math - a hunter‘s quest

arithmetic is a way of grouping and separating numbers.  to show this, let us pretend you are the leader of a tribe many years ago

ADDITION
you are preparing a hunt and want to make sure there is enough food brought back for everyone.  you count, the essential of addition, three different families.  each family has a different amount of family member.

the first family, which you belong to, is quite large, full of warriors and strong persons, having 9 members.  the second is the farming family.  the famine has been tough on all of you, so they have been reduced to 5 family members.  the last family is the brains and artists of the group, consisting of exactly 3 people.

QUESTION 1: how many total people are there in all the families of the tribe?


MULTIPLICATION
It is spring and a good season for hunting rabbits.  everyone is quite hungry and would need to consume two rabbits each to be well nourished for the day

QUESTION: how many rabbits would need to be brought for all tribe members to be well nourished for the day?


SUBTRACTION:
right before you leave for the hunt, two of the tribe members die of dysentery.  after the proper rites are conducted, you finalize your plans for the hunt with a new calculation:

QUESTION:  how many people are currently alive in your tribe?


DIVISION:
You decide to bring two other tribesman for the hunt, for a total of three hunters.  you would like to see how much time and effort to place into catching rabbits so you ask yourself:

QUESTION 4: on average, how many rabbits would each hunter need to catch so each  surviving tribesman is well nourished?

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That‘s all there is to basic arithmetic.  order of operations, fractions, and exponents have not been discussed in this lesson.



ANSWERS
question 1: 17
question 2: 34
question 3: 15
question 4: 10

the intellectual sleight of hand

There is a fantastic dialogue from the movie Idiocracy that best exemplifies this example.  

"For the last time, Im pretty sure whats killing the crops is this Brawndo stuff."

"But Brawndo's got what plants crave.  Its got electrolytes."

*rinse and repeat dialogue for a third of the movie.

Dont be an idiot.  Drink Brawndo.

.........

Wait a minute......

..... Yea, it checks out

Cheers,

:D