server may host one "book" (website), or several thousand. Similarly, if a single book were so big that no one library could contain all of its pages, some websites (Google, YouTube) are so big that no one server can handle them all. Further, it's good business to have several backup servers, in much the same way that it would be wise for me to have my book in several libraries, in case the WDML were burned to the ground, raided by brigands etc.

When you access the internet, your computer is making a connection to a server - your Internet Service Provider. That server then connects to all of the other servers its users are accessing; the Google, YouTube, the DIS boards, my website, etc.
 
I'll take a crack at it!

1. When you speak, you're physically creating sound waves. If you put a very fine film in front of your mouth you could see it literally vibrate.

2. That vibration is movement, and as you know, any kind of movement can become electricity. Which it does. Variations in sound cause minute variations in the electrical signal.

3. This electrical signal shoots up into a transmitter antenna (don't touch the antenna when it's transmitting!), which causes electrons to vibrate all along the length of it, which causes electromagnetic radiation (aka radio waves) to emanate outward from the transmitter.

4. These radio waves travel until they hit a receiver, whereupon they vibrate the electrons inside, creating an electrical current nearly identical to the original one (there's always something lost in the process). And we then use that electrical current to create the sound waves you hear from your radio. We're just doing in reverse, what we did at the beginning.

What I always find neat is the way you can tell that the signal is being disrupted when you drive past a big truck or under a bridge. Waves can't get through, and there goes my radio! Radio waves are a very physical thing, for all that they can't be seen, heard or felt. You know they're there, because of the way they behave.

(I loved being able to pick up taxi driver chatter from South America, by catching radio waves bouncing off the atmosphere, when I was working as a radio operator in Canada.)

Thank you! That's pretty cool. You're helping make some sense of it for me, but I still find it all a little out of reach. Next, try tackling explaining the Internet to me :D
 
OK, there are libraries all over the world. Each library contains thousands (or tens of thousands) of books, and each book has so many pages. For example, let's say you wanted to read my book, Growing Doobie For Fun And Profit, and the only copy of that book is at the Walt Disney Memorial Library in Marceline, Missouri. The WDML can be said to be "hosting" my book. Within that book are several hundred pages; the paragraph you need is on page 420. The book can be said to be "hosting" that page.

In internet parlance, a "server" (in essence, a computer that does nothing but store data) is essentially like a library. A server may host one "book" (website), or several thousand. Similarly, if a single book were so big that no one library could contain all of its pages, some websites (Google, YouTube) are so big that no one server can handle them all. Further, it's good business to have several backup servers, in much the same way that it would be wise for me to have my book in several libraries, in case the WDML were burned to the ground, raided by brigands etc.

When you access the internet, your computer is making a connection to a server - your Internet Service Provider. That server then connects to all of the other servers its users are accessing; the Google, YouTube, the DIS boards, my website, etc.

That was a valiant attempt, thank you. But I still don't get how the information all transmitted through space, the same way I didn't get the radio issue. Radio travels in waves. *What* is traveling, and how, when my computer "connects" to a server? Electrical codes inside wires? I should just google this, right??
 
That was a valiant attempt, thank you. But I still don't get how the information all transmitted through space, the same way I didn't get the radio issue. Radio travels in waves. *What* is traveling, and how, when my computer "connects" to a server? Electrical codes inside wires? I should just google this, right??

What's traveling is data - hundreds of trillions of ones and zeroes, which your computer assembles into meaningful content (text, images, games, etc.) in the same way that your radio translates those radio waves into "Hotel California." I'm not 100 percent clear on the tech of it all, but I imagine much of it is done by wire, and much is done wirelessly, via satellites and such.
 
What's traveling is data - hundreds of trillions of ones and zeroes, which your computer assembles into meaningful content (text, images, games, etc.) in the same way that your radio translates those radio waves into "Hotel California." I'm not 100 percent clear on the tech of it all, but I imagine much of it is done by wire, and much is done wirelessly, via satellites and such.

Yep. I'm totally not getting it :D But thank you for trying!
 
Literature and poetry. Didn't understand them, didn't care. Every time I had to take a class in them, it was pure torture. Math and science I was extremely good at. What they call "ELA" in school now (English, Language, Arts), I was capable of good grades, I just didn't "get" it.

I love Jeopardy, though I don't get to see it much. Every time a category like "17th Century French Novelists" comes up, I immediately go :confused3 :crazy2: :bored:

I love that stuff, but also adore math, especially stats, quant modeling stuff. If a man can talk post modern existentialism with me, I get weak in the knees!

Never gave a flying flip about chem, but got a's, just found it utterly BORING.

I don't have a great aptitude for languages and that disappoints me in myself if that makes sense. I am around, and typically employee, multi-lingual folks, and while I can muddle through in email, I can't conduct meetings in other languages or follow along meetings in other languages in real time. I think if my parents had not had me skip grades, I would have had more luck (ie, time) with capturing additional languages.
 
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Literature and poetry. Didn't understand them, didn't care.

Also, I'm kinda sad you don't love literature and poetry (or that anyone doesn't, my brother doesn't but he's a luddite); its a ton of what's beautiful in the world.
 
Anything having to do with numbers. I'm really horrible at it-in high school I failed geometry twice and finally passed it my senior year in a class full of freshmen because I got enough points for my notebook being organized to scrape by with a low D. I can't help with any math above,say, a fifth grade level. I'm that bad at it. There's a part of my brain that just says, "nope" when I try it.
 

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