Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson for May 30, 2023

If you’re having trouble with integers, you’re not going to like fractions.

Calvin is the kind of person who would go from ranting about how nothing matters because we’re all gonna die someday, to crying and begging for his life if someone points a gun at him.

not just math, Calvin, but — in your point of view — every other subject: history, science, writing, social studies…

By Calvin’s logic, people shouldn’t learn to do anything at all.

I think I will have a slice of pi.

Too dang early to go through a midlife crisis, eh Calvin?

How did you like the way Miss Wormwood used an integer in her response, Calvin? :D

What’s an integer?

It’s what you make of your life BEFORE (for better or worse) you die that counts, Calvin. That’ll live on long after you’re gone.

Calvin, just ask Spaceman Spiff. He knows how important math is to calculating escape velocities.

You’ll still to need to be able to handle integers after you’re dead. Life is short, but maths is forever.

You’ll need to know integers in order to count the dead. Even Crom knows that!

I beg to be home-schooled…

Calvin will grow up to be a cult leader.

Ignorance is bliss says Calvin, ’cause learning is too hard……

You paint the kind of pictures teacher love to walk all over.

I’m with Cal. The number of things I learned that I actually used is very low compared to the total I was required to learn. But then everything I learned contributed in some way to what I did. Call it widened perspectives.

Calvin’s no misunderstood genius – he’s a fully understood mischief-monger!

Big pictures cover more cracks on the wall.

Guy I knew said he didn’t worry about things because of the Frozen Snowball Theory. Someday the Earth would be a frozen snowball so why worry about minor stuff.

Oddly enough, I had a dream last night that included a book of algebra problems. One was written by an eleven year old (each problem had the name and age of the author).

No Calvin, Miss Wormwood, just doesn’t consider your question to be important in the ‘whole scheme of things’ ! ! !

Wait ’til he gets to collage and has to learn about imaginary numbers.

Calvin the nihilist.

I wondered the same question when I was young, I never had a use for integers my whole life.

@BE THIS GUY- Nor much of anything else that has to do with math.

In whats? What’s a ’’teger’’? Anything like a Tiger?

Everything I have to do that I don’t want to do is a waste of time, unless I get paid to do it.

Math, to me, is a 4 letter word…

You explain integers to a little kid by saying “That’s how you count birthdays. Do you know what birthday is coming up when you’re 5 years old?”. They catch on pretty fast when cake and ice cream are involved.

“Working an integral or performing a linear regression is something a computer can do quite effectively. Understanding whether the result makes sense — or deciding whether the method is the right one to use in the first place — requires a guiding human hand. When we teach mathematics we are supposed to be explaining how to be that guide. A math course that fails to do so is essentially training the student to be a very slow, buggy version of Microsoft Excel.” —Jordan Ellenberg, professor of mathematics, University of Wisconsin–Madison, How Not To Be Wrong: The Power of Mathematical Thinking (2014)

I hated math in school.

Because you live before you die, and you will need math to make decisions during that life.

Calvin, if you don’t know integers, how would you count the bodies?

The point is to have a more pleasant time between now and then where you know how to understand your bank account.

What gain has the worker from his toil? I have seen the business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with. He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. I perceived that there is nothing better for them than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live; also that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil—this is God’s gift to man. (Ecclesiastes 3:9-13)

We do integers because God gave us work as a gift, and after we die, God will judge how we worked and give us our eternal reward.

If you don’t already understand integers, how can you find page 83?

Turn to page “86”

LOL… always have like his teacher’s name… “Wormwood”. A poison if not used properly. Despite its possible benefits, pure untreated wormwood contains a chemical called thujone that can be toxic and cause hallucinations and seizures.

Do you think Arabic numerals should be taught in classes?

For one thing, “83” is an integer. Useful stuff integers.

change math to history and integers to events ( dates) and I would agree..

haven’t we all had this thought?

Reminds me of this funny scene in “Annie Hall”:

Mrs. Singer: He’s been depressed. All of a sudden, he can’t do anything.

Dr. Flicker: Why are you depressed, Alvy?

Mrs. Singer: Tell Dr. Flicker. It’s something he read.

Dr. Flicker: Something you read, huh?

Alvy Singer: The universe is expanding.

Dr. Flicker: The universe is expanding?

Alvy Singer: Well, the universe is everything, and if it’s expanding, someday it will break apart, and that will be the end of everything.

Mrs. Singer: What is that your business? He’s stopped doing his homework.

Alvy Singer: What’s the point?

Mrs. Singer: What has the universe got to do with it? You’re here, in Brooklyn. Brooklyn is not expanding.

Don’t remember hearing the word integer until maybe 9th grade.

No worries, Calvin. Just move to Illinois and vote for the right party and you don’t have to worry about knowing anything.

The big picture is on page 83, Calvin.

Careful, that way lies nihilism.

Calvin, it’s not the “big picture” that is the problem, it is your small mind that is the problem.

Being a math hater myself I agree with Calvin. I’ve never had to use either in my line of work over the last 43 years.

Integers are good to know when you’re making snowballs to fight Susie

If people had that attitude we’d still be running naked in the savannas of Africa hoping to scavenge the remains of a lion kill without becoming the lion kill ourselves. Calvin is a great example of trying to find excuses to be lazy

Your going to die a lot sooner Calvin if you don’t learn integers

Do people commenting here realize this is intended to be a humorous comic strip?

 EQUAL TIME FOR OUTEGERS!

Mrs Wormwood would never understand the genius in you, Calvin. Maths is a different subject though.

I made the huge mistake of not continuing my math education after 10th grade. I took an Algebra A/B class (1st half of the book covered in 9th grade, last half in 10th). I managed to pass with a B+, which was quite amazing, considering it was difficult enough trying to wrap my head around throwing letters into the equation. I could understand a, b, c, x and y, but don’t confuse me with all the other letters in the alphabet. So, I finish out the 10th grade and according to the school guidance counselor’s wisdom (yeah, right…), I don’t have to take any more math classes to graduate.

Fast forward 2 years later (1998), I graduate high school and sign up for community college majoring in Computer Info Systems (a scholarship, if you want to call it that). What’s the first thing they require me to take? College Algebra, of all things. All the Algebra I learned years prior went out the door and almost forgotten. I ended up failing more than twice. In the end, amongst other struggles, I had to take a break and ended up dropping out altogether. So now, I’m finding myself at the point deciding if I should give college another go…on my terms, not the college’s. To be honest, it does scare me a bit. I’ve been away for so long and I’d feel like the odd one amongst the crowd.

actually, his question should be “given that, sooner or later, we’re all just going to be using calculators…”

You’re not dead, Calvin. Yet.

Between now and death, you’ll be graded and tested, and the result will depend on whether you know about intergers.

Big picture guy, huh?

So lots of pontificating and little actual work? Maybe a salesman instead of a technician? Or heaven forbid, Congress.

Because if you don’t understand integers, you’ll never understand the very important difference between relative changes and absolute changes when people quote you statistics.