Marisol ( 9 years ago )
I agree with Steve.  Ideas of "closure" are just not very interesting unelss you are going to do abstract algebra and move on to study general groups, fields, etc.  Not only the vast majority of students, but even the vast majority of *teachers* lack the cognitive ability to appreciate abstract algebra.Completing the square may seem like a drag, but at least it's possible to write a word problem where such algebra has a practical application.  I defy you to write a word problem that shows practical application of closure properties.(Here let me try: Latrella is designing a computer architecture for a processor that needs to be able to add and subtract, but not multiply or divide.  What numbers need to be representable in the computer's hardware?  What types of approximation errors might result?)

valerioboca47 ( 12 years ago )
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