Update on my previous blog on Orbitz

I had posted about Orbitz charging extra for tickets in one of my previous blogs. My wife had written a strong letter to Orbitz the day I published the blog. Well she got back her money the next day. But she got an email from Orbitz saying that

"If your reservation has not gone through and yet your credit card has been charged, then it could be a soft charge.

A soft charge is a temporary authorization that will automatically drop off your account within seven days, if not sooner. A soft charge is when Orbitz ask for funds from a credit card / debit card company but does not actually charge the card. By doing this the funds are taken out of the available credit on the card but not included in the balance that you need to pay to your credit card / debit card company."

Okay! But then that does not explain why they should charge twice for the same ticket. And then they write

"We value you as a customer and look forward to serving you again in the future."

Yeah right! Now that you know she has enough money to buy another ticket, she is of course a valuable customer! :).

I hope this thing stops in the future.

Funny incidents while teaching maths!

I heard some jokes on teaching mathematics. They may be funny but the sad part is that they are not completely away from reality. It is actually quite a sad situation!

Well here are the stories!

Division of numbers and division of money

Some experts wanted to assess the quality of mathematics teaching in remote villages. They went to one such village, and asked the ninth standard students there to divide 1224 by 6. Most of them answered 24. Yeah! That's right, the students answered 24. The people were shocked. After a whole day of discussions, one of the experts thought of testing their knowledge by asking the following question:

Suppose you have got Rs. 1224 and you have to divide it equally among six people. How much would each person get?

This time the students argued,

The total amount of money is more than 1200. So each person will get at least 200. And the extra is 24 which when divided by six is 4. So each person will get Rs 204!

Laws of cancellation

Sandeep (fictional name) teaches pre-calculus in a class. In one of the assignments he asks the following question:The student answered 1. And gave the following explanation:

You cancel off 'x'. So you only have 'sin' left. Now you can take any value of sin. In particular, sin 90 = 1.

Sandeep of course did not give any points for that problem. The student came to ask why he has deducted marks when the answer is correct. And the student got a calculus book to show that the answer is correct. Then Sandeep tried to explain that the proof the student gave was not logical. The student asked,

Why does everything have to be logical?

Cube roots, Square roots and hands
One student went to his TA saying that she cannot solve "³√x = 2". The TA started to explain.

TA : You are given cube root of x is 2. You have to remove the cube root sign on the left. What would you do?
Student: I'll take cube roots on both the side.
TA: But you already have a cube root.
Student: I do not understand. Still I can take cube roots.
TA:(flabbergasted) Okay, let us first solve an easier problem: How would you solve, "√x = 2"?
Student: I'll take square root on both sides.
TA: But you already have square root on the left.
Student: Oh now I understand. I'll take cube root on both sides.
TA:(almost throwing in the towel) I think you are not getting the point. Let me take up a real life situation. Suppose you are wearing gloves and I want to see your nails, what would you do? Would you wear another pair of gloves?
Student: HOW DARE YOU WANT TO SEE MY NAILS! WHY SHOULD I SHOW MY NAILS TO YOU? (Gets angry and leaves the office)