Still on my hobby horse concerning arithmetic and mathematical literacy, I want to tell you about a personal experience. When my children were young, one of them fell and hit his eyebrow against the coffee table in our lounge. This resulted in a deep and painful cut of about 30 mm. He obviously needed medical assistance, so we bundled him into the car and took him to the emergency department of the local hospital.
Vivian MacFadyen
The young doctor was very caring and decided that it was necessary to stitch the wound. He 'weighed' the young chap on their scale in pounds. The anaesthetic dosage was specified in cc/kg. This required some simple arithmetic to convert pounds to kilograms. The conversion factor of 2.204623 was determined from a reference table, and the pounds were converted to the 6th decimal place by multiplying by 2.204623…?...Yes, you are right; division would have arrived at the correct answer! The amount of anaesthetic would have been sufficient for a person with a mass of five times that of the boy. This error could have resulted in severe complications. Fortunately, I was in the emergency ward, noticed the error and the disaster was averted.
In our profession, we are faced with mathematical problems daily, and it is extremely easy to apply a formula incorrectly. Errors can result in financial loss and/or injury or fatalities. Without the benefit of experience and the time to develop a sense of what can be expected, there is no 'feeling' for appropriateness.
With the recent lack of emphasis given to Mathematics and Physical Science in the high schools, it is both dangerous and possibly unfair to expect youngsters entering this industry to be able to apply arithmetic correctly. They have been disadvantaged by the system, and need monitoring and where necessary remedial training. We should make provision for this need and at the same time exercise appropriate caution.
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