Math can be fun.

Here in America, we take academic skills for granted. People in other states can locate all 50 states and name their capitals, yet in America only a fraction of people can do the same. Math taught in Russia is far more advanced than those taught at the same level in America. I didn't really value math skills until I passed Math 114 at De Anza with an A. That feeling was the best I've felt about a class in a long time. I couldn't depend on my parents to help me with my math homework, they "aren't good at math". I realized I want to be better for my future children. I don't want them to say "my parents aren't good at math," I want them to say "my parents are annoying, but they've always helped me study my math so that I can grasp it." Math 44 has been awesome so far. The class teaches Mathematics that is aimed towards getting you to think critically about situations, which I can say it has done for me. Today my professor gave us a group question.

The question was, if there are n people in a group, how can you prove that at least two people have the same number of friends within said group? There are two possibilities: one person could have 0 friends, and everyone in the group could have one friend within the group. I came up with this: if you have n people and n-1 numbers of friends, the extra person will have to fit into one of the previous numbers.

Confusing? This might help. If there are four people and three flavors of ice cream (Chocolate, vanilla, strawberry), let's assume person one chooses chocolate, person two chooses vanilla, and person three chooses strawberry. Since there are only 3 choices, person four MUST choose C, V, or S, which means there would have to be at least two people choosing the same flavor.

That's the best I can do. My group mates said it was wrong and refuted it, presented their own ideas. We ended up turning in my answer. After our 30min was up, my professor showed us the answer: My answer. Except he said that you could assume that no one has n-1 friends in common and cross that one out, leaving n-2 boxes and still n people, meaning that at least two people would fit into the category of the same number of friends within the group.

Math is a challenge for some people, but it's worth learning.