Ok.. I am beginning to wonder if some space alien came down here and took part of my brain, the reasoning part. Since when was square inches represented in in2? Maybe it's just been waaaay too long since I was in school, but I always thought that a number squared meant multiply the number times itself.. and that's it. Duh! It took me half an hour to figure out a 5th grade math problem! Guess I don't want the board game "Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader" lol.
Well, doesn't that mean "squared" ? I mean...I...I...I don't...I don't know....why did you have to confuse this old woman. Ok...10 to the 2nd power is 10 x 10...right? But...square inches... Ok...thanks alot Flower. Just when I thought I was smart you come along and dash my dreams! LOL
LOL Ava.. I feel your pain. I had my 10 yr old son explaining this to me! I told him maybe he needs to be the Math teacher.. lol.
Yes, square inches does mean the number squared in inches. When you measure a room and it comes out to, say 60 inches by 90 inches, that means it's 5400 in2. In other words, if you cut squares of paper that were 1 x 1 inches (in other words, 1 in2), then you could fit 5400 of them in the room. So you are actually multiplying the number by itself. But the number in this case is one inch. Saying 5400 in2 is the same as saying 5400 square inches or 5400 1 inch squares.
Ok...that makes sense Amie. Flowerchild just confused me...I knew that. I actually did...I am not even just saying that this time.
I figured that out eventually.. We just always represented the same thing by saying "sq. in." .. not in2. I knew what a square inch was, and what it meant.. just never saw it written that way. I don't know which is scarier... not being the smart one anymore or being dumber than my kid.. LOL.
I know I'M confused! Math is NOT my strong point, but thank goodness it IS my dh's strong point! Whew! btw, Ava Rose, we all know you're very smart!
It is common to see units with exponents, especially in chemistry and physics. 2x2 is the same as 2 squared and equals 4. Here it is the number 2 that is being squared. the variable 2 is being operated on. 2in squared is an area that is 2 dimensional. It could be 1 by2 inches, .5 by 4 inches etc etc etc. Here it is the unit that is being squared giving it dimension, eg, area instread of line. 2in cubed (3 as exponent) is an area that has 2 cubic inches of volume. It is a 3 dimensional figure. sometimes such exponents will be used in fractions or as multipliers for example ; with acceration the unit meters per second per second is m/s2. with acceration you are dealing with the increase of speed which is meters per second over the course of time in seconds, giving you seconds2
OK ladies stop it! Now this thread has me worried I'm too dumb to homeschoool ROFL.. I read and reread that last post by vantage and I still dont have a clue what she was talking about....holy cow woman! Can one of you come homeschool my boys?
I can remember even in Trig and Calc. we wrote it out "sq in", I don't understand why things can't be left alone.. it's not like it changed, some dorky nerd at some university, who is locked in some brick building all day decided to make it look more smart is what I'm guessing...lol.
We used in.2 instead of sq. in. too at least past elem. math). Ds11 (6th grade Saxon) learned sq. in, but I taught him that he could just write it as in2. Sometimes I think Saxon tries to oversimplify resulting in relearning things the correct way later!
I have always seen it written in2. I never remember a time that I wrote out "square inches" or an abbreviation thereof. I guess it depends on the curriculum.
LOL! I always saw it sq. in. in Trig and Calc also. Strange. I don't think it's very productive, personally, because I would think that a kid would confuse squaring with square inches, or cubing with cubed centimeters, or whatever. I can see the benefit of learning both, but a square inch is a square inch, and squaring a number is of course entirely different.. so up in calc and trig when you may be working with both, I would think that it would get confusing. Of course, this is only my opinion
Well, at least you have an opinion! I don't---I have no clue of what it all is anyway! (Same reason as someone else said--we moved so much growing up that I did well at being a new kid, but jumped all over the place with math and some other subjects, so got confused!)
I'm a Canuck so inches were only for height, Submarine sandwiches and unmentionables that teenage girls giggle about. cm2 for me.
Using the unit abbreviations with exponents makes it easier to cross out the units when they appear in equations. Dimensional analysis, and unit conversions often involve equations where the units themselves are the primary focus. I am not sure how useful this type of notation is in 5th grade for example. But it makes perfect since in all math courses algebra and above, and the sciences for which they are prerequisite.
