Algebra How Algebra Can Be

Algebra

How Algebra can be used in real Life

Algebra can easily be used in real life, in many of the calculations which we make every day. The most common example I can think of is using algebra in some way to calculate a rate of change. Let's say for example the hypothetical person who has passed his algebra classes with flying colors and has won a job working for the college has been asked to calculate the rate of change in the number of students who will be attending the school and need to take classes in the next ten years. In this matter, one has to take the formula, which just uses x's and y's and change them into something which has meaning, in this case, the people that will be attending the school. Since we know that in this case, the independent variable we are discussing is the number of students coming to school, we can also make the subject a little bit more complex. We know that the variable can increase, increase exponentially, decrease, remain constant, or any of a number of different things.

So in this case let us make the number of students the function x. By just looking at x we cannot tell what it is going to do, it is too unpredictable. We can only give meaning to x by placing it in context to our study. By this we use algebra to graph the data and see if x (the number of students) is increasing as the years (y) go by. By observing x on the graph, then we make the connection that the slope of x on the graph represents rate of change of the linear function.

Once we have done this, it is then possible to move to the development of a quadratic equation and see what the impact of the increase (or perhaps decrease) means to the data. Have we proven that the rate of change is linear? The graphical representation of the data may be misleading, so it would be good to be able to calculate the rate of change to see if it is significant.